The latest Steam Hardware Survey is out, and as usual some websites are claiming the death of SteamOS. We are here with a better outlook.
February 2016
Linux: 0.91% - 0.04%
If you only take the latest stats at face value alone, you are of course going to see articles containing things like this:
Source - I actually like a lot of PC World's stuff, but this article needed a little more research which I hope they do in future.
There's some key things here that people just aren't covering (or they just aren't aware which is possible).
- The first and most important thing is that SteamOS and Steam Big Picture just don't show a survey, and that's a fact we actually covered.
- Linking into that above fact, for all we know a bunch of people are now using a SteamOS machine rather than their desktop for gaming (or the PC linked to their TV now uses SteamOS rather than another distribution which is what I did), so they aren't tracked at all by this survey. I might have even been one of them, since I use mine regularly.
- The third important thing to remember is that the Steam user-base is constantly growing, and at a rather decent pace too. This growth in general means that even if the Linux percentage on Steam is shown as slightly lower it's actually bigger overall. It's just that Steam's growth is outpacing Linux growth by itself to show a positive uptake on the Steam Hardware Survey.
I would also like to just point out in general, that the percentages we are talking about here are so low it could even be put down to statistical anomalies. We're not only talking below 1% here, we're talking a 0.04% drop over last month, that's a tiny percentage.
Honestly, I think Valve are starting to do more damage month after month having the Operating System (software) in a Hardware survey. I wish they would do something to fix this. It's a hardware survey after all, and you can trigger it easily with a change of hardware or operating system so it's not a great measure to use. How many of you have said about seeing it in Wine, or booting into Windows to see it pop up? I see lots of comments on that.
Linux is actually doing quite well overall looking at the games we have gained, and the games we will be getting. We also have Vulkan coming along which could offer a performance boost for the heavier games.
We also now have well over 1900 games available on Steam for Linux and that number is growing at a great pace. We have Feral Interactive about to announce what looks like two titles too, here and here.
You can also see on SteamDB how many games are likely to come to Linux in future too (quite a lot), and that's only games that have bits stored on Steam. Plenty of games still manage to hide from it before release.
So remember to stay strong, and keep buying those Linux games. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
February 2016
Linux: 0.91% - 0.04%
If you only take the latest stats at face value alone, you are of course going to see articles containing things like this:
PC WorldValve's considerable efforts on behalf of Linux-based gaming just aren't paying off.
Source - I actually like a lot of PC World's stuff, but this article needed a little more research which I hope they do in future.
There's some key things here that people just aren't covering (or they just aren't aware which is possible).
- The first and most important thing is that SteamOS and Steam Big Picture just don't show a survey, and that's a fact we actually covered.
- Linking into that above fact, for all we know a bunch of people are now using a SteamOS machine rather than their desktop for gaming (or the PC linked to their TV now uses SteamOS rather than another distribution which is what I did), so they aren't tracked at all by this survey. I might have even been one of them, since I use mine regularly.
- The third important thing to remember is that the Steam user-base is constantly growing, and at a rather decent pace too. This growth in general means that even if the Linux percentage on Steam is shown as slightly lower it's actually bigger overall. It's just that Steam's growth is outpacing Linux growth by itself to show a positive uptake on the Steam Hardware Survey.
I would also like to just point out in general, that the percentages we are talking about here are so low it could even be put down to statistical anomalies. We're not only talking below 1% here, we're talking a 0.04% drop over last month, that's a tiny percentage.
Honestly, I think Valve are starting to do more damage month after month having the Operating System (software) in a Hardware survey. I wish they would do something to fix this. It's a hardware survey after all, and you can trigger it easily with a change of hardware or operating system so it's not a great measure to use. How many of you have said about seeing it in Wine, or booting into Windows to see it pop up? I see lots of comments on that.
Linux is actually doing quite well overall looking at the games we have gained, and the games we will be getting. We also have Vulkan coming along which could offer a performance boost for the heavier games.
We also now have well over 1900 games available on Steam for Linux and that number is growing at a great pace. We have Feral Interactive about to announce what looks like two titles too, here and here.
You can also see on SteamDB how many games are likely to come to Linux in future too (quite a lot), and that's only games that have bits stored on Steam. Plenty of games still manage to hide from it before release.
So remember to stay strong, and keep buying those Linux games. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
Well we are doing fine, but I'm hoping that we could do better. If we manage to have a huge success somewhere, then maybe the journalist can pick up the story and actually show the people that Linux is a totally viable option, then maybe we can hope to really grow in numbers. But I don't get my hopes too high, I've been using Linux for almost 10 years and it has tremendously improve but people are still not using it.
0 Likes
Kimyrielle Mar 5, 2016
It is indeed a long haul thing and as far as I can tell, things are moving in the right direction at exactly the speed we can reasonably expect them to move. Windows didn't build their near monopoly on PC gaming overnight either. Actually the PC didn't, because computer gaming for the longest time was Amiga. It took the PC -years- just to be viewed as a viable alternative to the Amiga and then more years to become the leading platform. Linux gaming started in earnest only a couple years ago. We can't reasonably expect having a 20% or whatnot market share at this point, yet the usual doom and gloom writers who said "The PC will never be for games" in 1990 are out all in force again and people believe them again. Why, I do not know. At this point it's quite obvious that Linux will have a future as a gaming platform. SteamOS will be a fairly good gaming distro one day. Valve will likely continue kicking NVidia and AMD butt so that installing and handling GPU drivers one day won't be a complete PITA anymore. And Vulkan will eliminate any real or imagine performance gap Linux games still have compared to Windows. Most publishers won't be able to ignore Linux. Except they don't want to deploy on mobile platforms at all anymore, where Linux (well, the distro called Android) has all but thrashed its competition lately and now looks at a 80%+ market share worldwide.
