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Linux Gamers Make Up ~2% Of Valve's Steam Users

135 points by velodrome 14y ago

dman 14y ago
I hope that steam breaks the myth that Linux users will not pay for software.
- networked 14y ago
  The Humble Bundle's statistics [1] have offered an argument against that perception for a while. On average a Linux user pays $11.02 for a Humble Bundle, while Windows users pay $5.93 and Mac users pay $8.43. Linux and Mac users are also overrepresented among the Humble Bundle's buyers (having made 8% and 11% of the total number of purchases respectively) compared to the gaming community at large. That said, I'm not sure how widespread this myth really is outside of select Internet communities. Enterprise Linux users are known to pay for their software (even if somewhat indirectly, e.g., through support contracts), and the biggest myth concerning desktop Linux users seems to be "huh, are there any?". [1] See http://cheesetalks.twolofbees.com/humble/ http://cheesetalks.twolofbees.com/humble/ for a great report.
  - recoiledsnake 14y ago
    That doesn't really tell us anything because Windows users have much more choice as to where their gaming money goes compared to Linux users and Mac users. Same goes with the overrepresentation.
    - onosendai 14y ago
      I don't think that was the OP's point. The conclusion that is usually drawn from the myth that Linux users aren't willing to pay for software, is that there isn't a viable market there. There clearly is, however, as the HIB has demonstrated. Even if you ignore the overrepresentation of Linux users, the fact stands that when you look at total revenues, Linux rivals OS X.
      - lazerwalker 14y ago
        HIB definitely demonstrates that Linux users are willing to pay for software (which is awesome!), but I'm not sure that there's enough data to use that to conclude there's a viable market there. We know that the HIB has drawn in significant revenue from Linux customers, but that doesn't give us the faintest clue how profitable they are (remember, that average $11 Linux sale has to be shared with multiple developers and charities). You might take the fact that they keep offering more HIBs as a sign that Humble Bundle (the company) considers its humble bundles (the promotions) to be successes, but it's not a guarantee that the metric they're using to define success is profitability. They've raised nearly $4.5 million in funding, so they're not strapped for cash; it's very possible they're more focused on using the bundles as a marketing channel than as an actual revenue stream, convincing consumers to trust the Humble Bundle brand name and developers/publishers that they're a meaningful distribution platform. tl;dr: the fact that a successful venture-funded startup is selling software to Linux users, when we don't know if they're profitable or what their long-term strategy is, doesn't necessarily imply that there's a viable market for selling software to Linux users.
    - networked 14y ago
      It does contradict the claim that "Linux users will not pay for software" directly. You also have to note that while Windows users are more likely to own the games prior to any given Humble Bundle sale (esp. given that many games were first ported to Linux specifically for a Bundle) at the time of the sale they are unlikely to find a better deal on any of the games either separately or as a package, even games unlocked for beating the average payment. That would make buying those games from the Bundle a rational choice if you are a Windows user and want even one of them. Of course, the above argument doesn't negates the fact that Windows gamers have more choice. For them the opportunity cost of paying more for a HIB could be not buying another game on Steam, GOG or elsewhere. I guess in the end it all hinges on how much the buyers (all of them: Windows, Linux and Mac users) are interested in playing those games specifically vs. playing any games at all. If they are interested specifically in the titles sold, then yes, the statistics would mean that Linux users are more generous. Otherwise it's probably more about opportunity cost.
  - dman 14y ago
    1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc30UVB3oMs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc30UVB3oMs 2) http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/08/john-carmack-linux-is-still-not-viable.html http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/08/john-carmack-linux-is-sti... 3) http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/60550 http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/60550 4) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4339949 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4339949
  - hdra 14y ago
    That doesn't really mean much. There are more people who are willing to pay less when the total population is much larger. I personally bought the bundles for Windows, but put in Linux and Windows for the survey, just for an attempt to make a tiny dent in the stats.
  - Camillo 14y ago
    I think most Linux users see HIB as a form of activism or donation (specifically to show that games on Linux can be profitable) rather than as a purchase. Heck, I bet most people who get HIB games (on Linux or otherwise) never even play them.
