Steam continues to get bigger with another milestone being reached! Yesterday Steam shot passed 18 million concurrent users online.
The exact number was 18,528,722 according to the official Steam stats page, which was hit around 3PM UTC. Around that time, over 7 million people were actually in-game as well—nuts!
If we think about how many Linux gamers that could be, it might be around 79,673 Linux gamers online if we use the current Linux market share on Steam as reported from December at 0.43%. Likely highly inaccurate, but it's fun to think about.
It was only in November of last year when it hit 17.6 million, so that's some rather quick growth. Less than two months to pull in that many more people is just insane, although it does seem like it's fuelled by PUBG which hit another all-time peak itself in the last day. It will be interesting to see what happens when the mass-hype around PUBG fades.
As of right now, from Valve's top 10 games having the most players online eight of them support Linux, which is pretty damn good. The list fluctuates of course and it would be better if PUBG supported Linux, but sadly that feels like a dream right now. Even without PUBG, there's plenty to look forward to this year for Linux gaming.
Thanks for the tip Joe!
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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GustyGhost 7 Jan 2018
I wonder if that percentage would be even higher if Valve would liberate the Steam client and/or make it optional.
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TheRiddick 7 Jan 2018
Does PUBG work through wine?
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Does PUBG work through wine?
PUBG barely works on Windows and Xbox One. I think WINE is a distant dream, :p
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TheRiddick 7 Jan 2018
For a company making crazy amounts of money, you'd think they could hire a army of programmers and problem solvers at least short term to sort out the performance issues and porting it to Linux... They must be spending a fair bit on blow and hookers or something... a common developer success trap.
Last edited by TheRiddick on 7 Jan 2018 at 6:07 am UTC
Last edited by TheRiddick on 7 Jan 2018 at 6:07 am UTC
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For a company making crazy amounts of money, you'd think they could hire a army of programmers and problem solvers at least short term to sort out the performance issues and porting it to Linux... They must be spending a fair bit on blow and hookers or something... a common developer success trap.
But there are more people on Windows than Linux. People buying it on Windows is something they can count on. I don't see them counting on tens of thousands of Linux purchases when they'll make more from Windows/XB1.
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ElectricPrism 7 Jan 2018
Is there a way the distros can mod the steam package and include a way for us to track which % of that is Linux perhaps? That would be amazing.
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Does PUBG work through wine?
I just had a look at it. It looks like it needs a "BattleEye" service (some kind of anti cheat? Didn't bother researching), which is implemented in windows trough a kernel driver, to access process memory freely. I highly doubt support for this will ever be implemented in wine. Your best guess is probably ReactOS ^_^
Even so, this whole anti-cheat thing... is a big security hole. I mean, giving unrestricted access to your kernel, and userspace processes to a third-party (with closed source software)? It gives me shudders...
Some workarounds seems to have been implemented (or at least tried) in other games, but the issue here is that BE is trying to access other processes'memory trough this driver, and this can't be properly done in userspace if the memory isn't clearly defined as shared memory. I could imagine a workaround with virtualization, but don't hold your breath.
Last edited by MayeulC on 7 Jan 2018 at 7:08 am UTC
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TheRiddick 7 Jan 2018
There is a linux compatible battleeye service used with ARMA3 now. Perhaps some file swapping will work, but likely version mismatch.
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The list fluctuates of course and it would be better if PUBG supported Linux, but sadly that feels like a dream right now.
Wasn't it the ceo who said they want to bring pubg to every platform conceivable? I'm pretty sure he did not have Linux in mind, but you could try to hold them to that. :D
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For a company making crazy amounts of money, you'd think they could hire a army of programmers and problem solvers at least short term to sort out the performance issues and porting it to Linux... They must be spending a fair bit on blow and hookers or something... a common developer success trap.
Well its hard to find developers who are willing to move to new location, i remember ARK devs had (maybe still have this issue) problems finding good engine developers who know the code. These days there are so many game engines where you don't need to know much about coding to make a game, but when it gets big and needs special optimizations you need someone with more skills to optimize it.
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Does PUBG work through wine?
Nope. BattleEye is not working with Wine.
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The list fluctuates of course and it would be better if PUBG supported Linux, but sadly that feels like a dream right now.
Wasn't it the ceo who said they want to bring pubg to every platform conceivable? I'm pretty sure he did not have Linux in mind, but you could try to hold them to that. :D
He is not considering Linux as a platform i guess. Next targets for them would be PS4 and Switch.
I don't think they would port it to MacOS either because they can't provide performance with it.
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The list fluctuates of course and it would be better if PUBG supported Linux, but sadly that feels like a dream right now.
Wasn't it the ceo who said they want to bring pubg to every platform conceivable? I'm pretty sure he did not have Linux in mind, but you could try to hold them to that. :D
inb4 "Inconceivable!"
and
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
1 Likes, Who?
imagine what Valve could do if they used some of that money to really give SteamOS a push.
Maybe Steam will release SteamOS 2 when VR is more mature on Linux. That would be called SteamOSVR or VROS .. or because it's gen one VR... Steam 'V1R0S' :P
Maybe Steam will release SteamOS 2 when VR is more mature on Linux. That would be called SteamOSVR or VROS .. or because it's gen one VR... Steam 'V1R0S' :P
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For a company making crazy amounts of money, you'd think they could hire a army of programmers and problem solvers at least short term to sort out the performance issues and porting it to Linux
In theory given recent developments wouldn't it be possible to hire a few people to test & bundle up dozens if not hundreds of DX9/DX10 games in a Wine flatpack ? where all the dependencies are met and working without any extra configuration required. Just download and run as a normal steam application through the client.
There shouldn't be any licensing problems with that either and there technically still windows applications sold through steam just for Linux. Im surprised GOG hasn't done this yet or at least played with the idea.
... They must be spending a fair bit on blow and hookers or something... a common developer success trap.
From what i have seen of their offices it would more likely be Sweets and energy drinks.
Last edited by on 7 Jan 2018 at 2:13 pm UTC
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[quote=meggerman]
Eh, same thing.
... They must be spending a fair bit on blow and hookers or something... a common developer success trap.
From what i have seen of their offices it would more likely be Sweets and energy drinks.
Eh, same thing.
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There is a linux compatible battleeye service used with ARMA3 now. Perhaps some file swapping will work, but likely version mismatch.
BattleEye does support GNU+Linux since early 2016. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/battleye-anticheat-now-supports-linux-already-live-in-ark-survival-evolved.6637
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