Even my personal journey to Linux gaming is a long haul. I have been using Linux since 1998, and even in 2016 with those 1,900 games available, I haven't yet reached a point when I could safely delete my Windows partition and live happily ever after. I am building my Linux games library and if a publisher wants to sell me a game these days, it better supports Linux. Because chances are that I am not buying a game that doesn't. I am doing that for over two years now, but there are still entire genres of games not available for Linux at all. Such as MMOs (the total number of AAA MMOs available for Linux is zero). Platforms just don't become great gaming platforms over night when their focus was anything but games for like two decades. It takes time. More time than the two years the doom gloom writers gave the platform before trashing it in their underinformed postings.
Even my personal journey to Linux gaming is a long haul. I have been using Linux since 1998, and even in 2016 with those 1,900 games available, I haven't yet reached a point when I could safely delete my Windows partition and live happily ever after. I am building my Linux games library and if a publisher wants to sell me a game these days, it better supports Linux. Because chances are that I am not buying a game that doesn't. I am doing that for over two years now, but there are still entire genres of games not available for Linux at all. Such as MMOs (the total number of AAA MMOs available for Linux is zero). Platforms just don't become great gaming platforms over night when their focus was anything but games for like two decades. It takes time. More time than the two years the doom gloom writers gave the platform before trashing it in their underinformed postings.
2 Likes, Who?
i see linux evolving everyday at the gaming, also, i like indie games, indie devs love linux, so its all ok.
2 Likes, Who?
they should just scrap the OS portion off the survey because of the lack of accuracy. the rest of it i'm sure is maybe worthwhile to someone. but I totally agree the PC World article is poorly written. it wouldn't be the first time nor the last. I remember an article from back in '93 from a PC World magazine that said Windows '95 wouldn't be able to remove OS/2 from it's top spot as OS of choice.
So yeah, take the article for what it's worth and that isn't much ;)
Valve works on Valve time which can be pretty long, we have to have patience and just continue to enjoy the games.
So yeah, take the article for what it's worth and that isn't much ;)
Valve works on Valve time which can be pretty long, we have to have patience and just continue to enjoy the games.
0 Likes
Kuduzkehpan Mar 5, 2016
Epic Games' stand up against UWP idea.
EA games ubisofts and blizzards development on their own store clients
Vulkan Crossplatform new generation Graphics APİ (multithreading blending bla bla lots of new crazy stuff)
Valve's SteamOS And Steam crossplatform client
Wake up people New era is about the begin with mighty battle as Companies' Freedom of market. (this is where capitalism kills himself.)
Steam is just the torch on the Depot of hay.
MS called fire , here we come with Vulkano (inspiration of volcanic mountains.)
EA games ubisofts and blizzards development on their own store clients
Vulkan Crossplatform new generation Graphics APİ (multithreading blending bla bla lots of new crazy stuff)
Valve's SteamOS And Steam crossplatform client
Wake up people New era is about the begin with mighty battle as Companies' Freedom of market. (this is where capitalism kills himself.)
Steam is just the torch on the Depot of hay.
MS called fire , here we come with Vulkano (inspiration of volcanic mountains.)
0 Likes
GustyGhost Mar 5, 2016
That would just cause people to startup Steam for Linux in a VM once in order to get the XP and then never touch Linux again. Remember what happened with the Tux penguin item for Team Fortress Ubuntu players?
0 Likes
Quoting: toorHere: http://www.jeuxvideo.com/news/461763/linux-et-le-jeu-video-un-beau-roman-d-amitie-qui-ne-fait-pas-recette-sur-steam.htm
The most famous french video game website also just released an article about how "failure steam is with linux". Claiming that it's not going well at all and will disappear.
Do you think microsoft is getting major video game medias to give a bad image of steamOS ? :þ
Microsoft is well known for handing out PR money to sink competition. It is nothing new, especially regarding Linux. However you also must consider that huge part of so called "journalists" are just Windows users, and are ignorant as hell. They just don't know anything better so don't even have to be paid to paint bad image of Valve Linux strategy.
4 Likes, Who?
But as regarding these bad posts it is worth politely contact media and inform them if they got something wrong.
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Quoting: PeciskBut as regarding these bad posts it is worth politely contact media and inform them if they got something wrong.
I spoke with the editor of the article linked in question, he is interested and will re-look https://twitter.com/chrisbhoffman/status/706116630678343682
2 Likes, Who?
I actually got the survey on Linux this time :O
Hoped to see an increase, but whatever.
I think 5% would be pretty cool and enough to have more relevance in the gaming field, but you're right.
There should definitely be quite some steam-boxes with SteamOS out there not tracked.
We can still hope for Vulkan to bring change :)
Hoped to see an increase, but whatever.
I think 5% would be pretty cool and enough to have more relevance in the gaming field, but you're right.
There should definitely be quite some steam-boxes with SteamOS out there not tracked.
We can still hope for Vulkan to bring change :)
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