    - armored_mammal 14y ago
      I only play one or two games from most of the bundles, though every bundle I've gotten has had one or two that made it worth it. And like most other Linux users I've usually paid around $10. But I haven't bought any bundle that didn't have at least a game or two that I knew I'd actually play a bit.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
norswap 14y ago
Relevant xkcd comic: http://xkcd.com/605/ http://xkcd.com/605/
- sp332 14y ago
  I'm excited about this because I assumed all the people who wanted Steam on Linux would download it immediately, leaving no room for growth in the second month. The fact that it's still growing is a good sign.
speeder 14y ago
I expect this to increase.easier than OSX because OSX machines are inherently expensive. Also I know many persons that don't used Linux only because there was no steam for it.
- SG- 14y ago
  I'm not sure I understand what machine cost has to do with this since there are already quite a bit more OSX machines out there than Linux ones. I'm actually surprised the OSX 'share' is that low, my guess is Mac gamers are happy buying their games off the Mac App store for now (most are available there).
  - officemonkey 14y ago
    It's funny, because you put the words "Mac" and "gamers" together. Most Mac gamers will have a bootcamp partition running windows and Steam.
- officemonkey 14y ago
  As a long-time Steam user on OSX (I have the TF2 earbuds to prove it,) the games available on OSX and Linux are a paltry offering (one of the top selling games right now on OSX is "Left 4 Dead 2" released in 2009.) There are few top-tier games. Borderlands 2 is the only recent game that comes to mind. It became so discouraging that I built a PC gaming machine. I hope for a day where I can buy new games on an OSX or Linux machine, but I do not plan on holding my breath.
  - stusmall 14y ago
    The part that kills me about Borderlands 2 on OSX is when they finally released it you can't play with your character from steam... you haven't to make a new one.
antonios 14y ago
Even better, I dare say that Steam's Linux market share has experienced infinite growth since February (where it was 0% exactly). Amazing, really.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  It wasn't 0%, there are plenty of wine users.
- yxhuvud 14y ago
  Huh? The beta has been going on for quite a while and there are no reason for the beta users not to count when it comes to market share.
dthunt 14y ago
I'm actually really frustrated by Steam's linux port. If you're not running Ubuntu it's freakishly inconvenient to get running. Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining that Steam doesn't have a gentoo package that is maintained by them. I'm pissed off that they call apt-get directly from the application, don't make it easy to discover steam's requirements to run, have a confusing maze of launch scripts, and a bunch of other major no-no's. The ubuntu desktop is an easy access market, with some big upsides from Steam's perspective. But there's a long history out there of vendors successfully handling a broadly usable linux port without pulling this kind of nonsense (attempting to maintain dependencies system-wide without even asking if it's okay!), and a great number of linux users are happy to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH and rebuild libpng or whatever for any special application requirements if they're not running your 'officially supported' distribution. That having been said, I'm playing Cave Story right now on linux.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - charliesome 14y ago
    Are you serious?
- gizmo686 14y ago
  The current license agreement explicitly allows repackaging of the client to work and be distributed on other distros.
  - ajross 14y ago
    It's a technical thing, not a legal one. The current client is blindly, stupidly tied to the Ubuntu 32 bit distribution in ways that are dumb even for a binary package on Ubuntu.
    - simoncion 14y ago
      I'm running the Steam client on 64-bit Ubuntu 12.10, and didn't do anything special to get it installed. Why do you say that it's tied to the 32-bit version of Ubuntu?
bryanlarsen 14y ago
Rather than the silly "doubling" headline, there's another number that's much more interesting: that Linux users are 2% of steam users and OSX is 3%. Compare those numbers with total share: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system.... OSX is at 7% and Linux at 1%. It'll be really interesting to see where the Steam numbers end up when they stabilize.
- SG- 14y ago
  It would be interesting to see purchase reports and not just usage as a developer too.
- Laremere 14y ago
  I would think by trends a gamer is more likely to a more technical person. I love linux but frankly I know many people who can barely use a mac, and linux is beyond their technical capabilities without much learning. So I'd currently guess that linux will end up with a higher percentage on steam stats than other stats. Also, many people once choose windows solely to play games. Linux platforms offer lots of potential once the kinks get worked out and the critical tipping point is passed, which steam may just have crossed with a single step.
  - LukeShu 14y ago
