Something I forgot to write up, was that the latest Steam survey is out. Linux dropped by 0.08% according to the figures.
I always leave it a few days to cover it, as Valve tends to finalize the statistics a few days after it's put out. Originally it said we dropped by 0.01% which wasn't right.
December 2016
Windows 95.75% + 0.35%
OSX 3.31% - 0.28%
Linux 0.80% - 0.08%
I know a lot of people don't have faith in it, but from all the chats I've had with developers it's pretty accurate actually. If it wasn't, we would be seeing vastly different sales figures from developers.
The key thing to remember though, is that a lower percentage does not mean less Linux users. You have to remember that Steam is constantly growing, and every time they talk about the amount of active Steam accounts it has grown by a large amount. Only recently Steam passed 14 million concurrent user accounts online at a time.
To use our own survey as an example here. For the latest results from our Survey Ubuntu-based distributions gained +57 people, but the overall share for Ubuntu-based dropped by 0.69%, this is because all the other distributions gained +82 together, meaning their growth together outpaced Ubuntu-based.
Why is this important to know? Well, it's highly likely the amount of Linux users on Steam is growing, but it's probably dwarfed by Windows (and likely Mac too) growth at the same time so it brings down our market-share.
Nothing to worry about, so if anyone writes about it like it's Linux gaming doomsday, don't believe them. It would be something to worry about if developers started coming along noticing a drop in sales from Linux, but not a single developer has said so.
Keep buying Linux games, keep playing them on Linux and keep going. 2017 is going to be fun! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I always leave it a few days to cover it, as Valve tends to finalize the statistics a few days after it's put out. Originally it said we dropped by 0.01% which wasn't right.
December 2016
Windows 95.75% + 0.35%
OSX 3.31% - 0.28%
Linux 0.80% - 0.08%
I know a lot of people don't have faith in it, but from all the chats I've had with developers it's pretty accurate actually. If it wasn't, we would be seeing vastly different sales figures from developers.
The key thing to remember though, is that a lower percentage does not mean less Linux users. You have to remember that Steam is constantly growing, and every time they talk about the amount of active Steam accounts it has grown by a large amount. Only recently Steam passed 14 million concurrent user accounts online at a time.
To use our own survey as an example here. For the latest results from our Survey Ubuntu-based distributions gained +57 people, but the overall share for Ubuntu-based dropped by 0.69%, this is because all the other distributions gained +82 together, meaning their growth together outpaced Ubuntu-based.
Why is this important to know? Well, it's highly likely the amount of Linux users on Steam is growing, but it's probably dwarfed by Windows (and likely Mac too) growth at the same time so it brings down our market-share.
Nothing to worry about, so if anyone writes about it like it's Linux gaming doomsday, don't believe them. It would be something to worry about if developers started coming along noticing a drop in sales from Linux, but not a single developer has said so.
Keep buying Linux games, keep playing them on Linux and keep going. 2017 is going to be fun! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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And for the "Windows with dual-booting to Linux", it can also have a statistics on how much time is spent on the 2 OS'es.One of my colleagues is a real Linux professional. He uses Debian unstable for many years and is one of the few people who track down and report really tricky errors and bugs for the rest of us, also in the middle of the night. I ask him whenever I have tough Linux issues. And even though he does everything under Linux and has enormous knowledge, he plays exclusively under Windows, which in turn does not mean that he might not log in with his Steam Client on Linux from time to time, maybe for testing something.
It's not everyone's pleasure to fight with problems, when someone just wants to play. Even people who are busy with Linux bugs all the time want to switch off from time to time. We have to accept that.
Valves type of survey is pretty okay.
If you want to be a Linux gamer, then you have to play under Linux.
Last edited by 1xok on 15 January 2017 at 2:49 pm UTC
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Mountain Man Jan 15, 2017
Oh, we must be back on the "Steam survey is inaccurate" side of the pendulum this month.It has always been inaccurate. I wish Valve would settle the debate once and for all and tell us exactly how many Steam users are running Linux. Even more interesting would be to see how many users are running one OS exclusively and how many are dual booters, because I suspect there are a lot Linux users who also run Windows, and that will skew the survey results.
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Mohandevir Jan 15, 2017
For Linux market share to rise there must be a hardware push.
