A note on using Steam Play Proton and counting the sales for Linux (updated)

Honestly, I don't see a problem here.

A Windows™ game bought and played on Linux is still a Windows™ game none the less. Why developers should care what players are using if they are paying? Plus, as an added bonus, developers are not responsible for any bugs on unsupported platforms.

And one can not blame Proton™ for anything either: it does just what it was designed for -- it brings Windows players to Linux. And it is up to those players to stop buying Windows games from then on.


Last edited by Alm888 on 11 February 2020 at 2:24 pm UTC

well you can always use ArchiSteamFarm to idle the game if you want, even if the game doesn't launch with proton, and you don't need to install it... it will look as it is running and playtime will count in your profile, and ArchiSteamFarm runs on Linux, so.

Considering ASF runs its own Steam client, are we sure it does accurately report what OS it is running on? And that Valve also counts it as playing the game on Linux.

I asked about this on ASF discord before and got some pretty muddy answers. As far as I understand, ASF is not trying to fake/pretend to be the real Steam client. Valve knows what users are using it, and when it is ASF making requests. And Valve allows it as long as ASF plays by the rules.

So I rarely use ASF, because I kinda suspect that Valve might be defaulting anyone idling with ASF as Windows playtime. Just like they always assume Windows in all other cases :|

"early stage" he says, yet Proton already allows me to play so many great games effortlessly. I can't wait to see where it keeps going.

Any idea when they're going to update the "white list"?

I believe "Soon". They have recently asked to re-test several games, those I got the notifications for are Dragon Age Origins and TES IV: Oblivion.

They have recently asked to re-test several games, those I got the notifications for are Dragon Age Origins and TES IV: Oblivion.

They who? Valve? Where did you see these notifications?

They have recently asked to re-test several games, those I got the notifications for are Dragon Age Origins and TES IV: Oblivion.

They who? Valve? Where did you see these notifications?

Yep.
Here, Morrowind too:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/718#issuecomment-583925045
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/157#issuecomment-583921976
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/749#issuecomment-582911702

I am subscribed because I own these games and tested them earlier, did not yet have time though.

A shame but I think it's unlikely ubisoft or zenamax/Bethesda are going to go oh shit we need to support Linux with native versions. BC recent steam userbase and Linux users now it's only those with a steam survey so say maybe plus 10k to the number of users but sits at around 150k Linux users. Now they could pay to hire a whole new team to port to Linux but for those numbers and bearin in mind proton is gratis why pay anything when your game is going to be bought by Linux users regardless. Rage 2 prime example valve worked overtime to ensure proton worked on it the day it came out. It cost I'd/Bethesda nothing.

"early stage" he says, yet Proton already allows me to play so many great games effortlessly. I can't wait to see where it keeps going.

Any idea when they're going to update the "white list"?

protondb has a pretty long list of my games with a "Gold+" or "Platinum" rating, yet the "white list" for Proton hasn't been updated in quite a while...

and

Anyway a whitelist update would be great.

Why? What do you both need from the whitelist keeping in mind you can manually set Proton on any game now? The whitelist was originally from before they let us do that.

What's interresting, in the Whitelist, is the fact that the game is installed with a predetermined Proton version. Exemple: in the case of Doom 2016, it's Proton 3.16. For the end user, it's some form of guarantee that it will work as intended with this proton version? What I don't know is if it gets overwritten by your preset, when you activate Proton for all titles...


Last edited by Mohandevir on 11 February 2020 at 2:15 pm UTC

What I don't know is if it gets overwritten by your preset, when you activate Proton for all titles...

No, it does not. Good point! There are quite a few titles that actually run worse with newer Proton releases, Torchlight from the top of my head.

What I don't know is if it gets overwritten by your preset, when you activate Proton for all titles...

Once the game is whitelisted with an specific Proton version, it'll default to this specific version unless you change manually thought the options.

No, it does not. Good point! There are quite a few titles that actually run worse with newer Proton releases, Torchlight from the top of my head.

There's also the other way around, where the newer version runs better than the whitelisted default.

For example I did a request for an update to a whitelisted game, where once was because the new release fixed some audio glitches, but now you must change due to a recent update with the game.

So a game being whitelisted doesn't necessary mean that it'll run better/for ever except the game and your system remains the same.

Honestly this has always felt liked flawed logic to me. I'll grant that one point of view for how the data is used is in worth for what platforms publishers or developers want to target, and they might not otherwise care about preferences versus where they can simply make a sale. However, many times the data isn't presented or wrote about in that context and instead used as a proof of what people's preferences are.

