GOL Survey Results: May

The results for the May survey are now available for you to take a look at and compare with results from previous months.

You can find the new survey for June here, so please fill that out if you haven’t already.

Our graph maker Fedso has set colours to answers for some questions, so confusion can be avoided with the AMD/Nvidia/Intel answers which traditionally have their corporate colours associated to them. If anyone has any comments or suggestions to do with this, then make sure to leave them in the comments.

There have been no major changes or trends this month, so analysis will be limited to the Unique Questions this month and a couple more which I’d like to comment on. This will also most likely be the norm from now on, since there is only so much one can say about incremental changes.

Please click on the images to enlarge. Once enlarged, you can also cycle through them using the arrows.

Respondents


Many thanks to the 1508 people who took the time to complete this survey! That’s less than the 2362 who took the survey last time, but still over the 1000 mark which I wanted to stay above. Hopefully it will stay around that mark and hopefully we aren’t getting repeat responses and things which might cause issues.

Question 1 - Do you currently use Linux as your primary PC gaming platform?


Question 2 - Did you use Wine to play games last month?


Question 3 - Did you use a Windows partition for gaming last month?


I’m still pretty shocked this hasn’t really changed since the survey began. After all the crazy and unexpected ports we’ve had since then, I really expected at least a 5% decrease over this period and probably more. Maybe I’m just overly optimistic with this, but with all the releases which should be coming out from now until October, I still remain optimistic. Though if that kind of change doesn’t happen by then, I will be incredibly disappointed. It’s no secret that this is the figure where I really do care about seeing changes on a monthly basis.

Question 4 - What distribution do you use on your primary Linux gaming PC?


Question 5 - What Desktop Environment do you use on your primary Linux gaming PC?


After being briefly overtaken by Unity as the top Desktop Environment of choice for the first time in the last results, KDE Plasma is back on top. It seems that these two are neck and neck when it comes to the Desktop Environment choices of gamers. Can’t blame people for liking KDE really. I used it as my main DE of choice for many years and have fallen in love with Plasma 5 since it’s come out.

Question 6 - Did you change your primary Linux gaming distribution last month?


Question 7 - What graphics card do you use on your primary Linux gaming PC?


Question 8 - Which drivers do you use for that graphics card?


AMD


Intel


Nvidia


Question 9 - What CPU do you use on your primary Linux gaming PC?


Question 10 - Did you exclusively buy Linux-supported games last month?


Question 11 - How many Linux games did you buy last month?


Question 12- Which of these retailers did you use to buy your Linux games last month?


Unique Question 1 - How do you feel about Virtual Programming ports?


I was quite surprised to see that only 6% strongly oppose VP ports, but I guess this just confirms the internet rule of “those who scream loudest win”, and there has been a lot of animosity surrounding Virtual Programming in the last year or so. Maybe I’ve still got my head stuck in last year and the release of The Witcher 2, but Bioshock Infinite and Spec Ops: The Line have quelled a lot of that anger since then.

The vast majority of people either don’t care as long as they get a game which runs well on Linux, or just see it as a good “stepping stone” towards more native ports, but obviously want to see less of them as time goes on.

It’s quite interesting to see that all this talk about Linux users being “ideological extremists” has been proved to be wrong time and time again in many of these survey responses. While obviously there are many who stick to their principles (and with good reason), it’s certainly far more of a mixed bag out there than many assume.

Unique Question 2 - What did you make of Valve's plan for paid mods?


Well this certainly seemed like a huge deal at the time, potentially changing the way we buy and play games, but it disappeared as fast as it arrived. It does seem that, despite many in the Windows camp claiming that Linux users are cheapskates, Linux users would be happy to pay for certain mods under certain circumstances. The answers here roughly echo those of most gamers, with some strongly opposing, but most just disliking the way it could have been potentially exploited by big developers (or other similar reasons).

The release of Black Mesa recently shows that people will certainly pay for mods, not to mention stuff like Gary's Mod and others which have been around for years. Though, presumably what Valve failed to understand is that people would pay for something big and well put together like that Half-Life remake, but not $10 for horse armour.

I would certainly like to see something where the best content creators can be rewarded financially (even if it’s on a voluntary basis) so they continue to make more good stuff, but also deeply resent the idea of having absolutely everything monetised and think that microtransactions and a lot of DLC already cross the line. Whatever ends up happening with this, hopefully we can get something most of us can find agreeable.

Final Comments

As always, people's comments tend to be more interesting than raw results (at least for me) since they give far more of an an insight into our collective mindsets, motives and behaviours, so please leave comments if you feel like you have stuff to say. Surveys can be very restrictive in the sense that not everyone can always be categorised into a series of check boxes, so the comments add an extra insight which numbers can't provide.

Likewise, if there is anything people feel should be improved with the survey, then please say also. This isn't really some personal project for me, I do it because I feel it benefits the community as a whole, so naturally comments are welcome since this is your survey too (without trying to seem too corny). If it's quite a long suggestion or expect I direct response, then I might suggest sending me a private message since I don't always check up on the comments. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.