As long as Windows is the only OS preinstalled in the pcs sold in the Walmarts or bestbuy of this world (North America), the share will not move by much. That was just a wild example, but seeing Steam Machines sold besides PS4s and Xboxes in such bigbox stores is a pleasing tought.
Still, Linux gaming needs a second Steam Machine generation and with the latest AMD+Valve developments, it seems likely.
Let's cross our fingers. :)
As long as Windows is the only OS preinstalled in the pcs sold in the Walmarts or bestbuy of this world (North America), the share will not move by much. That was just a wild example, but seeing Steam Machines sold besides PS4s and Xboxes in such bigbox stores is a pleasing tought.
Still, Linux gaming needs a second Steam Machine generation and with the latest AMD+Valve developments, it seems likely.
Let's cross our fingers. :)
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Mountain Man Jan 15, 2017
And even though he does everything under Linux and has enormous knowledge, he plays exclusively under Windows, which in turn does not mean that he might not log in with his Steam Client on Linux from time to time, maybe for testing something.I don't understand this anecdote. Playing games in Linux has not given me any more problems than my years of playing games in Windows. The times it doesn't "just work" are the rare exception rather than the rule.
It's not everyone's pleasure to fight with problems, when someone just wants to play.
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I wanna say "Pfft, statistically insignificant," but don't know if i can, because I know jack-diddly-poo about statistics. Yet, if I understand the math correctly, (a dubious claim at best) .08% = a fraction of 8/10,000ths, so ... 1/1250th? So, out of 10,000 people, 8 fewer are using Linux than before (or out of 1250 people, 1 less is using Linux)?
I don't know what the survey's margin of error is, but it's hard to imagine 1/1250th would exceed it. It certainly registers as "insignificant" on my personal "Significant-O-meter" (pat. pend.).
So, yeah. Pfft.
Last edited by Nanobang on 15 January 2017 at 4:07 pm UTC
I don't know what the survey's margin of error is, but it's hard to imagine 1/1250th would exceed it. It certainly registers as "insignificant" on my personal "Significant-O-meter" (pat. pend.).
So, yeah. Pfft.
Last edited by Nanobang on 15 January 2017 at 4:07 pm UTC
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I had problems so far with: Bioshock: Infinite, Deus: Ex, Total War, Metro 2033, Mad Max, Tomb Raider and some more. Tearing in nearly every Game. Sound issues a lot. Have until now found a solution for every problem. I never played under Windows but all my problems were Linux related. Also many Games are simply not available for Linux.And even though he does everything under Linux and has enormous knowledge, he plays exclusively under Windows, which in turn does not mean that he might not log in with his Steam Client on Linux from time to time, maybe for testing something.I don't understand this anecdote. Playing games in Linux has not given me any more problems than my years of playing games in Windows. The times it doesn't "just work" are the rare exception rather than the rule.
It's not everyone's pleasure to fight with problems, when someone just wants to play.
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if I can choose the same game between GOG and Steam I always choose GOG.
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Mountain Man Jan 15, 2017
Sounds like you have something mis-configured then. The tearing issue is a long-standing problem for Nvidia cards in Linux (it existed long before Linux was a viable alternative to Windows for gaming), but the solution is ridiculously easy and has been around for just as long. Here's the latest Gaming on Linux article about it:I had problems so far with: Bioshock: Infinite, Deus: Ex, Total War, Metro 2033, Mad Max, Tomb Raider and some more. Tearing in nearly every Game. Sound issues a lot. Have until now found a solution for every problem. I never played under Windows but all my problems were Linux related. Also many Games are simply not available for Linux.And even though he does everything under Linux and has enormous knowledge, he plays exclusively under Windows, which in turn does not mean that he might not log in with his Steam Client on Linux from time to time, maybe for testing something.I don't understand this anecdote. Playing games in Linux has not given me any more problems than my years of playing games in Windows. The times it doesn't "just work" are the rare exception rather than the rule.
It's not everyone's pleasure to fight with problems, when someone just wants to play.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/how-to-an-update-on-fixing-screen-tearing-on-linux-with-an-nvidia-gpu.8892
I can't comment on sound issues because I've never encountered any for as long as I've used Linux. Ever. My sound card is a Sound Blaster Audigy that I've had for over 15-years, and it has always "just worked" in Linux, and it sounds great, so I've never seen any reason to upgrade.