    Many distributions have made huge steps in being usable for non-technical people. My mom and GF both use Trisquel without problems (well, fewer problems than most Windows users I know). Of course, it does take a technical person to install it for them.
  - donniezazen 14y ago
    I find Windows 8 to be more complicated than Ubuntu. Most people won't be able to figure out gestures and it becomes way to cumbersome to use Windows 8 on a non-touch screen setup. On the other hand Ubuntu has a dash, type the name of software and it's there. As simple as it can get.
kibwen 14y ago
Here are Steam's December Linux numbers that I recorded back in January: OS Share Delta Ubuntu 12.10 64 bit 0.29% +0.29% Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS 64 bit 0.26% +0.26% Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS 0.13% +0.13% Ubuntu 12.10 0.12% +0.12% Other 0.71% +0.14% Note that this was the first month that Linux use was recorded, which means that the delta for "Other" is almost certainly entirely Linux (for example, there was no "Linux Mint" option then). Here's this month's numbers, for easy comparison: OS Share Delta Ubuntu 12.10 64 bit 0.71% +0.28% Ubuntu 12.10 0.38% +0.19% Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS 64 bit 0.31% +0.31% Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS 0.20% +0.20% Linux Mint 14 Nadia 64 bit 0.17% +0.17% Linux 64 bit 0.14% +0.14% Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS 64 bit 0.11% -0.22% Other 0.82% +0.06% BTW, if you're a Steam user on Linux, don't neglect to fill out the hardware survey if you get selected. It really is an awesome resource for determining the capabilities of the average gaming computer. There's also a handful of strange results... is Firefox really six times more popular than Chrome on Windows? Are there really people still gaming on 640x480 monitors?
- LukeShu 14y ago
  My guess is that the 640x480 monitors are standard-definition TVs.
- CJefferson 14y ago
  I have a mini Mac attached to a 640x480 projector. Sometimes I manually set the computer to a higher resolution (which the projector will display) but it often sets itself back to 640x480. Also if that is the display resolution, there is no need for games to render any more pixels :)
- philo23 14y ago
  I'd bet on the 640x480 monitors are people using virtual machines to run Linux just to install Team Fortress 2 and get the unique item that's only available using Linux to play . Similar to the iPod Ear Buds for using a Mac to play. I'd imagine that's skewing a lot of the stats on Linux at the moment to be honest.
- 14y ago
nirvana 14y ago
Steam's support on OS X is the suck. I don't know what the experience is like on Linux, but given there is less competition from better stores on Linux I wouldn't be surprised to see Steam be a big hit on Linux. As for me, after being a steam user for years, but given the fact that I haven't been able to play team fortress for 5 months now despite playing it for years, in the future, I'll use the Mac App Store.
- velodrome 14y ago
  My experience using Steam on linux has been pretty good. The only thing is that the trailers/videos do not work because I run on 64-bit (there is a workaround for this). As for the games, a lot of hit and miss. Team Fortress works great! However, a lot of other games require workarounds even though they have official linux support. Luckily, the Steam Linux community is quite strong and these workarounds were pretty easy to find. I really wish Ubuntu and other linux distros can make an app store (or software center) of similar quality. It's really a joy to use.
  - simplon 14y ago
    i agree.. had a great experience playing TF on Linux.. works really well on Linux Mint
- benihana 14y ago
  Presumably you can just boot into windows on your Mac, right?
  - marssaxman 14y ago
    Yuck.
- lreeves 14y ago
  What do you find problematic on the Mac version? My office has weekly TF2 games and a bunch of us use Steam on OSX. The only gripe I have is that it doesn't remember my password, but other than that it seems pretty much identical to the Windows counterpart.
dominicmauro 14y ago
Valve was giving away a promotional item in Team Fortress 2 for users who logged into the game from a Linux machine. The last time they did this, for users who logged in from a Mac, the promotional item became a kind of in-game de facto currency. There were lots of users logging in once from an Ubuntu VM instance for the item; it'll be interesting to see if this growth continues now that the item giveaway is over. For reference: http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Tux http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Tux
- stordoff 14y ago
  > The last time they did this, for users who logged in from a Mac, the promotional item became a kind of in-game de facto currency. FWIW, this won't happen again, as the Tux items are not tradable.
  - philo23 14y ago
