Valve are talking a lot more lately, actually telling us what's been going on and what some of their plans are. In their latest blog post, they had plenty to share.
A nice recap of what they've been up to, which started off with a small announcement on how they've increased their monthly active user count to "nearly 95 million", meaning they added close to 5 million new monthly active users over last year. Using the current operating system figures from the Hardware Survey, that could put the number of monthly active Linux users at around 855,000.
That's not all, they said revenue actually made by developers was up "year over year" and the last sale in 2019 was the most successful they've ever done. So even with competition heating up from Epic Games, game streaming and more it doesn't seem to have affected Valve much overall.
It goes over what happened during 2019 like the new store experiments with Steam Labs, as Valve work with community developers to build new tools to help people find games. I quite like the Deep Dive feature that Valve worked on with Lars Doucet, letting you click through games as it gives you new suggestions.
Steam Play got a mention too, with compatibility increasing as more reports come in on ProtonDB which is very good news for anyone switching to Linux.
As for what's to come next, surprisingly Valve even gave some information on that. Shocking—I know! Who is this Valve and what have they done with the silence we're used to having? Jokes aside, it's good to see.
One thing they're going to do that I'm quite interested in are their "Deep Dives", as they said others have tried figuring out how games on Steam are doing so they're going to do their "own analysis and share the results as a multi-part series of blog posts". Steam Trust, part of their newer matchmaking system is in a "closed beta" with some developers having access and it seems every developer will be able to use it later this year. They're also working on new Steam Labs experiments, SteamVR is getting big upgrades and there's plenty more sales to come.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I don't think they've taken much of a bite out of GoG, let alone Steam.
ElectricPrism Feb 6, 2020
Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm not too surprised Epic's store hasn't taken much of a bite. [...] at which point you realize it's actually very small.
Sounds like EPIC [FAIL] is .... (drum roll) Running Out of Steam.
For serious now -- this is a very important metric and data collected today -- 95 million and EST ~855K Active Steam Linuxers.
Very cool they are mentioning proton, though I think it's just a "Bering land bridge" to get gamers from Windows to Linux -- I am very choosy about what Proton-only games I buy and I suspect many others are too as they don't want to pay money only to be disappointed.
My gaming library is packed like a fridge full of good stuff thanks for Valve and awesome devs making Linux their-own.
Quoting: ElectricPrismSounds like EPIC [FAIL] is .... (drum roll) Running Out of Steam.
Hope that was very early morning when wrote that :P
ElectricPrism Feb 6, 2020
Quoting: pete910Quoting: ElectricPrismSounds like EPIC [FAIL] is .... (drum roll) Running Out of Steam.Hope that was very early morning when wrote that :P
Lol, don't worry it's eternal morning when the coffee takes hours get its job done XD Yeah I know it's silly, but it's so much fun :P
TheRiddick Feb 7, 2020
Ultimately these issues will gradually grind players down to the point of returning to Steam. EPIC is just winning atm due to BIG exclusives...
slaapliedje Feb 7, 2020
Quoting: TheSHEEEPGuys, what are you even talking about?!Ha, I always laugh so hard when I see this. Video games were born ona computer, they will forever stay on computers!
PC gaming is dead!
Ha, when looking at the two main consoles and their refresh versions, they basically ARE PCs. They didn't even bother having different CPU architectures...
The only thing the PS4 needs to be a computer is some more general purpose office suite or something, and to open up its bluetooth device support (seriously Sony, why can't I use my Sony WH-1000MX3 headphones with the PS4 Pro?)
Quoting: fleskI hope they fix the Steam Labs experiments to respect your platform settings soon. Last I tried, only Lars Doucet's did, making the rest pretty much useless.As I understand, it needs a conscious effort from each tool developer to respect the settings.
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