Another month, and another Steam Hardware Survey has been released. This time we have gained a little rather than lost a little.
To the numbers:
Linux results for March 2015
Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS 64 bit 0.31% +0.24%
Ubuntu 14.10 64 bit 0.15% +0.01%
Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca 64 bit 0.11% +0.02%
Linux 3.10 64 bit 0.09% +0.01%
Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS 64 bit 0.06% -0.24%
Total: 1.06% +0.04%
Last Month: 1.02%
My thoughts on it
A little increase for Linux this month and the usual changes for Mint, Ubuntu and the distros that report themselves as "Linux 3.10".
The real interesting thing to see here is that, again, only 64bit distributions are shown. The number of Linux users on Steam hasn't changed too much since the beginning, so is 64bit just gaining more popularity with Linux gamers? I personally sure hope so, as the "death" of 32bit is something I've been expecting for a while to finally happen.
Important things to remember
Be aware these results will probably not be that accurate as we don't know how they do their percentage results, they could be rounding up, rounding down or truncating the percentages. So a 0.5% could actually be nearly 0.6% as it could be 0.59% but they could do no rounding and simply truncate it.
Also remember it is a survey, so it won't ask every single one of you to do it. It would only be truly accurate if it did it behind the scenes, but that's not what a survey is for this is just to get a general idea.
Final Note: Look at it this way, Steam has around 100 million active users, 1% of 100 million is about 1,000,000 (1 million) people. What developer wouldn't want to hook into a market that big? Of course it doesn't mean they are guaranteed that amount of sales, but it's something fun to remember.
See the Hardware Survey on Steam here. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
To the numbers:
Linux results for March 2015
Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS 64 bit 0.31% +0.24%
Ubuntu 14.10 64 bit 0.15% +0.01%
Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca 64 bit 0.11% +0.02%
Linux 3.10 64 bit 0.09% +0.01%
Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS 64 bit 0.06% -0.24%
Total: 1.06% +0.04%
Last Month: 1.02%
My thoughts on it
A little increase for Linux this month and the usual changes for Mint, Ubuntu and the distros that report themselves as "Linux 3.10".
The real interesting thing to see here is that, again, only 64bit distributions are shown. The number of Linux users on Steam hasn't changed too much since the beginning, so is 64bit just gaining more popularity with Linux gamers? I personally sure hope so, as the "death" of 32bit is something I've been expecting for a while to finally happen.
Important things to remember
Be aware these results will probably not be that accurate as we don't know how they do their percentage results, they could be rounding up, rounding down or truncating the percentages. So a 0.5% could actually be nearly 0.6% as it could be 0.59% but they could do no rounding and simply truncate it.
Also remember it is a survey, so it won't ask every single one of you to do it. It would only be truly accurate if it did it behind the scenes, but that's not what a survey is for this is just to get a general idea.
Final Note: Look at it this way, Steam has around 100 million active users, 1% of 100 million is about 1,000,000 (1 million) people. What developer wouldn't want to hook into a market that big? Of course it doesn't mean they are guaranteed that amount of sales, but it's something fun to remember.
See the Hardware Survey on Steam here. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Canonical took the worst from Windows' taskbar and OSX's dock and stuffed it into the Unity Launcher. You can't change it's position and you can't get rid of it - so much for Linux's flexibility. Also there is no Show Desktop button by default. It has no preview thumbnails and no click to minimize unless you force them (sort of) with Compiz. We're talking about basic Windows functionality, let alone comparing it to something as flexible as KDE for example. If they allowed me to get rid of the launcher for real, I'd just slap a Cairo dock or something and be a happy camper, but as it is - it's absolutely horrible.
Those are the pretty much the features that makes Unity so appealing to its target audience. I was willing to change my outlook to accommodate the Launchers way of working and it's wonderful when you do so. If you simply berate it for two of its strongest features, no wonder you'll hate it. Sounds like you're not the target audience though, so nothing is really lost, right?
For the avoidance of doubt - here's a brief breakdown.
You can't move it for many reasons. Best use of screen space, assumptions can be made about layout, fits with the phone/touch paradigm, code base is significantly simpler. With hindsight, the phone paradigm is the main winner here.
You only switch to windows and don't minimise them because there's fewer things more frustrating in Windows that clicking on the icon of a hidden but non-minimised window and waiting for it to appear, only to later realise it's now minimised. This is broken. Canonical fixed it. Hell, Gnome fixed this by doing away with the concept of minimise, didn't they? Or at least, they were going to. Have they done that yet? Fingers crossed.
Show desktop isn't a button the Launcher any more. But what's to stop you from turning it on, exactly? Settings/Appearance, Behaviour, click on "Add show desktop icon to the launcher".
Can't argue about previews - there's no option for that. I don't think even the Compiz previews add-on works properly. If that's a deal breaker, then so be it.
But yeah. Lots of hate (and not just you!) for something that is very tidily and specifically designed to be what it is. I'm not saying you should like it, really, but a lot of the complaints about it revolve around people who literally can't see past the fact that it's on the left. Just that.
But if their incredibly ambitious vision is to work, then Launcher on the left it is. Just for once, I'm willing to change to accommodate Linux, when for many years, Linux changed to accommodate me.
So yeah, I don't like Unity at all either, but I don't mind that others do. It's mostly a matter of preference after all.
Be fair. It's Ubuntu you're accommodating, not Linux.
Nevertheless, the figures which speak are the numbers, never the percentage. This just means that the distribution of Linux, and Marketshare is still at about 1 % in the gaming market.
Though, the 1 % of 125 Million users is still 1.2 Million Linux users, which is a potential target group.
I think that's one of the reasons some studios specialize on porting games: Developing a game (including storywriting, scripting, graphics) is much more effort than only the engine, especially if they support OpenGL / Vulkan in the future. Therefore, there's pretty some money to make for only doing part of the work (and that's basically the deal they have with Publishers, a revenue-split at 30 % distribution platform as Steam, 20 % port, 50 % the content creator).
This is one of the reasons we see so many ports on engines we already do have games ported on. The ports don't take that much effort anymore, and generate cash flow. If you look at the games released, you'll see pretty much always games based on the same engines being ported, and it's no accident that studios having ported a game on one engine get more contracts on other games on the same engine.
If they only reach a sales of like 5-10 % of the Linux group, they'll be well out.