    They're likely to become tradable soon as the promotion is now over and other promotional items become tradable after their promotion is over. Still, I personally doubt they'll be worth much unlike the Ear Buds you got from playing on a Mac purely because at the time trading didn't exist. So no one went out of their way to get them, leaving only the people who actually had Mac with them, making them highly sought after because there's only so many of them. Not to mention it's outside of most peoples knowledge to run an OS X virtual machine. While with this Linux item its been expected to be worth a lot and making a Linux virtual machine is relatively a simple task, meaning now there's a lot more Tux's to go around. A similar thing to the Ear Buds also happened with a promotional item for "Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse" in the past called "Max's Severed Head" (http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Max%27s_Severed_Head http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Max%27s_Severed_Head) which rocketed in price when trading became available due to the fact there's a limited amount of them and they don't randomly drop while playing. They're currently worth around 26 keys which is ~£50 if you buy the keys directly from the store, but keys can be found cheaper and the price of course changes all the time.
- notthemessiah 14y ago
  Although this is true, the item giveaway probably did not affect the results of the Valve hardware survey. For this to happen, those VM users or temporary users would have had to have been on it at the time of the survey, so the numbers we see are likely genuine adopters.
cabirum 14y ago
Most of these are VMs to get a new TF2 hat, anyway.
anoncow 14y ago
More games please. Many of the bundle games are also not available.
- s_kilk 14y ago
  My recommendation for the day is Kentucky Route Zero. It runs beautifully on my mid-range Ubuntu laptop and frankly it has been one of the most astounding gaming experiences I've ever had.
  - jebblue 14y ago
    I was thinking of trying that and Serious Sam 3. CS Source and TF2 have run great!
- stoic 14y ago
  How many times have you heard someone say "I'd use Linux for my desktop if it could run $GAME"? This is the biggest reason why there hasn't been as much adoption -- a great many games are simply not yet ported, or their ports haven't been made ready for Steam distribution. If a gamer's "workflow" is complicated even a little bit, such as requiring a reboot back into Windows to play one game, people will take the path of least resistance and just stay booted to Windows. This is what I currently do on my rMBP during heavy gaming sessions, because games like NBA 2K13, Skyrim, and Rift aren't yet supported in MacOS/Linux. Once the top 50-100 games are ported, Linux desktop adoption will probably explode, correlated closely with the Steam market share held by Linux users, as the last bastion of excuses for using Windows finally fades away.
saosebastiao 14y ago
As someone who has absolutely zero interest in gaming, this is the most exciting news I have read on HN for a good month or so.
Nican 14y ago
I am curios to see what version of OpenGL people have.
- frozenport 14y ago
  server glx vendor string: SGI server glx version string: 1.4
YokoZar 14y ago
There have been a few occasion's where I've managed to pry the number of Wine users out of Valve over the years -- the Linux usage numbers look fairly similar. Unfortunately, there was a period of about a year or two where the hardware survey would crash under Wine, so the data is probably very biased against Wine users (even I learned not to opt in).
forrestthewoods 14y ago
Meh. The one and only question that matters is "how many Linux users would buy my game that would not have bought it on either OS X or Windows". That number is significantly smaller than 2%. I'm very excited at the prospects of SteamBox and can't wait to learn more. I'm not sure Steam on desktop linux will ever be meaningful. I do wonder what happens if Steambox comes out with some flavor of Linux included but installing Windows grants an automatic 20% performance increase due to drivers. Hell, I'd install Windows even if it were only a 5% increase.
- spacelizard 14y ago
  A naive look would make it seem that Steambox is vaporware (no pun intended).
- optymizer 14y ago
  Wasn't there a post form Valve that showed they can already get 20% improvement on Linux? Given that they're also working to improve the graphics drivers for Linux, I don't really see where that "automatic 20% performance increase" for Windows would come from. Sure, the driver itself might be 20% slower, but the Linux stack is already faster than the Windows stack AND there is room for improvement.
- r0s 14y ago
  That question doesn't matter at all, because that's the current status quo.
- armored_mammal 14y ago
  I think it's more likely that Linux will end up having a small performance benefit over Windows all other things being equal.
- Spittie 14y ago
  See http://www.fortressofdoors.com/2013/02/steam-linux-sale-results.html http://www.fortressofdoors.com/2013/02/steam-linux-sale-resu... They may just got lucky, but ~7% of their total sales comes from users running Linux. While it's not an huge number, it's still significant, and it's likely to grow in the future.
frozenport 14y ago
What percentage of Linux gamers are also Windows gamers? If P(Linux | Windows) = 1.0, we know steam grew operating complexity instead of business.
- _casperc 14y ago
  The way I understand it is that they are making an investment in Linux to allow their upcoming steam box to run Linux. Also it allows (or will allow) users to avoid using Windows just to be able to play games. This is a good thing all around.

