Remember folks, it doesn't matter if the overall Linux percentage drops right now. There's a lot of room for errors, we have tons of games to come, and Linux is still awesome.
Why shouldn't I be worried?
It’s a percentage from a survey, and Steam's overall user base is increasing massively all the time. This means that even with lower percentages, our overall user count is actually higher. To make that clear: Linux is growing all the time, but so is Mac and Windows.
We have no idea how they are sampling their data, and to state this again, it’s a survey. It’s not a hard statistic to be thrown around to claim Linux gaming is dying, it’s really not.
The numbers
Total: 0.88% -0.06%
Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS 64 bit 0.26% -0.02%
Ubuntu 15.04 64 bit 0.14% +0.14%
Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca 64 bit 0.09% 0.00%
Linux 64 bit 0.05% +0.05%
See the survey results here. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
linux_gamer Jun 3, 2015
Quoting: liamdaweWe have no idea how they are sampling their data, and to state this again, it’s a survey.They should introduce a survey day eg. the 15th of every month to make the survey representative. It also wouldn't be a problem at all to just send 1 additional byte to identify the OS every time users log into Steam. Maybe this is against Valve's user data policy.
Quoting: FutureSutureSteam usage must be growing so fast that the Linux adoption rate just cannot keep up.Haven' t heard of a person that used linux and said "I want to use Win to play game XY". For most non-Linux games there should be good Linux alternative titles. Except racing games but there will be GRID soon.
Quoting: TealFor me, the survey only seems to happen when I am installing steam, and I usually just skip it, and I am pretty sure so will a plenty of other Linux users.Maybe Windows users tend to reinstall their OS more frequently than Linux users.
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Quoting: linuxgamerQuoting: liamdaweWe have no idea how they are sampling their data, and to state this again, it’s a survey.They should introduce a survey day eg. the 15th of every month to make the survey representative. It also wouldn't be a problem at all to just send 1 additional byte to identify the OS every time users log into Steam. Maybe this is against Valve's user data policy.
ehem...
...this is intentional on valve's side... I dont know the reasons... but they already know exact number of users per platform and the exact amount of time and money... with no room for interpretations...
Why arent they releasing this data...? well, my guess is that knowledge is power and this way only they have this knowledge...
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What is sad is that mac users triple us in numbers...
it is also true that they have almost double the number of games... and probably about 3 or 4 times more AAA games than linux... but still...
it is also true that they have almost double the number of games... and probably about 3 or 4 times more AAA games than linux... but still...
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Quoting: aLWhat is sad is that mac users triple us in numbers...
The stats from Steam are in clear correlation to the general stats for desktop usage we find, so none of these numbers should surprise anyone.
Netmarketshare.com reports:
Linux: 1.5%, Mac OSX10.10: 4.2, "others" 3% (mostly other macs I assume) and the rest are Windows flavours.
Source
Wikipedia refers to Net Applications results:
Linux: 1.5%, Mac OSX (all versions): 7.3, the rest is Windows.
Source
I could go on. Bottom line is that there's no reason to try to explain the numbers from Steam in any other way than that it really reflects the reality out there. This is how it is today. There's absolutely no reason to look for excuses for why these numbers could be wrong in any major way.
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Participated in the survey with my Linux machine yeah ;-)
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Quoting: maodzedunIt's only logical. There are too few AAA releases, even fewer first day releases and virtually no stable such. The Linux triple A game market consists of 3-4 aging game ports (quite buggy upon release) and a lot of vague promises.SteamOS would definitely require games like just announced Fallout 4. It will take long time to get gamers interested about SteamOS.
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Quoting: linuxgamerThey should introduce a survey day eg. the 15th of every month to make the survey representative. It also wouldn't be a problem at all to just send 1 additional byte to identify the OS every time users log into Steam. Maybe this is against Valve's user data policy.
Your first point: they do this already. The surveys go out at the same time.
Your second point: they don't need to. They already know how many people are loading steam what each OS. This information is going to be accurate because they have a 100% check of it (client identify at login). The point of the survey is to maybe find out what specific OS you are running (Ubuntu 15.04 64-bit, etc), but more likely what hardware you have on-board. You already know you see platform specific sales and notices, of course they know.
0.88% (+/- error) is the real number, accept it. By the way if you convert the percentages to the numbers of users the Linux user base is growing (roughly 30k, a month). The total steam user base is growing two orders of magnitude faster though (3-4million per month).
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Also, if you take a look at the numbers in more detail you can see that Linux isn't growing in the same areas that Windows is. Easiest way to pull something from the survey data is to look at languages. People generally don't change the language steam is set to, and language correlates somewhat with country.
Linux (two fastest growing):
French 2.14% +0.16%
Spanish 1.88% +0.22%
Windows (two fastest growing):
Thai 2.53% +0.99%
French 3.60% +0.18%
Mac (two fastest growing):
Spanish 2.91% +0.17%
Dutch 0.83% +0.13%
I've no idea what is happening in Thailand, but that's a change equal to 3 million new or returning users there.
Linux (two fastest growing):
French 2.14% +0.16%
Spanish 1.88% +0.22%
Windows (two fastest growing):
Thai 2.53% +0.99%
French 3.60% +0.18%
Mac (two fastest growing):
Spanish 2.91% +0.17%
Dutch 0.83% +0.13%
I've no idea what is happening in Thailand, but that's a change equal to 3 million new or returning users there.
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With so many different marketshare reporting sites, who should we believe? They all seem to have different numbers ranging from less than 1% up to over 5%. So who is accurate and who is not?
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