I think we can now firmly say that we are the 1%? Another month is down as so the latest Steam Hardware Survey numbers are out and it continues being very positive for Linux gaming.
As we show on our dedicated Steam Tracker, we've now seen the Linux user share on Steam remain above 1% for 5 months and we've seen 7 months of continuous growth.
Valve usually does an announcement of user numbers early each year, so hopefully in 2022 they can give us an updated monthly active user count to see where we are compared to before. Going by their last numbers, there would be approximately 1,396,640 monthly active Linux users on Steam.
We're still a while away from seeing how the Steam Deck will affect this, if at all, as it depends on how Valve will be tracking the number of SteamOS 3 devices. With their original SteamOS 2 that was for Steam Machines, it wasn't properly included as Big Picture Mode does not get the survey. This time they're redesigning the UI, so hopefully it will be included or they might just show how many people have one like they do for VR kits.
We do also know that SteamOS 3 will be released as a standalone operating system, as confirmed by Valve, so we may even see more devices and people using it.
Quoting: elmapul370 million dollars may sound like a lot, but its not, the cost of production of an modern game can go easy to something like 200~250 millions, and those companies dont make games for margins of profit lower than 20%.For big budget games, around half the cost goes on marketing (so platform doesn't matter). The biggest chunk of the remainder goes on asset creation - models, textures, motion capture, voice recording, scripts, and so on (where platform doesn't matter). The next biggest chunk goes on the game engine, with particular emphasis on the rendering loop since it's so critical to performance. Platform doesn't inherently matter here, but some platforms have poor support for some rendering APIs. The part where it really matters which platform you're on - your compile target, how you handle files, how you handle input - is a really tiny part of it. If you're not using a platform-specific engine, then adding another platform is cheap.
not to mention that the money dont belong to a single person who might be an good person that believes in linux/free software and want to see it suceeed, it belong to a bunch of stake holders so its very unlikely we can convince all of the parties involved to support us.
What isn't cheap, and what scares people away from new platforms (other than simply being bribed for exclusivity), is testing and support costs. It needs to be clear that those costs are going to be significantly lower than the additional revenue that they'll get from the new platform, and that they couldn't make as much extra money by doing something else (like adding new languages).
Quoting: CatKillerQuoting: elmapul370 million dollars may sound like a lot, but its not, the cost of production of an modern game can go easy to something like 200~250 millions, and those companies dont make games for margins of profit lower than 20%.For big budget games, around half the cost goes on marketing (so platform doesn't matter). The biggest chunk of the remainder goes on asset creation - models, textures, motion capture, voice recording, scripts, and so on (where platform doesn't matter). The next biggest chunk goes on the game engine, with particular emphasis on the rendering loop since it's so critical to performance. Platform doesn't inherently matter here, but some platforms have poor support for some rendering APIs. The part where it really matters which platform you're on - your compile target, how you handle files, how you handle input - is a really tiny part of it. If you're not using a platform-specific engine, then adding another platform is cheap.
not to mention that the money dont belong to a single person who might be an good person that believes in linux/free software and want to see it suceeed, it belong to a bunch of stake holders so its very unlikely we can convince all of the parties involved to support us.
What isn't cheap, and what scares people away from new platforms (other than simply being bribed for exclusivity), is testing and support costs. It needs to be clear that those costs are going to be significantly lower than the additional revenue that they'll get from the new platform, and that they couldn't make as much extra money by doing something else (like adding new languages).
It's sad to see that most of the big companies are giving more money to marketing than actual development. I understand that you need marketing so the market is aware of the product, but the product itself should have some quality and not only good advertisement.
I would say that if they spent less on marketing and more on making the actual game, it will be much better for their revenues. But I didn't saw any actual numbers, so it's just my opinion.
Quoting: ZlopezIt's sad to see that most of the big companies are giving more money to marketing than actual development. I understand that you need marketing so the market is aware of the product, but the product itself should have some quality and not only good advertisement.Sadly the data does show that good marketing leads to good sales, and that good games don't necessarily lead to good sales. There's quite a big analytics industry that's looked at it.