135 points by velodrome 14y ago

dman 14y ago

I hope that steam breaks the myth that Linux users will not pay for software.

networked 14y ago
The Humble Bundle's statistics [1] have offered an argument against that perception for a while. On average a Linux user pays $11.02 for a Humble Bundle, while Windows users pay $5.93 and Mac users pay $8.43. Linux and Mac users are also overrepresented among the Humble Bundle's buyers (having made 8% and 11% of the total number of purchases respectively) compared to the gaming community at large. That said, I'm not sure how widespread this myth really is outside of select Internet communities. Enterprise Linux users are known to pay for their software (even if somewhat indirectly, e.g., through support contracts), and the biggest myth concerning desktop Linux users seems to be "huh, are there any?". [1] See http://cheesetalks.twolofbees.com/humble/ http://cheesetalks.twolofbees.com/humble/ for a great report.
- recoiledsnake 14y ago
  That doesn't really tell us anything because Windows users have much more choice as to where their gaming money goes compared to Linux users and Mac users. Same goes with the overrepresentation.
  - onosendai 14y ago
    I don't think that was the OP's point. The conclusion that is usually drawn from the myth that Linux users aren't willing to pay for software, is that there isn't a viable market there. There clearly is, however, as the HIB has demonstrated. Even if you ignore the overrepresentation of Linux users, the fact stands that when you look at total revenues, Linux rivals OS X.
    - lazerwalker 14y ago
      HIB definitely demonstrates that Linux users are willing to pay for software (which is awesome!), but I'm not sure that there's enough data to use that to conclude there's a viable market there. We know that the HIB has drawn in significant revenue from Linux customers, but that doesn't give us the faintest clue how profitable they are (remember, that average $11 Linux sale has to be shared with multiple developers and charities). You might take the fact that they keep offering more HIBs as a sign that Humble Bundle (the company) considers its humble bundles (the promotions) to be successes, but it's not a guarantee that the metric they're using to define success is profitability. They've raised nearly $4.5 million in funding, so they're not strapped for cash; it's very possible they're more focused on using the bundles as a marketing channel than as an actual revenue stream, convincing consumers to trust the Humble Bundle brand name and developers/publishers that they're a meaningful distribution platform. tl;dr: the fact that a successful venture-funded startup is selling software to Linux users, when we don't know if they're profitable or what their long-term strategy is, doesn't necessarily imply that there's a viable market for selling software to Linux users.
  - networked 14y ago
    It does contradict the claim that "Linux users will not pay for software" directly. You also have to note that while Windows users are more likely to own the games prior to any given Humble Bundle sale (esp. given that many games were first ported to Linux specifically for a Bundle) at the time of the sale they are unlikely to find a better deal on any of the games either separately or as a package, even games unlocked for beating the average payment. That would make buying those games from the Bundle a rational choice if you are a Windows user and want even one of them. Of course, the above argument doesn't negates the fact that Windows gamers have more choice. For them the opportunity cost of paying more for a HIB could be not buying another game on Steam, GOG or elsewhere. I guess in the end it all hinges on how much the buyers (all of them: Windows, Linux and Mac users) are interested in playing those games specifically vs. playing any games at all. If they are interested specifically in the titles sold, then yes, the statistics would mean that Linux users are more generous. Otherwise it's probably more about opportunity cost.
- dman 14y ago
  1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc30UVB3oMs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc30UVB3oMs 2) http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/08/john-carmack-linux-is-still-not-viable.html http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/08/john-carmack-linux-is-sti... 3) http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/60550 http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/60550 4) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4339949 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4339949
- hdra 14y ago
  That doesn't really mean much. There are more people who are willing to pay less when the total population is much larger. I personally bought the bundles for Windows, but put in Linux and Windows for the survey, just for an attempt to make a tiny dent in the stats.
- Camillo 14y ago
  I think most Linux users see HIB as a form of activism or donation (specifically to show that games on Linux can be profitable) rather than as a purchase. Heck, I bet most people who get HIB games (on Linux or otherwise) never even play them.
  - armored_mammal 14y ago
    I only play one or two games from most of the bundles, though every bundle I've gotten has had one or two that made it worth it. And like most other Linux users I've usually paid around $10. But I haven't bought any bundle that didn't have at least a game or two that I knew I'd actually play a bit.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