I've never had to do anything special to make a game work in Linux beyond the occasional routine problem solving that you have to do even in Windows, but that's par for the course for PC gaming. If people want truly trouble-free gaming then stick with consoles.
Last edited by Mountain Man on 15 January 2017 at 6:00 pm UTC
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Sounds like you have something mis-configured then. The tearing issue is a long-standing problem for Nvidia cards in Linux (it existed long before Linux was a viable alternative to Windows for gaming), but the solution is ridiculously easy and has been around for just as long. Here's the latest Gaming on Linux article about it:Yes I know. I could not try it yet.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/how-to-an-update-on-fixing-screen-tearing-on-linux-with-an-nvidia-gpu.8892
I can't comment on sound issues because I've never encountered any for as long as I've used Linux. Ever. My sound card is a Sound Blaster Audigy that I've had for over 15-years, and it has always "just worked" in Linux, and it sounds great, so I've never seen any reason to upgrade.I don't remember that I had problems with a sound card. I use the internal sound of my main board. But I know there are problems on other peoples systems. My sound problems seems to have nothing to do with my sound chip in particular. It's an scheduling delay in alsa-sink.c caused by my wlan chip or the module which results in random sound glitches. As a work around I just disabled my wlan. Do not need it.
I've never had to do anything special to make a game work in Linux beyond the occasional routine problem solving that you have to do even in Windows, but that's par for the course for PC gaming.Since I have never used Windows on real hardware, I can not judge that. I have your statement now, but there are still many other statements. Partly from very experienced users.
It is also very important which hardware you use. The older the better normally. I have a Skylake system and a Z170 Asus board. With new hardware there are always problems at the beginning:
https://www.pantz.org/hardware/motherboard/intel_skylake_with_an_asus_z170-ar_and_ubuntu_linux_14.04.html
Today it's much better. But to say Skylake systems run under Linux as well as under Windows? I really do not know. I would rather not make this statement. Also I can't imagine, that such problems are also exits under Windows in this extent, because the average user would simply not be able to solve them.
Last edited by 1xok on 15 January 2017 at 9:48 pm UTC
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Also I can't imagine, that such problems are also exits under Windows in this extent, because the average user would simply not be able to solve them.Heh. You imagine wrong. Seems like you've never had to do support.
Windows gamers have just as many problems with their software and hardware as we do. In my experience more, but that's anecdotal evidence I guess. The difference is, when you're trying to triage a problem in Windows, the system fights you all the way. A total OS reinstall is a commonly suggested fix to all kinds of problems. Sometimes it even helps. But the gamers rarely blame their OS. They think there's no real alternative, so what's the point.
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Mountain Man Jan 15, 2017
A common recommendation for Windows is to do a complete reinstall at least once a year. I never did because I know how to maintain a computer, but for the average user, Windows is so easy to gunk up that a complete reinstall is often the only recourse.
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Sounds quite reasonable. Some people are just experienced in Linux and in Windows. Nevertheless, the idea exists that the games run better under Windows.
I am doing my experiences with Doom 2016. Everything is running super (under Wine) but then there is again a problem. I think it runs better under Windows. Nevertheless, I would never switch to Windows. But I can understand, however, if people prefer to play on Windows.
I am doing my experiences with Doom 2016. Everything is running super (under Wine) but then there is again a problem. I think it runs better under Windows. Nevertheless, I would never switch to Windows. But I can understand, however, if people prefer to play on Windows.
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[email protected] Jan 16, 2017
Sounds quite reasonable. Some people are just experienced in Linux and in Windows. Nevertheless, the idea exists that the games run better under Windows.
I am doing my experiences with Doom 2016. Everything is running super (under Wine) but then there is again a problem. I think it runs better under Windows. Nevertheless, I would never switch to Windows. But I can understand, however, if people prefer to play on Windows.
Can you save games now under wine?
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Sounds quite reasonable. Some people are just experienced in Linux and in Windows. Nevertheless, the idea exists that the games run better under Windows.
I am doing my experiences with Doom 2016. Everything is running super (under Wine) but then there is again a problem. I think it runs better under Windows. Nevertheless, I would never switch to Windows. But I can understand, however, if people prefer to play on Windows.
Maybe it's because Doom 2016 is a Windows supported game(not Linux) and fully functional?
