If you didn't know already, Unity games tend to phone home details of what you're running. They release this data (here), and it shows Linux is a pretty low percentage of gamers.
Now, let's first look at the last time I covered this, their data showed Linux as 0.1%. Now it shows Linux at 0.4%, it has at least increased, but the percentage is still low overall.
Something I would like to mention is that these statistics should never be taken at face value (much like the Steam Hardware Survey).
This survey is worse in my eyes, considering the vast amounts of Unity games that are not on Linux. There's far more Unity games on other platforms (Windows, Mac), than there is on Linux. That alone will bring down our overall platform percentage on their system. We can't exactly compete when people will be playing games we just don't have.
I also don't think their detection is exactly reliable, let's take a look at the Linux platforms:
An unknown Linux platform being at 84.1%...what?
Remember folks, surveys and statistics like this never paint a clear picture. Remember that before you see any other site claiming Linux gaming is dying or something. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Now, let's first look at the last time I covered this, their data showed Linux as 0.1%. Now it shows Linux at 0.4%, it has at least increased, but the percentage is still low overall.
Something I would like to mention is that these statistics should never be taken at face value (much like the Steam Hardware Survey).
This survey is worse in my eyes, considering the vast amounts of Unity games that are not on Linux. There's far more Unity games on other platforms (Windows, Mac), than there is on Linux. That alone will bring down our overall platform percentage on their system. We can't exactly compete when people will be playing games we just don't have.
I also don't think their detection is exactly reliable, let's take a look at the Linux platforms:
QuoteTop on 2016-03:
unknown: 84.1%
Ubuntu: 11.0%
Mint: 3.8%
SteamOS: 0.5%
Others (click to show): 0.6%
Debian: 0.3%
Linux 3.2 (Canaima 3.1): 0.1%
Fedora: 0.1%
Elementary: 0.0%
Suse: 0.0%
Linux 3.13 (Zorin 9) 64bit: 0.0%
Arch: 0.0%
An unknown Linux platform being at 84.1%...what?
Remember folks, surveys and statistics like this never paint a clear picture. Remember that before you see any other site claiming Linux gaming is dying or something. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Le sigh.
Yes, this statistic is seriously skewed due to small number of Linux games compared to Windows.
Now if they could release stats for *only* cross-platform games, that number would be very different.
Huh?
Since when is that an argument?
Only 30% of steam games are on linux and that was never a problem for the Steam HW survey numbers interpretation. And why should it be?
This is about pc gaming per-OS market share. Not about linux-games-only per-OS market share.
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soulsource Apr 1, 2016
I was curious about what games I have are Unity3D, so I've looked at this list and I have few of them, mostly indies that I will never play again:There are many more successful PC-games using Unity. Kerbal Space Program, Pillars of Eternity, Cities in Motion 2, Wasteland 2, Hearthstone,… just to name a few.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unity_games
The engine obviously are focused on mobile and weak in PC, the only game with extreme success was Cities Skylines.
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Le sigh.
Yes, this statistic is seriously skewed due to small number of Linux games compared to Windows.
Now if they could release stats for *only* cross-platform games, that number would be very different.
Huh?
Since when is that an argument?
Only 30% of steam games are on linux and that was never a problem for the Steam HW survey numbers interpretation. And why should it be?
This is about pc gaming per-OS market share. Not about linux-games-only per-OS market share.
These surveys are completely different.
The Steam survey is not bound by what games people are running. Or what games are available.
The Unity survey is specifically from Unity games, and a lot aren't on Linux, so it's obvious Linux is at a disadvantage in the survey making it flawed.
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I believe that the bulk of the recent "unknown" hits come from a dart game on a kiosk-like installation produced by a Korean company, using a custom distribution. So, the stats are actually accurate: unknown distro, 1368x1536 portrait, 4GB ram - it's just that Korean virtual darts players (or maybe other places as well; I'm not sure how broadly the machines are distributed) outnumber Linux PC gamers 4:1.Interesting, thanks for sharing, didn't even occur to me to think about arcade machines and such. Weird that they are connected up and phoning home, guess arcade machines are a different class to what I played when I was younger.
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I think it is more reasonable to talk about size of potential Linux gamer market - which is 1 - 1.5% of the sales and that number is pretty much backed up by stats from devs from last two years. Let's take number of active Steam users (let's be conservative here). So by that alone there's constantly 135 thousand Linux gamers playing Linux games - and there's potential 1.25M Linux gamers registered on Steam in total
Is that much? It's really depends on how much porting cost and is it worth it.It seems common sensus for indies is - if it's Unity/UE4/engine with Linux support, then investigate and maybe consider it. If it it's not, don't even bother. Which is fair deal for me.
How to increase that number? Well, first of all, it increases itself already. Number of Linux gamers have been growing steadily for last 4 years. Not to outpace Windows gamer increase on Steam, but nevertheless - it is actual market and it is growing.
I think first of all Linux needs to get better driver wise and support wise - now, I personally find Linux pretty much standardized around RedHat and Debian, and it is very easy to support software on both these platforms - however issues arise with additional hardware and middleware not ported to Linux. Would like to point out that SDL grew as project out of necessity - devs needed open software stack to rely games upon. Better infrastructure, better supported engines, better drivers - that's way forward.
Is that much? It's really depends on how much porting cost and is it worth it.It seems common sensus for indies is - if it's Unity/UE4/engine with Linux support, then investigate and maybe consider it. If it it's not, don't even bother. Which is fair deal for me.
How to increase that number? Well, first of all, it increases itself already. Number of Linux gamers have been growing steadily for last 4 years. Not to outpace Windows gamer increase on Steam, but nevertheless - it is actual market and it is growing.
I think first of all Linux needs to get better driver wise and support wise - now, I personally find Linux pretty much standardized around RedHat and Debian, and it is very easy to support software on both these platforms - however issues arise with additional hardware and middleware not ported to Linux. Would like to point out that SDL grew as project out of necessity - devs needed open software stack to rely games upon. Better infrastructure, better supported engines, better drivers - that's way forward.
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Mountain Man Apr 1, 2016
I think the more troubling fact is that Unity phones home without the user's knowledge.
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