7 ms·

Valve shows a drop in Linux gamers for march, but the numbers are questionable

31 points by satoshiiii 4y ago

jjoonathan 4y ago
Speaking of Linux gaming, how is HDR support coming along?
- goosedragons 4y ago
  It's begun at least: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Valve-HDR-Linux-Gaming-Begins https://www.phoronix.com/news/Valve-HDR-Linux-Gaming-Begins
  - ziml77 4y ago
    Love to see it. This is currently a big sticking point for me when it comes to using Linux on my desktop!
iLoveOncall 4y ago
After reading the article I don't see how the numbers are questionable at all. This seems more like a case of numbers that don't fit the narrative that the author wants to push rather than numbers that are not believable.
- smith7018 4y ago
  I have a Steam Deck and personally haven't played it much last month. The big releases were AAA games that generally ran poorly on the Deck. I imagine most gamers were like me and decided to play Hogwarts Legacy on their main PC or PS5.
- KyeRussell 4y ago
  Yeah. Anyone that’s even keeping an eye on this probably has an axe to grind.
- benjamg 4y ago
  I think the questionable but was referring to the fact Chinese users doubled this month which seems unlikely as they went from about a quarter of all steam users to about a half. That would be a lot of new people if at all accurate.
gjsman-1000 4y ago
I have a strong doubt that the same author calls the numbers “questionable” when the numbers go up…
- wankle 4y ago
  Because Windows at >90% of the world's entire personal computing market is totally OK.
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    That’s not what I said. I said the author is inconsistent with his framing: It’s a great thing if there’s an increase, “questionable” if there is a decline.
- IsTom 4y ago
  I don't know what else you'd call chinese jumping from 27% to 51% of all steam users in one month.
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    I think it’s because there have been a few hit games lately that don’t work with Proton; while China requires every game to now have CCP approval causing few (and late) launches. So, if the rest of the world is off playing new games and China isn’t…
    - thrdbndndn 4y ago
      Please, stop saying things you have no clue. There is nothing happened in recent months that would make such large change on China's end. The realistic number of Chinese steam user is always around 50% in recent years. If the previous survey has it only 20+%, it's simply wrong.
  - nottorp 4y ago
    That would explain the drop in linux numbers allright. They only do pirated Windows in China.
aftbit 4y ago
Anecdotally, my peak Linux gaming was during the pandemic. I played Warframe and Overwatch in Proton at least a few times a week. Now I mostly play Call of Duty DMZ, which does not run on Proton thanks to anti-cheat, so I play in Windows. I don't have a Steam Deck though. I don't know how much that drove the player numbers. I'll bet Linux gaming gets a bump when CS2 comes out.
- Jnr 4y ago
  Linux gaming for CS2 will be relevant only when major desktop environments (Gnome and KDE) fully implement Wayland screen tearing control and adaptive sync. Overall input lag on Linux is too high for competitive shooters.
  - aftbit 4y ago
    I'm curious about this. How do you reasonably measure input latency on Linux? Do you need hardware support? I am still on X11 with awesome-wm and no compositor, so I don't know much about how well Wayland handles things.
  - ziml77 4y ago
    Are there any articles or videos going into detail on this? That's unfortunate if true
rvz 4y ago
Perhaps that's the reality hitting the Linux folks such as Phoronix when as long as 'number go up' is it 'believable' but when it goes down it is 'questionable'. It can't be both at the same time from the same source. Choose one.
ealhad 4y ago
I reckon this analysis would benefit from absolute figures. A drop in market share doesn't necessarily mean less users if said market is experiencing a massive growth.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  I don’t think anyone who understands market share thinks that a drop in market share means fewer users. But it does mean that your product has stagnated and commercial interests are going to be focusing their energy elsewhere where it can have a more outsized ROI. A constant market share as the pie grows is great - it means your attractiveness as a platform is keeping up with overall growth. If someone needs a 2% growth to edge out competition, targeting Linux could be valuable. A shrinking market share means I should invest elsewhere. Linux has remained niche because you need to get about 5-10% to warrant commercial interests because there’s a non 0 cost porting to Linux and providing some level of support. Also your potential customers have to spend money which is less clear from these numbers who the Linux community fares vs others. For example iOS customers tend to be more valuable than android because they are typically higher income, there’s a lot of them in terms of market share and absolute numbers and spend more money on the App Store / in app than the typical android user.