norswap 14y ago

Relevant xkcd comic: http://xkcd.com/605/ http://xkcd.com/605/

sp332 14y ago
I'm excited about this because I assumed all the people who wanted Steam on Linux would download it immediately, leaving no room for growth in the second month. The fact that it's still growing is a good sign.

speeder 14y ago

I expect this to increase.easier than OSX because OSX machines are inherently expensive. Also I know many persons that don't used Linux only because there was no steam for it.

SG- 14y ago
I'm not sure I understand what machine cost has to do with this since there are already quite a bit more OSX machines out there than Linux ones. I'm actually surprised the OSX 'share' is that low, my guess is Mac gamers are happy buying their games off the Mac App store for now (most are available there).
- officemonkey 14y ago
  It's funny, because you put the words "Mac" and "gamers" together. Most Mac gamers will have a bootcamp partition running windows and Steam.
officemonkey 14y ago
As a long-time Steam user on OSX (I have the TF2 earbuds to prove it,) the games available on OSX and Linux are a paltry offering (one of the top selling games right now on OSX is "Left 4 Dead 2" released in 2009.) There are few top-tier games. Borderlands 2 is the only recent game that comes to mind. It became so discouraging that I built a PC gaming machine. I hope for a day where I can buy new games on an OSX or Linux machine, but I do not plan on holding my breath.
- stusmall 14y ago
  The part that kills me about Borderlands 2 on OSX is when they finally released it you can't play with your character from steam... you haven't to make a new one.

antonios 14y ago

Even better, I dare say that Steam's Linux market share has experienced infinite growth since February (where it was 0% exactly). Amazing, really.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
It wasn't 0%, there are plenty of wine users.
yxhuvud 14y ago
Huh? The beta has been going on for quite a while and there are no reason for the beta users not to count when it comes to market share.

dthunt 14y ago

I'm actually really frustrated by Steam's linux port. If you're not running Ubuntu it's freakishly inconvenient to get running. Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining that Steam doesn't have a gentoo package that is maintained by them. I'm pissed off that they call apt-get directly from the application, don't make it easy to discover steam's requirements to run, have a confusing maze of launch scripts, and a bunch of other major no-no's. The ubuntu desktop is an easy access market, with some big upsides from Steam's perspective. But there's a long history out there of vendors successfully handling a broadly usable linux port without pulling this kind of nonsense (attempting to maintain dependencies system-wide without even asking if it's okay!), and a great number of linux users are happy to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH and rebuild libpng or whatever for any special application requirements if they're not running your 'officially supported' distribution. That having been said, I'm playing Cave Story right now on linux.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- charliesome 14y ago
  Are you serious?
gizmo686 14y ago
The current license agreement explicitly allows repackaging of the client to work and be distributed on other distros.
- ajross 14y ago
  It's a technical thing, not a legal one. The current client is blindly, stupidly tied to the Ubuntu 32 bit distribution in ways that are dumb even for a binary package on Ubuntu.
  - simoncion 14y ago
    I'm running the Steam client on 64-bit Ubuntu 12.10, and didn't do anything special to get it installed. Why do you say that it's tied to the 32-bit version of Ubuntu?

bryanlarsen 14y ago

Rather than the silly "doubling" headline, there's another number that's much more interesting: that Linux users are 2% of steam users and OSX is 3%. Compare those numbers with total share: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system.... OSX is at 7% and Linux at 1%. It'll be really interesting to see where the Steam numbers end up when they stabilize.

