As it turns out, the Linux market share reported in the hardware survey for September was higher than initially reported.
Writing on Twitter, Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais said this:
Just fixed a small rounding error in the HW survey that was affecting reported Linux usage. Distributions with less than a handful of users weren't getting factored into the total percentage. Numbers for September have just been updated: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
With those fresh numbers, this means the Linux share for September was actually 0.78% not 0.71%. The recent figures now also show Windows dropping down to 96.29%. While that's a relatively small addition, it's still good to have it be more accurate.
I've updated our dedicated page tracking it, which shows that Linux is now hitting a 16 month high in terms of Steam market share. I don't think the relevance of that can be overstated, considering another 0.15% would put us back to a level we were at in September of 2016. Although, we would have a lot more users considering the ever-increasing growth of Steam.
One thing to be clear on though, is that we have no idea how long this error has been around. Meaning it could have affected months or years worth of data.
This isn't the first time there's been a flaw in the survey, like the time Valve was essentially over-counting cyber cafe customers.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Cyba.Cowboy Oct 5, 2018
If only they'd fix the damn survey bug... You know, the one that doesn't exist.
*Rolls eyes*
*Rolls eyes*
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I actually just got the survey today for the first time in over 2 years.
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Cyba.Cowboy Oct 6, 2018
Quoting: ison111I actually just got the survey today for the first time in over 2 years.
The last time I had it was approximately six years ago - back when I ran Microsoft Windows 8... Of course, if you open the survey file and check the date, it thinks I complete one at the start of this year; the same is true for the rest of the Linux computers in our house (but different dates).
Yet according to Valve, it's all a conspiracy theory, because "the survey works as designed".
Last edited by Cyba.Cowboy on 6 October 2018 at 5:18 am UTC
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Quoting: Cyba.CowboyThe last time I had it was approximately six years ago - back when I ran Microsoft Windows 8... Of course, if you open the survey file and check the date, it thinks I complete one at the start of this year; the same is true for the rest of the Linux computers in our house (but different dates).
Yet according to Valve, it's all a conspiracy theory, because "the survey works as designed".
How often have you been asked which party you're going to vote for lately? Still, there's quite accurate data about voting estimations.
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Quoting: SalvatosIs there a reason Linux users would be more likely than Windows users to use Steam in English rather than their own language?
I don't know why people are not regularly using their language in the first place, so... yeah, I don't know.
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Quoting: GuestI set my OS to French without thinking a lot about it but i sometimes wish i had not. (Well, it sets your keyboard automatically).Can't you just change it now?
Quoting: GuestNow why would someone set the system and every application to English instead of their native language? For me it’s because the translations always suck and it’s easier to understand things in English (it’s also true under Windows btw).I did mean to ask about Steam specifically since that is the part that would influence the survey :) I can see plenty of reasons to set the OS to English. The few times I saw Steam's French interface, it seemed very well translated. Which is surprising, in retrospect, since I think I remember them crowdsourcing their translations to volunteers.
Quoting: GuestProbably some game with a bad French translation insisted on using the same language as Steam?Ah, that issue sounds familiar, yes. I think Hand of Fate did that at launch, but with the system language. Maybe it was a different game, but I distinctly remember something giving me no reasonable way to set the language.
Though again, I don't think any of that would differentiate Linux from Windows use cases and skew the survey.
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Cyba.Cowboy Oct 6, 2018
Quoting: EikeHow often have you been asked which party you're going to vote for lately? Still, there's quite accurate data about voting estimations.
I beg to differ, because the voting polls often vary wildly from company to company (that conducts the polls)(in Australia at least)... They are a rough guide at best - but they also do not claim that I have participated when I have not.
Last edited by Cyba.Cowboy on 6 October 2018 at 10:58 pm UTC
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Quoting: Cyba.CowboyPolling seems to have gotten a lot worse over the last decade or two. Seems to have been a combination of overuse and the internet. Overuse, doing lots and lots of polls for more and more trivial reasons, or on elections trying for more and more frequent polls, "rolling" polls and so on, all give strong incentives to do it on the cheap, with less attention to randomization for instance. And the internet furnishes a way to do bad, poorly randomized polls very cheaply. So they've rushed to save money by doing crap polls on the internet; result, crappy predictions.Quoting: EikeHow often have you been asked which party you're going to vote for lately? Still, there's quite accurate data about voting estimations.
I beg to differ, because the voting polls often vary wildly from company to company (that conducts the polls)(in Australia at least)... They are a rough guide at best - but they also do not claim that I have participated when I have not.
Then there's push polls; they sometimes report the results of those as if they're the real thing, hoping to influence people in the direction the push poll is designed to point. Of course, those don't track reality very well because that's not what they're for.
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Quoting: Cyba.CowboyI beg to differ, because the voting polls often vary wildly from company to company (that conducts the polls)(in Australia at least)... They are a rough guide at best - but they also do not claim that I have participated when I have not.
Do you have data about these wildly differing results? These are for the next state elections here (Bavaria)...
http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/bayern.htm
I don't understand your last phrase... Did anybody claim Steam polls are querying every user?!?
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Cyba.Cowboy Oct 7, 2018
Quoting: EikeDo you have data about these wildly differing results? These are for the next state elections here (Bavaria)...
http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/bayern.htm
I have no idea how the political system works over there and to be honest, I don't really understand too much about our (Australian) political system (only the American system makes sense to me, for unimportant reasons)... But I do know that in Australia, when they publish their polls in the news every week or every time a politician does something "newsworthy", you'll see wildly different results depending on which company the news is using for their source.
Maybe it's different in your country, but that's how it is here in Australia and that was my point - the Steam survey is similar in the sense that one should take its findings with a grain of salt, for a laundry list of reasons (one of which being the well-publicised Linux bug)
Quoting: EikeI don't understand your last phrase... Did anybody claim Steam polls are querying every user?!?
The "survey" file (which indicates the date the survey was last supposedly run) seems to think that three of the different computers running various versions of Ubuntu in our house and used by different people have all had the survey in the last twelve months, when in reality, none of us have... That would be Valve Software claiming to query me, when it has not in fact done so.
And no it's not "user error" (e.g. accidentally closing the survey) - we have a limited number of computers in the house running an Apple mac OS or Microsoft Windows-based operating system, all of which have been able to complete the survey just fine...
Last edited by Cyba.Cowboy on 7 October 2018 at 8:42 am UTC
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