thrdbndndn 4y ago
Steam Survey is never very reliable. They often have weird OS/Hardware stats, like GPU model etc. This specific issue, "the dramatic change of Chinese user" also has happened multiple times in recent years. I just had a glance at this newest report, https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw... In the very first item, it shows "Windows 11 64 bit 22.41% (change: -9.65%)" This obviously doesn't make any sense. It either suffers from small sample size, or a skewed one. My guess is Valve probably failed to deliver the surveys to players in an uniform, representative fashion. Either way, don't take it seriously.
- nimbius 4y ago
  is it possible to correct the data using kpi's from steamcharts? https://steamcharts.com/ https://steamcharts.com/
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
shp0ngle 4y ago
Why isn't the Steam Deck selling more? It seems like a strictly better version of Switch
- Tommstein 4y ago
  Created a Steam account a few weeks ago to buy one. Was promptly told I needed to do a bunch of stuff to verify I wasn't committing fraud (or something like that), including resending them a bunch of info they already had, plus a picture of my ID. Support personnel seemed to be hired based on their skills at being unhelpful smartasses. Promptly closed the account without awarding them a single thing they were demanding, ain't nobody got time for that shit.
- seabrookmx 4y ago
  Maybe for playing The Witcher 3. But I'd argue they're aimed at different audiences (hardcore vs casual gamer).
- Coffeewine 4y ago
  It’s not strictly better. It has many advantages, but it’s heavier, larger, hotter, louder and more expensive, without the ability to detach controllers. Not to mention it lacks the ability to easily play Nintendo titles. It’s better in many ways which many people care about, but it’s not strictly better.
- smith7018 4y ago
  As a SD owner, it's only a "better" version of the Switch through the eyes of Gamers. It's heftier, more expensive, has worse battery life, a worse screen, doesn't have the dock included, and doesn't have Nintendo's back catalog. The average person buying the Switch isn't looking to buy a Linux PC that may or may not support PC games; they want simplicity.
  - rafram 4y ago
    Yeah, it's hard to emphasize this enough - the Deck is absolutely huge. Photos and videos do not do justice to how huge it is. It takes up as much vertical space in a backpack as a small laptop does, and (with its case) it's much thicker than a laptop. I bought one and ended up returning it because I simply couldn't see myself ever taking it out of the house.
OscarCunningham 4y ago
I haven't run Arch Linux, but what I've heard is that you have to know what you're doing in order to run it. So I'm surprised it's the most popular Linux OS after SteamOS. Is it actually less difficult than I heard?
- vlovich123 4y ago
  There’s user friendly variants like Manjaro. Also you don’t technically have to know what you are doing. Their guide is very helpful at guiding you, but it’s all commands you have to type out on the command line until you get to a more GUI environment.
- nivenkos 4y ago
  I've been using it for about 12 years now. It was much rougher in the early days, as there were massive fundamental changes - adopting systemd, /lib becoming symlinks, etc. But now I wouldn't use anything else. I have my configurations synced with a Gitlab repo via chezmoi, and have a bootable customised USB stick built with ALMA - so I can easily set up the same system on different machines. In that time I've used different set-ups - dwm on an 11" netbook (could only have one app per workspace and they had to be full-screen), xmonad and awesome-wm for a bit, and now i3. One issue to note on the Steam Deck though is that it's immutable by default. So atm to install the xone drivers for example, you have to enable system mutability and reinstall them after every system update. But it's so nice having something that is up-to-date - e.g. for kernel hardware support, bug fixes, etc. but also won't change much unless you want it to. I even use it on my work computer now since my company allows it, and it's so much better than losing hours to intrusive updates on Mac (or Windows).
- marcus_holmes 4y ago
  I absolutely do not know what I am doing, and managed to get an Arch Linux setup working on a laptop. It's complicated, but the Arch Linux docs are fantastic. Didn't try gaming on it, though - I have a Steam Deck for that ;) Though I can plug in a keyboard, mouse and monitor and switch to desktop mode on the deck if I need to work, so maybe I'll just use that as my laptop now
- Retr0id 4y ago
ActionHank 4y ago
Just wanted to give kudos to the community and Valve for just how great the gaming experience is on Linux right now. Over the weekend I tried a game that had a native Linux build. Loads of bugs. Switched to the windows one running under proton, no bugs.
senectus1 4y ago
heh, right when I'm just considering swapping to linux for my gaming machine