With that in mind, many of us run multiple computers or dual-boot, and there's no mistake that at least one of them will probably be Windows if they play desktop games. Take myself for instance, my primary workstation that I spend most of my day at is linux, but my HTPC is windows as it doubles as a gaming PC. I play games on both, but I play more often on my gaming PC without a doubt. Linux gaming has come a long way and I've no doubt most of the games I actually play would run just fine on linux, but there's always one or two or some other reason that the (HT|Gaming)PC is going to be in Windows; There's physical separation and since the purpose differs so does the hardware, as such even games that would run fine in linux don't make sense to jump computers in my personal use case. I've no doubt all of my gaming purchases end up counting as sales for Windows save for maybe the rare one that actually does get more playtime on my workstation. Plenty of us sitting on the fence that they decide to count one way or the other.

Now, the reason I say the logic is flawed is in counting majority-playtime as the sale at all is problematic. Really, logging any time on other platforms should flag as Multiplatform. Of course Windows will continue to hog the glory, it's too much of a bother to split gaming installs against OS preference for most people. Yes, some people dual-boot and share partitions; But that's problematic too. And I would wager rather a-typical because of it. The overall point being "this is a linux user using windows to play your stupid game."

Really, Valve already does occasional hardware surveys in the client. They could easily just ask a question or a survey to non-windows users about what they do versus what their actual preferences are. Really, just add a slice for Multiplatform and maybe details (Windows, Linux, Mac).

What I don't know is if it gets overwritten by your preset, when you activate Proton for all titles...

Once the game is whitelisted with an specific Proton version, it'll default to this specific version unless you change manually thought the options.

No, it does not. Good point! There are quite a few titles that actually run worse with newer Proton releases, Torchlight from the top of my head.

There's also the other way around, where the newer version runs better than the whitelisted default.

For example I did a request for an update to a whitelisted game, where once was because the new release fixed some audio glitches, but now you must change due to a recent update with the game.

So a game being whitelisted doesn't necessary mean that it'll run better/for ever except the game and your system remains the same.

Never said that the whitelist is perfect. It feels like they tried to do something at the start but priorities must have shifted during Proton development and, now, it looks like it was "put on the backburner". This said, in a perfect scenario, there would be a team maintaining the Whitelist. ProntoDB could be a good start to determine which games should be tested for whitelisting, but it's a huge task. Who knows, Valve might come back to it, at some point.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 11 February 2020 at 7:17 pm UTC

What people need to take into account

What does that actually mean, counting as Linux sale (if it works, that is). You'll be part of a pie chart that shows that you're a Linux customer, ok. I know some play games ported to Linux on Proton for different reasons, I'm not talking about those. But for games not ported, the developers and publishers will see: "Hey, we're selling to Linux players without even porting the game to Linux! So we're not even losing all those 1% of customers by not porting, some are buying nevertheless!"

Guess how this continues:
[ ] "Let's port to Linux to not lose the chance of way less than 1 percent of people buying our game."
[ ] "We don't need to port to Linux, they are buying our game nevertheless. And we don't need to support the people buying for Proton, we never promised them anything."

one year later:
[ ] "Wow, already 3% on Linux, may be we should ensure that our game updates at least didn't break it for them."
[ ] "Wow, already 3% on Linux, may be we should consider these 3% for our future games and not use any weird stuff that is known to break on Linux/Proton."

two years later:
[ ] "Wow, already 4% on Linux, may be we should get familiar with that platform and don't consider Linux users second class anymore. Who know's what's in it in the future."

five years later:
...


Last edited by jens on 11 February 2020 at 6:55 pm UTC

On-topic: I hope Valve gets this right, I consider this point pretty important for me.

one year later:

Trouble is, it already is one year later and our percentage didn't budge.

one year later:

Trouble is, it already is one year later and our percentage didn't budge.

I admit, I could be wrong by a few years ;). Though I honestly think this is our best bet to break the current chicken and egg situation.

Keep in mind with Proton is that developers can only continue relying on it so much before they get backlash. The bigger the percentage of gamers on Linux the more noise there will be about developers who take lazy route. If Linux gets 5% share on Steam, that 5% will create alot bad PR for the company (and rightfully so if they are lazy). Just take Rocket League as example..
At certain percentage reluctant developers will be forced by marketshare to consider Linux whether they like it or not.


Last edited by Linuxwarper on 11 February 2020 at 8:07 pm UTC

Proton is great

In February 3rd I purchased A Plague Tale: Innocence for one of my accounts..

I played it today for the first time...
Is it counted as Linux sale?

In February 3rd I purchased A Plague Tale: Innocence for one of my accounts..

I played it today for the first time...
Is it counted as Linux sale?

Isn't the limit two weeks? So I'd figure yes.

I admit, I could be wrong by a few years ;). Though I honestly think this is our best bet to break the current chicken and egg situation.

Unfortunately, I don't have a better one.
I just fear neither "No Tux, no bux" nor Proton worked out or will work out.