The Latest Steam Hardware Survey Shows Very Little Difference

Steam Machines should launch with a little over 1600 titles available. If they eventually end up selling well at the conventional retail avenues as traditional consoles, such as Walmart and PeasantStop™, they can be considered at least moderately successful.

Well, this is depressing, although I'm still convinced the survey is deeply flawed. What's even more disheartening is that I see some developers citing the survey as a reason why they won't support Linux even though actual game sales on Linux are between 2% to 5%.

I've still as yet gotten asked to do the survey on Linux. I've gotten it on Windows once, and didn't actually take it because I'm rarely in Windows. One would think they'd try to even out those who take it.

slaapliedje

I've still as yet gotten asked to do the survey on Linux.

I've gotten it a few times on Linux. It's probably just coincidence.

I got the survey for the first time in over a year on Linux last month, I've had it on Windows at least 5 times in the same period. These numbers actually mean nothing because they're still not accurate enough, they need to do a complete inventory instead of a small sample. Send the survey to every Steam user all at once.

Here's a conspiracy theory for you: Valve are keeping the numbers down to artificially increase the effect of launching Steam machines. Alright, alright, that's probably just wishful thinking.

You and your percentage. I don't know what you expect.

A shift of 1% would mean that 1,25 Million Users jump on the Linux-Bandwagon, which is kinda unrealistic.

@minj. I hope that is what Valve is doing too. As I have seen the survey for Linux only once this year, and on Windows it pops up every month!

I've got it only once about 3 months ago and thats it. Also I haven't been on Windows for a quite a long time now, nor ever used Steam on it.

I was sometimes trying to feel sorry for Microsoft, as they are very rapidly becoming a dinosaur about to go extinct in every avenue except gaming, but when they released Windows 10 all my sympathies disappeared. Any company that behaves like that deserves extinction. Linux might "only" hold 1 - 2% of the gaming market, but that is a very very minor part of all the billions of computers all around the world and in every corner of our lives that runs Linux. Everything from large clusters for research to the ISS, Raspberry Pi to smart TVs, smart phones to google search engine, etc etc.....

Microsoft was to content with themselves in the late 90ies. Today they are only a small niche OS for gaming and Office-productivity. Someday we will all laugh at them like an old slightly embarrassing joke. "Dad? Did you really run Windows Vista on your computer??" And I will blush slightly and tell a lie. "No my son, I did not. I am a socially responsible person, of course I did not support a company that irresponsible".

J.

I've just restarted my PC by accident (walked on the power plug) and got the survey, the survey only appear when Steam start so if like me you rarely restart your computer and you never stop Steam it's not going to appear often. Also you need to be an active user to have the survey, so if you haven't played much don't expect to have a chance.

I find myself more and more on GoG though, so yup not had steam on for several weeks :)

I've just restarted my PC by accident (walked on the power plug) and got the survey, the survey only appear when Steam start so if like me you rarely restart your computer and you never stop Steam it's not going to appear often.

I am someone who doesn't restart the PC (laptop) often. When going to bed i just close it so i do only restarts at updates (kernel distro...)

Also you need to be an active user to have the survey, so if you haven't played much don't expect to have a chance.

When I once booted into Windows I got it, but hopefully others do not activate it when it occurs on "Linux only: accidentally using Win"

Will see with Steam Machines, maybe will jump to 3-5%.

I find it hard not to have negative feelings about Linux being successful here. I just hope that all the stakeholders involved in the Linux push understand that this is a moon shot project that will only show returns way later down the line. I really think that the cold shoulders from the AAA publishers will make it very hard for success of Steam machines and linux gaming in general.

I've just restarted my PC by accident (walked on the power plug) and got the survey, the survey only appear when Steam start so if like me you rarely restart your computer and you never stop Steam it's not going to appear often. Also you need to be an active user to have the survey, so if you haven't played much don't expect to have a chance.

I've to disagree with that. I start my PC once a day and shut it down when I go to sleep. It runs at least 3h a day and mostly more. When I am the whole day at home it runs more then 10h, mostly 14h. In this whole time Steam runs from start to shut down and I even couldn't remind my when I had the last survey on Linux (probably once or twice since the client is out). So from my side: No, it is not related to the usage of Steam.

Well, this is depressing, although I'm still convinced the survey is deeply flawed. What's even more disheartening is that I see some developers citing the survey as a reason why they won't support Linux even though actual game sales on Linux are between 2% to 5%.

Most publishers state sales between 1 % and 2 %. I personally think that's not a too bad value, if not too much effort has to go into porting an engine.

That said, I have little hope that steam machines will actually raise the market share of Linux. Valve for sure has a long breath on this (they're getting rich with Steam anyway taking a 33 % cut on everything sold), but they'd still need to get a lot of publishers on board, including Activision/Blizzard, EA and others. And EA will do nothing to support Valve or Steam in any way, placing their bet on their own online distribution (both with their own downloaders, not to have to share the profit with Valve "just" for distribution). For getting them on board, the market share would need to be between 5-10 %, so they can't ignore the profit, and that's a a hell long road until that happens.

Here's a conspiracy theory for you: Valve are keeping the numbers down to artificially increase the effect of launching Steam machines. Alright, alright, that's probably just wishful thinking.

I would actually +1 on that.
One of the reasons, as I see it, for the linux number being so low, is the fact that I have NEVER encountered the survey on a linux desktop - so it's kind of a myth for me. On the other hand, multiple times per year I have received the survey prompt on Windows... strangley enough, right after booting from my linux partition.
So a conincidence or a conspiracy theory - don't know, but it is strange non-theless.

Even if it's only about 1%. The absolute number is still increasing.

My guess is that SteamOS is not counted yet in those numbers. Because why -0.05% on Windows and only +0.02+0.01% on Mac/Linux? Where did the 0.02% gone?
Something weird is going on there.

I'm in the 'depressed about the figures' camp too. Personally, I really don't want to go back to Windows but these numbers feel like the contemporary devout saying that God exists between the atoms -- Linux between percentage points.