31 points by satoshiiii 4y ago

jjoonathan 4y ago

Speaking of Linux gaming, how is HDR support coming along?

goosedragons 4y ago
It's begun at least: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Valve-HDR-Linux-Gaming-Begins https://www.phoronix.com/news/Valve-HDR-Linux-Gaming-Begins
- ziml77 4y ago
  Love to see it. This is currently a big sticking point for me when it comes to using Linux on my desktop!

iLoveOncall 4y ago

After reading the article I don't see how the numbers are questionable at all. This seems more like a case of numbers that don't fit the narrative that the author wants to push rather than numbers that are not believable.

smith7018 4y ago
I have a Steam Deck and personally haven't played it much last month. The big releases were AAA games that generally ran poorly on the Deck. I imagine most gamers were like me and decided to play Hogwarts Legacy on their main PC or PS5.
KyeRussell 4y ago
Yeah. Anyone that’s even keeping an eye on this probably has an axe to grind.
benjamg 4y ago
I think the questionable but was referring to the fact Chinese users doubled this month which seems unlikely as they went from about a quarter of all steam users to about a half. That would be a lot of new people if at all accurate.

gjsman-1000 4y ago

I have a strong doubt that the same author calls the numbers “questionable” when the numbers go up…

wankle 4y ago
Because Windows at >90% of the world's entire personal computing market is totally OK.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  That’s not what I said. I said the author is inconsistent with his framing: It’s a great thing if there’s an increase, “questionable” if there is a decline.
IsTom 4y ago
I don't know what else you'd call chinese jumping from 27% to 51% of all steam users in one month.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  I think it’s because there have been a few hit games lately that don’t work with Proton; while China requires every game to now have CCP approval causing few (and late) launches. So, if the rest of the world is off playing new games and China isn’t…
  - thrdbndndn 4y ago
    Please, stop saying things you have no clue. There is nothing happened in recent months that would make such large change on China's end. The realistic number of Chinese steam user is always around 50% in recent years. If the previous survey has it only 20+%, it's simply wrong.
- nottorp 4y ago
  That would explain the drop in linux numbers allright. They only do pirated Windows in China.

aftbit 4y ago

Anecdotally, my peak Linux gaming was during the pandemic. I played Warframe and Overwatch in Proton at least a few times a week. Now I mostly play Call of Duty DMZ, which does not run on Proton thanks to anti-cheat, so I play in Windows. I don't have a Steam Deck though. I don't know how much that drove the player numbers. I'll bet Linux gaming gets a bump when CS2 comes out.

Jnr 4y ago
Linux gaming for CS2 will be relevant only when major desktop environments (Gnome and KDE) fully implement Wayland screen tearing control and adaptive sync. Overall input lag on Linux is too high for competitive shooters.
- aftbit 4y ago
  I'm curious about this. How do you reasonably measure input latency on Linux? Do you need hardware support? I am still on X11 with awesome-wm and no compositor, so I don't know much about how well Wayland handles things.
- ziml77 4y ago
  Are there any articles or videos going into detail on this? That's unfortunate if true

rvz 4y ago

Perhaps that's the reality hitting the Linux folks such as Phoronix when as long as 'number go up' is it 'believable' but when it goes down it is 'questionable'. It can't be both at the same time from the same source. Choose one.

ealhad 4y ago

I reckon this analysis would benefit from absolute figures. A drop in market share doesn't necessarily mean less users if said market is experiencing a massive growth.

vlovich123 4y ago
I don’t think anyone who understands market share thinks that a drop in market share means fewer users. But it does mean that your product has stagnated and commercial interests are going to be focusing their energy elsewhere where it can have a more outsized ROI. A constant market share as the pie grows is great - it means your attractiveness as a platform is keeping up with overall growth. If someone needs a 2% growth to edge out competition, targeting Linux could be valuable. A shrinking market share means I should invest elsewhere. Linux has remained niche because you need to get about 5-10% to warrant commercial interests because there’s a non 0 cost porting to Linux and providing some level of support. Also your potential customers have to spend money which is less clear from these numbers who the Linux community fares vs others. For example iOS customers tend to be more valuable than android because they are typically higher income, there’s a lot of them in terms of market share and absolute numbers and spend more money on the App Store / in app than the typical android user.

