As mentioned in my last article talking about the Steam Hardware Survey, Valve sometimes adjusts the numbers a few days later. They have again and this time they adjusted the Linux market share on Steam down, not up.
Originally, the December market share for Linux on Steam was shown as 0.43%, but Valve have revised this down to 0.26%. So that's a decrease of 0.01 percentage points from November to December.
I'll be honest, I was rather surprised to see that the Linux market share on Steam had suddenly shot back up a bit, considering the Windows-only game, PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS is still pulling in a ton of people from the Asian market and is still breaking player records. In hindsight, it didn't really make sense for the Linux share to have risen like that. I still maintain my position that it most definitely will go back up, but that will be once the hype around PUBG fades.
Still, it's strange, as this is the biggest amount Valve has ever revised the survey numbers since I've been covering them. Well, as big as the percentages we're talking about are anyway…
So basically, nothing really changed between November and December. Here's to a strong and stable 2018.
Thanks for the news tip facePlanted.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Buggy word processing in your native language is a non-starter for any computer system, even one distributed at no cost.
ElectricPrism Jan 8, 2018
no_information_here Jan 8, 2018
Quoting: ShmerlI don't think this Steam survey is particularly news worthy.Yeah. I know it generates a lot of hype in the twitterverse, but the thing is completely useless considering it has unknown statistical accuracy.
Until it starts showing above 5% (or Valve releases its methodology) I think we can safely ignore the whole thing.
no_information_here Jan 8, 2018
Quoting: ElectricPrismCan someone please release a stat program on github that records stats once a month and we will make it a dependency of all steam installs.I like that idea.
Not everyone may like it, but it would be a lot more transparent than what we have now.
TheRiddick Jan 8, 2018
Quoting: KonA downward trend driven by China is still a downward trend. Yet another reason to improve input method integration in Linux desktops.
Buggy word processing in your native language is a non-starter for any computer system, even one distributed at no cost.
Let's be honest about something, Windows is also native-language only on the surface, when you start messing around with settings and registry everything is in English and that is the same for majority of operating systems, there's just no way any OS can rewrite everything from scratch in all the languages.
I find Linux to be completely compatible with my native language, not sure about Chinese.
Quoting: ElectricPrismCan someone please release a stat program on github that records stats once a month and we will make it a dependency of all steam installs.Even if you had the power to somehow "make it a dependency of all Steam installs", I don't think another bit of (involuntary) telemetry is the answer. You'd just give more ammo to the privacy conscious Linux users who detest Steam. And make reluctant users like me just a bit more reluctant. Valve already has all the data they need (or want).
Quoting: no_information_hereQuoting: ShmerlI don't think this Steam survey is particularly news worthy.Yeah. I know it generates a lot of hype in the twitterverse, but the thing is completely useless considering it has unknown statistical accuracy.
Until it starts showing above 5% (or Valve releases its methodology) I think we can safely ignore the whole thing.
Isn't the methodology the survey that we participate at random times? I think it just checks then the OS Steam is running on and that's it.
ElectricPrism Jan 8, 2018
Quoting: tuubiQuoting: ElectricPrismCan someone please release a stat program on github that records stats once a month and we will make it a dependency of all steam installs.Even if you had the power to somehow "make it a dependency of all Steam installs", I don't think another bit of (involuntary) telemetry is the answer. You'd just give more ammo to the privacy conscious Linux users who detest Steam. And make reluctant users like me just a bit more reluctant. Valve already has all the data they need (or want).
No problem, make it a second package called [steam-stats] and on first steamrun record "opt-in's" and "opt-outs". Opt-Ins will send hardware information, opt outs will simply send some sort of hardware signature and a single "+1" so either way WIN/WIN.
Get the package in Arch, Manjaro and Ubuntu and everyone else will follow suit.
I mean -- honestly, we all know Steam is DRM on some level but all of us who use it don't give a shit. Or if we do give a shit just buy the games that we can get non DRM elsewhere like Gog.
Those annoying bitchers will bitch about anything -- let them bitch and whine in their dark corner of the web and just ignore.
The benefits to Steam Linux Gaming make it important enough that it would be stupid to not persue.
Last edited by ElectricPrism on 8 January 2018 at 7:49 am UTC
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