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I'm really losing faith in the Steam survey. Other Linux use stats seem to fairly consistently show Linux use growing. Meanwhile, viability of Linux for gaming in the first place has been clearly and steadily increasing since Steam first became available on Linux, so I would expect more Linux users to be doing their gaming on Linux (as opposed to dual-booting or relying on consoles or just living without many games). So both the percentage of Linux users in general and natural expectations of what proportion of that would be used for gaming are rising. And Steam has definitely remained the natural place to go for Linux gamers. So why would the percentage of Linux users on Steam be dropping? (Yes, this month's drop is insignificant, but there's been a longer term trend for months with few exceptions at exactly the same time other sites seem to be showing a Linux rise) Makes no sense.
Sure, I know Steam has itself been growing--but why would it be growing disproportionately among non-Linux users? If Linux gaming is in decline I'd want to face that reality, the better to do something about it, but I can't make it compute. Increasingly I'm coming to the conclusion that there's simply something seriously skewed about the Steam survey results. And that's a problem, because if developers think there's nobody on Linux they might stop developing games for Linux even if the Linux users (and sales) are actually there. It's getting to the point where I feel like this particular thing Valve does is doing us a significant disservice.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 16 January 2017 at 9:12 am UTC
Sure, I know Steam has itself been growing--but why would it be growing disproportionately among non-Linux users? If Linux gaming is in decline I'd want to face that reality, the better to do something about it, but I can't make it compute. Increasingly I'm coming to the conclusion that there's simply something seriously skewed about the Steam survey results. And that's a problem, because if developers think there's nobody on Linux they might stop developing games for Linux even if the Linux users (and sales) are actually there. It's getting to the point where I feel like this particular thing Valve does is doing us a significant disservice.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 16 January 2017 at 9:12 am UTC
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As far as I understand, we could actually fake the survey to some extend by having a second linux distribution or a vm that we use to start steam very irregularly. I see nothing to gain from this though.
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Pompesdesky Jan 16, 2017
I've never had to do anything special to make a game work in Linux beyond the occasional routine problem solving that you have to do even in Windows, but that's par for the course for PC gaming. If people want truly trouble-free gaming then stick with consoles.Sorry to say but it's not everyone's experience. I've switched to Linux since a little over a year and my gaming experience is nowhere near what it has been on Windows. I've had a Windows 7 install that worked flawlessly for years without any reinstall and I've never had to do ANYTHING special for a game to work properly, the only issue I had jokingly is that I had to spend hours searching how to get the XBox One controler to work wirelessly.
On the other hand in Linux I stumbled on a lot of issues, from Steam not launching, to games not launching or not working properly. My latest issue is regarding Absolute Drift which I just bought in the Humble sale, on my main rig it doesn't launch at all (I have a black screen popping up and immediately back to the desktop) and so far I didn't find a solution (Googling didn't help this time), on my SteamOS box (Intel NUC with an i5) the games launches without a problem but then it is constantly blinking, nearly unplayable.
I for one decided to ditch Windows for good and I'll accept to have to wait to properly play this game for example, but I know a lot of people that would not tolerate this any minute...
Last edited by Pompesdesky on 16 January 2017 at 9:13 am UTC
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Sure, I know Steam has itself been growing--but why would it be growing disproportionately among non-Linux users?Why is this hard to believe? Linux gaming is growing, but there's no good reason to expect it would grow at exactly the same rate worldwide as PC gaming in general. And of course the survey won't give us exact figures. Trends are the most we can expect.
As far as I understand, we could actually fake the survey to some extend by having a second linux distribution or a vm that we use to start steam very irregularly. I see nothing to gain from this though.I think that might work only if you had more than one Steam account. If indeed there was a point to this exercise.
Last edited by tuubi on 16 January 2017 at 9:21 am UTC
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And Steam has definitely remained the natural place to go for Linux gamers.
Not necessarily. Linux gamers tend to be averse to DRM and can avoid Steam altogether. The survey simply doesn't represent such users at all.
Last edited by Shmerl on 16 January 2017 at 9:28 am UTC
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I'm afraid such users really will be in the minority.And Steam has definitely remained the natural place to go for Linux gamers.
Not necessarily. Linux gamers tend to be averse to DRM and can avoid Steam altogether. The survey simply doesn't represent such users at all.
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