thrdbndndn 4y ago

Steam Survey is never very reliable. They often have weird OS/Hardware stats, like GPU model etc. This specific issue, "the dramatic change of Chinese user" also has happened multiple times in recent years. I just had a glance at this newest report, https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw... In the very first item, it shows "Windows 11 64 bit 22.41% (change: -9.65%)" This obviously doesn't make any sense. It either suffers from small sample size, or a skewed one. My guess is Valve probably failed to deliver the surveys to players in an uniform, representative fashion. Either way, don't take it seriously.

nimbius 4y ago
is it possible to correct the data using kpi's from steamcharts? https://steamcharts.com/ https://steamcharts.com/
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

shp0ngle 4y ago

Why isn't the Steam Deck selling more? It seems like a strictly better version of Switch

Tommstein 4y ago
Created a Steam account a few weeks ago to buy one. Was promptly told I needed to do a bunch of stuff to verify I wasn't committing fraud (or something like that), including resending them a bunch of info they already had, plus a picture of my ID. Support personnel seemed to be hired based on their skills at being unhelpful smartasses. Promptly closed the account without awarding them a single thing they were demanding, ain't nobody got time for that shit.
seabrookmx 4y ago
Maybe for playing The Witcher 3. But I'd argue they're aimed at different audiences (hardcore vs casual gamer).
Coffeewine 4y ago
It’s not strictly better. It has many advantages, but it’s heavier, larger, hotter, louder and more expensive, without the ability to detach controllers. Not to mention it lacks the ability to easily play Nintendo titles. It’s better in many ways which many people care about, but it’s not strictly better.
smith7018 4y ago
As a SD owner, it's only a "better" version of the Switch through the eyes of Gamers. It's heftier, more expensive, has worse battery life, a worse screen, doesn't have the dock included, and doesn't have Nintendo's back catalog. The average person buying the Switch isn't looking to buy a Linux PC that may or may not support PC games; they want simplicity.
- rafram 4y ago
  Yeah, it's hard to emphasize this enough - the Deck is absolutely huge. Photos and videos do not do justice to how huge it is. It takes up as much vertical space in a backpack as a small laptop does, and (with its case) it's much thicker than a laptop. I bought one and ended up returning it because I simply couldn't see myself ever taking it out of the house.

OscarCunningham 4y ago

I haven't run Arch Linux, but what I've heard is that you have to know what you're doing in order to run it. So I'm surprised it's the most popular Linux OS after SteamOS. Is it actually less difficult than I heard?

vlovich123 4y ago
There’s user friendly variants like Manjaro. Also you don’t technically have to know what you are doing. Their guide is very helpful at guiding you, but it’s all commands you have to type out on the command line until you get to a more GUI environment.
nivenkos 4y ago
I've been using it for about 12 years now. It was much rougher in the early days, as there were massive fundamental changes - adopting systemd, /lib becoming symlinks, etc. But now I wouldn't use anything else. I have my configurations synced with a Gitlab repo via chezmoi, and have a bootable customised USB stick built with ALMA - so I can easily set up the same system on different machines. In that time I've used different set-ups - dwm on an 11" netbook (could only have one app per workspace and they had to be full-screen), xmonad and awesome-wm for a bit, and now i3. One issue to note on the Steam Deck though is that it's immutable by default. So atm to install the xone drivers for example, you have to enable system mutability and reinstall them after every system update. But it's so nice having something that is up-to-date - e.g. for kernel hardware support, bug fixes, etc. but also won't change much unless you want it to. I even use it on my work computer now since my company allows it, and it's so much better than losing hours to intrusive updates on Mac (or Windows).
marcus_holmes 4y ago
I absolutely do not know what I am doing, and managed to get an Arch Linux setup working on a laptop. It's complicated, but the Arch Linux docs are fantastic. Didn't try gaming on it, though - I have a Steam Deck for that ;) Though I can plug in a keyboard, mouse and monitor and switch to desktop mode on the deck if I need to work, so maybe I'll just use that as my laptop now
Retr0id 4y ago

ActionHank 4y ago

Just wanted to give kudos to the community and Valve for just how great the gaming experience is on Linux right now. Over the weekend I tried a game that had a native Linux build. Loads of bugs. Switched to the windows one running under proton, no bugs.

senectus1 4y ago

heh, right when I'm just considering swapping to linux for my gaming machine