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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As seen on reddit, more than 80% of linux users play on a 23:20 rotated display, mostly at 1368x1536 as most of us may expect.
Source: http://hwstats.unity3d.com/pc/display-linux.html
Since Linux is low on memory usage, people also tends to drop RAM from 8GB (40% → 8%) to 4GB (33% →87%) as seen on survey.
Source: http://hwstats.unity3d.com/pc/mem-linux.html
Source: http://hwstats.unity3d.com/pc/display-linux.html
Since Linux is low on memory usage, people also tends to drop RAM from 8GB (40% → 8%) to 4GB (33% →87%) as seen on survey.
Source: http://hwstats.unity3d.com/pc/mem-linux.html
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Good to know that Unity phones home. That really should be an explicit opt-in. Doing it silently is a very poor taste.
Last edited by Shmerl on 31 March 2016 at 9:36 pm UTC
Last edited by Shmerl on 31 March 2016 at 9:36 pm UTC
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Quoting: NelAs seen on reddit, more than 80% of linux users play on a 23:20 rotated display, mostly at 1368x1536 as most of us may expect.
Source: http://hwstats.unity3d.com/pc/display-linux.html
Since Linux is low on memory usage, people also tends to drop RAM from 8GB (40% → 8%) to 4GB (33% →87%) as seen on survey.
Source: http://hwstats.unity3d.com/pc/mem-linux.html
lol at this. Great finding.
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Quoting: NelAs seen on reddit, more than 80% of linux users play on a 23:20 rotated display, mostly at 1368x1536 as most of us may expect.This is obviously very accurate statistics.
Source: http://hwstats.unity3d.com/pc/display-linux.html
Since Linux is low on memory usage, people also tends to drop RAM from 8GB (40% → 8%) to 4GB (33% →87%) as seen on survey.
Source: http://hwstats.unity3d.com/pc/mem-linux.html
84% of us run an unknown OS. I don't even know what I run !
Of course RAM tendencies are to drop. I'm sure soon we will all fall back to 2GB and then back to 512MB. Back to the roots, man.
BTW, I love my 23:20 rotated display. Didn't know they were so popular...
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We disable Unity hardware stats (analytics) in our games made with Unity engine. I suppose many other serious developers also do so - to avoid extra Firewall messages, but also to avoid disclosure of any personal data - some users might not expect that the game will connect and upload some data somewhere, especially when the game is singleplayer-only.
This feature could be disabled only in paid version of the engine - Unity Pro.
So I think these stats are biased to games made by (mostly) inexperienced developers. They're usually casual games and Linux players are not much interested in such games.
Steam HW survey is better http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey - Linux share is 0.91% (February 2016). This is much closer to the real market - most Steam games have Linux share 1.5-5% of total sales (I think median is 3%). The explanation is simple - not every game is available for Linux - only about 30% of them (I used SteamDB https://steamdb.info/instantsearch/ ). So 30%*3% is 0.9%, very close to the HW survey stats.
Also Steam HW survey presents more realistic info about primarily resolution (1920x1080), RAM (12 GB) and other stats - just select "Linux only" in the dropdown filter before the table there.
Regards!
Last edited by ai_enabled on 1 April 2016 at 3:10 am UTC
This feature could be disabled only in paid version of the engine - Unity Pro.
So I think these stats are biased to games made by (mostly) inexperienced developers. They're usually casual games and Linux players are not much interested in such games.
Steam HW survey is better http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey - Linux share is 0.91% (February 2016). This is much closer to the real market - most Steam games have Linux share 1.5-5% of total sales (I think median is 3%). The explanation is simple - not every game is available for Linux - only about 30% of them (I used SteamDB https://steamdb.info/instantsearch/ ). So 30%*3% is 0.9%, very close to the HW survey stats.
Also Steam HW survey presents more realistic info about primarily resolution (1920x1080), RAM (12 GB) and other stats - just select "Linux only" in the dropdown filter before the table there.
Regards!
Last edited by ai_enabled on 1 April 2016 at 3:10 am UTC
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Kimyrielle Apr 1, 2016
Quoting: ShmerlGood to know that Unity phones home. That really should be an explicit opt-in. Doing it silently is a very poor taste.
I think it's because of we're apparently living in the "post privacy age". Whatever that means. Anybody else stopped sealing envelopes and wearing clothes because we're not supposed to have secrets anymore?
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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.
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Thanks for sharing the RAM and screen resolution facts. These stats are garbage as they are...
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Quoting: aienabledSteam HW survey is better http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey - Linux share is 0.91% (February 2016). This is much closer to the real market - most Steam games have Linux share 1.5-5% of total sales (I think median is 3%). The explanation is simple - not every game is available for Linux - only about 30% of them (I used SteamDB https://steamdb.info/instantsearch/ ). So 30%*3% is 0.9%, very close to the HW survey stats.
It's probably not really the availability why its off, but Steams bias to count everything it doesn't know exactly as windows. Including wine. But I agree with you that it's too low, my calculations (somewhere here on this site) put it around 2%.
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