Another month gone, and another Steam Hardware Survey to take a look at. This month we have an unfortunate drop in numbers.
Linux results for March 2015
Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS 64 bit 0.28%-0.02%
Ubuntu 14.10 64 bit 0.12%-0.03%
Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca 64 bit 0.09%-0.02%
Linux 3.10 64 bit 0.08%-0.01%
Total: 0.94%-0.11%
Last Month: 1.06%
It's also interesting to note that for Linux the Intel HD Graphics 4000 chip is the most popular. Intel actually dominates the top of the GPU list it seems. My chip the powerful Nvidia 970 also looks to be quickly rising up.
My thoughts on it
It's always sad to see a decline, but we're talking about such low percentages here it's anyone's guess what happened.
It still remains to be seen how Steam Machines will be counted (if at all). On desktop operating systems you need to manually opt-in if it asks you, so will they go through that for SteamOS? I've actually shot off a message to Valve to see if they could clarify how this will be done.
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 as this is just to get a general idea.
Final Note: Look at it this way, Steam has around 125 million active users, 1% of 125 million is about 1,250,000 people. What developer wouldn't want to hook into a market that's possibly 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.
Linux results for March 2015
Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS 64 bit 0.28%-0.02%
Ubuntu 14.10 64 bit 0.12%-0.03%
Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca 64 bit 0.09%-0.02%
Linux 3.10 64 bit 0.08%-0.01%
Total: 0.94%-0.11%
Last Month: 1.06%
It's also interesting to note that for Linux the Intel HD Graphics 4000 chip is the most popular. Intel actually dominates the top of the GPU list it seems. My chip the powerful Nvidia 970 also looks to be quickly rising up.
My thoughts on it
It's always sad to see a decline, but we're talking about such low percentages here it's anyone's guess what happened.
It still remains to be seen how Steam Machines will be counted (if at all). On desktop operating systems you need to manually opt-in if it asks you, so will they go through that for SteamOS? I've actually shot off a message to Valve to see if they could clarify how this will be done.
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 as this is just to get a general idea.
Final Note: Look at it this way, Steam has around 125 million active users, 1% of 125 million is about 1,250,000 people. What developer wouldn't want to hook into a market that's possibly 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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The comments on this article are closed.
Segata Sanshiro May 6, 2015
Bad times :(
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It should also be known that there is a margin of error. Linux usage could be 1% exact and look like 1.03 one month and .97 the next and not of budged. Liam are you being paid to say lovely things about the 970? You seem to go on about it often.
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Quoting: XzylIt should also be known that there is a margin of error. Linux usage could be 1% exact and look like 1.03 one month and .97 the next and not of budged. Liam are you being paid to say lovely things about the 970? You seem to go on about it often.
You got me, I'm a paid Nvidia PR person :P
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Quoting: liamdaweWe will never get an accurate representation, ever.
The number of people downloading an Steam client update for the respective OS should be a very good representation of active users and is very easy to obtain for Valve. (They might reduce it by id to eliminate double downloads, but I guess that's not even a relevant amount, so they could do it without touching privacy concerns.)
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lucifertdark May 6, 2015
When was the last time any of you had the survey on Linux? I haven't had it on either Windows or Linux in well over a year & as has been said before this is a survey that doesn't include every single user of Steam, if it did the results would make interesting reading indeed.
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Quoting: lucifertdarkWhen was the last time any of you had the survey on Linux? I haven't had it on either Windows or Linux in well over a year & as has been said before this is a survey that doesn't include every single user of Steam, if it did the results would make interesting reading indeed.
When have you been last asked in voting polls? Does that make them invalid?
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Yeah they are doing these surveys all wrong. They need to start giving every user a survey each month(not this random "i might get one", bull crap). Or have their system do a automatic OS scan for each user when they login to steam, and then put up the results. Also i know they like to show the different distributions, and some people like to see what different ones people use to play steam on, but is it really needed? Cant it just say Linux? For those distros that dont show up on there, are they actually getting accounted for? If they cant manage to send a survey to each user once a month, couldn't they add a section in the steam client to take that survey once a month?
Sorry for the ranting, but it's like we are being shown to the developers as a "still declining os for the gaming market", when its not our fault that we all aren't getting the chance to show them our numbers. I know a lot of the devs who are doing great in Linux sales are appreciative, and happy they made the choice to support us, but the ones who are thinking about it, or are not sure if they should, aren't going to have much enthusiasm, if these numbers are dropping because of the lack of surveys.
Also! (a bit off topic).. The way steam determines what sales go to which OS; i think that needs to change as well. I think it should just be by client, and not "what OS you play it on the most during the first week". It doesn't make any sense. If you buy a game on the steam android app, then i could see OS determined by what you play it on. So call me crazy, but i do sometimes find a windows game on steam for sale at a very high discount, and i will purchase it, just cause i have wanted that game, and id have it for any future chance of it coming to Linux. Until then i dont play it. Now if that sale right there is accounted as a Linux purchase cause i bought it on the Linux steam client, that could also show the developers (if more people on Linux did the same), that people are interested in wanting to see it come to Linux. Or it could be (That person might be dual booting, and has a windows OS, but he just bought it on his Linux partition, and will go back to play it on Windows) type thing. Who knows. It's all things that could potentially help encourage devs to bring more of their games to Linux.
Maybe its just me venting, but im glad i threw out some of my thoughts on the subject.
I will stop now..haha
-Minty-Linux-
Sorry for the ranting, but it's like we are being shown to the developers as a "still declining os for the gaming market", when its not our fault that we all aren't getting the chance to show them our numbers. I know a lot of the devs who are doing great in Linux sales are appreciative, and happy they made the choice to support us, but the ones who are thinking about it, or are not sure if they should, aren't going to have much enthusiasm, if these numbers are dropping because of the lack of surveys.
Also! (a bit off topic).. The way steam determines what sales go to which OS; i think that needs to change as well. I think it should just be by client, and not "what OS you play it on the most during the first week". It doesn't make any sense. If you buy a game on the steam android app, then i could see OS determined by what you play it on. So call me crazy, but i do sometimes find a windows game on steam for sale at a very high discount, and i will purchase it, just cause i have wanted that game, and id have it for any future chance of it coming to Linux. Until then i dont play it. Now if that sale right there is accounted as a Linux purchase cause i bought it on the Linux steam client, that could also show the developers (if more people on Linux did the same), that people are interested in wanting to see it come to Linux. Or it could be (That person might be dual booting, and has a windows OS, but he just bought it on his Linux partition, and will go back to play it on Windows) type thing. Who knows. It's all things that could potentially help encourage devs to bring more of their games to Linux.
Maybe its just me venting, but im glad i threw out some of my thoughts on the subject.
I will stop now..haha
-Minty-Linux-
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lucifertdark May 6, 2015
Quoting: EikeWhen have you been last asked in voting polls? Does that make them invalid?Well actually it does, there's 125 Million users & unless they ask every single one of them the 1% figure only covers the number they actually asked, they could have asked as little as 100 people. Unless we know how many people are included in the survey they're no use whatsoever.
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I just hope Aspyr or Feral will port GTA 5 to Linux, seems like that would require a lot more of work compared to other games. Since Rockstar is part of the Vulkan group, well, at least we can dream about they doing the port by themselves in the future.
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