I would say that if they spent less on marketing and more on making the actual game, it will be much better for their revenues. But I didn't saw any actual numbers, so it's just my opinion.
Quoting: CatKillerThis is why it was such a huge win back in the day when engines like Unity added Linux support.Quoting: elmapul370 million dollars may sound like a lot, but its not, the cost of production of an modern game can go easy to something like 200~250 millions, and those companies dont make games for margins of profit lower than 20%.For big budget games, around half the cost goes on marketing (so platform doesn't matter). The biggest chunk of the remainder goes on asset creation - models, textures, motion capture, voice recording, scripts, and so on (where platform doesn't matter). The next biggest chunk goes on the game engine, with particular emphasis on the rendering loop since it's so critical to performance. Platform doesn't inherently matter here, but some platforms have poor support for some rendering APIs. The part where it really matters which platform you're on - your compile target, how you handle files, how you handle input - is a really tiny part of it. If you're not using a platform-specific engine, then adding another platform is cheap.
not to mention that the money dont belong to a single person who might be an good person that believes in linux/free software and want to see it suceeed, it belong to a bunch of stake holders so its very unlikely we can convince all of the parties involved to support us.
What isn't cheap, and what scares people away from new platforms (other than simply being bribed for exclusivity), is testing and support costs. It needs to be clear that those costs are going to be significantly lower than the additional revenue that they'll get from the new platform, and that they couldn't make as much extra money by doing something else (like adding new languages).
Not that the AAA are going to be using Unity, but in the lower tiers I wouldn't be surprised if we owe a lot of Linux native games to that.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 2 December 2021 at 5:10 pm UTC
Quoting: mr-victoryBut we are stronger than ever. And we are growing.
sigh.
any sucessfull gaming platform grow faster, an sucessfull platform grown from 0 to 40 millions~ 157 millions in an space of just 5~10 years.
we are at ~15 millions of users and we have been like this for almost 25 years!
(and not all of then are gamers)
those small changes in marketshare are caused by facors like staticstic errors or chinese gamers moving into or out of steam, not by people installing in masses an platform or purchasing linux machines.
And today I'd like to note that if the rate of increase we saw over the last 9 months were to continue arithmetically, adding that same amount reliably every 9 months on average, we'd be at nearly 50% in only 100 years!
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 2 December 2021 at 5:38 pm UTC
Quoting: elmapul370 million dollars may sound like a lot, but its not, the cost of production of an modern game can go easy to something like 200~250 millionsA modern AAA game, sure. I doubt most indie games (of which there are vastly more than AAA games) cost more than a few million to develop, at most. I see this a lot, that people conflate "modern game" == "AAA game", and it bugs me no end. There are tons of modern indie games that came out this year.
Quoting: PhiladelphusA modern AAA game, sure. I doubt most indie games (of which there are vastly more than AAA games) cost more than a few million to develop
omg i say the words AAA and Triple A or blockbuster all the freaking time, i cant believe i forgot right now.
on the other hand, people always complain when i use those terms.
Quoting: ZlopezIt's sad to see that most of the big companies are giving more money to marketing than actual development. I understand that you need marketing so the market is aware of the product, but the product itself should have some quality and not only good advertisement.
actually, many games are expensive to make too, i forgot to mention that about 75% of the budget is marketing, in the case of GTA5 it was 100 millions but only because at the scale they did their marketing it was impossible to put more money into it than they already put. (i mean, if some one didnt purchased the game already with their marketing than this person would not buy for any reason no matter how many ads they see)
that said, i think many companies already invest in their game as much as they can, puting more people at the project would not translate into more quality, i would just make the management more of an hell than it already is, i think the reason why a lot of games launched with tons of bugs has more to do with poor management than not puting enough money into it.
there are exceptions of course, nintendo games dont seem to be the type of game with an huge cost of production, they make simpler graphics but with a gameplay that is very polished instead of focusing on cuting edge graphics, they can invest more than they do but dont.
and gamefreak is lazy as hell, they can put a LOT more effort into their games.
i cant comment in many individual cases, i didnt played much in the last 10 years.
See more from me