SG- 14y ago
It would be interesting to see purchase reports and not just usage as a developer too.
Laremere 14y ago
I would think by trends a gamer is more likely to a more technical person. I love linux but frankly I know many people who can barely use a mac, and linux is beyond their technical capabilities without much learning. So I'd currently guess that linux will end up with a higher percentage on steam stats than other stats. Also, many people once choose windows solely to play games. Linux platforms offer lots of potential once the kinks get worked out and the critical tipping point is passed, which steam may just have crossed with a single step.
- LukeShu 14y ago
  Many distributions have made huge steps in being usable for non-technical people. My mom and GF both use Trisquel without problems (well, fewer problems than most Windows users I know). Of course, it does take a technical person to install it for them.
- donniezazen 14y ago
  I find Windows 8 to be more complicated than Ubuntu. Most people won't be able to figure out gestures and it becomes way to cumbersome to use Windows 8 on a non-touch screen setup. On the other hand Ubuntu has a dash, type the name of software and it's there. As simple as it can get.

kibwen 14y ago

Here are Steam's December Linux numbers that I recorded back in January: OS Share Delta Ubuntu 12.10 64 bit 0.29% +0.29% Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS 64 bit 0.26% +0.26% Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS 0.13% +0.13% Ubuntu 12.10 0.12% +0.12% Other 0.71% +0.14% Note that this was the first month that Linux use was recorded, which means that the delta for "Other" is almost certainly entirely Linux (for example, there was no "Linux Mint" option then). Here's this month's numbers, for easy comparison: OS Share Delta Ubuntu 12.10 64 bit 0.71% +0.28% Ubuntu 12.10 0.38% +0.19% Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS 64 bit 0.31% +0.31% Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS 0.20% +0.20% Linux Mint 14 Nadia 64 bit 0.17% +0.17% Linux 64 bit 0.14% +0.14% Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS 64 bit 0.11% -0.22% Other 0.82% +0.06% BTW, if you're a Steam user on Linux, don't neglect to fill out the hardware survey if you get selected. It really is an awesome resource for determining the capabilities of the average gaming computer. There's also a handful of strange results... is Firefox really six times more popular than Chrome on Windows? Are there really people still gaming on 640x480 monitors?

LukeShu 14y ago
My guess is that the 640x480 monitors are standard-definition TVs.
CJefferson 14y ago
I have a mini Mac attached to a 640x480 projector. Sometimes I manually set the computer to a higher resolution (which the projector will display) but it often sets itself back to 640x480. Also if that is the display resolution, there is no need for games to render any more pixels :)
philo23 14y ago
I'd bet on the 640x480 monitors are people using virtual machines to run Linux just to install Team Fortress 2 and get the unique item that's only available using Linux to play . Similar to the iPod Ear Buds for using a Mac to play. I'd imagine that's skewing a lot of the stats on Linux at the moment to be honest.
14y ago

nirvana 14y ago

Steam's support on OS X is the suck. I don't know what the experience is like on Linux, but given there is less competition from better stores on Linux I wouldn't be surprised to see Steam be a big hit on Linux. As for me, after being a steam user for years, but given the fact that I haven't been able to play team fortress for 5 months now despite playing it for years, in the future, I'll use the Mac App Store.

velodrome 14y ago
My experience using Steam on linux has been pretty good. The only thing is that the trailers/videos do not work because I run on 64-bit (there is a workaround for this). As for the games, a lot of hit and miss. Team Fortress works great! However, a lot of other games require workarounds even though they have official linux support. Luckily, the Steam Linux community is quite strong and these workarounds were pretty easy to find. I really wish Ubuntu and other linux distros can make an app store (or software center) of similar quality. It's really a joy to use.
- simplon 14y ago
  i agree.. had a great experience playing TF on Linux.. works really well on Linux Mint
benihana 14y ago
Presumably you can just boot into windows on your Mac, right?
- marssaxman 14y ago
  Yuck.
lreeves 14y ago
What do you find problematic on the Mac version? My office has weekly TF2 games and a bunch of us use Steam on OSX. The only gripe I have is that it doesn't remember my password, but other than that it seems pretty much identical to the Windows counterpart.

dominicmauro 14y ago

Valve was giving away a promotional item in Team Fortress 2 for users who logged into the game from a Linux machine. The last time they did this, for users who logged in from a Mac, the promotional item became a kind of in-game de facto currency. There were lots of users logging in once from an Ubuntu VM instance for the item; it'll be interesting to see if this growth continues now that the item giveaway is over. For reference: http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Tux http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Tux

stordoff 14y ago
> The last time they did this, for users who logged in from a Mac, the promotional item became a kind of in-game de facto currency. FWIW, this won't happen again, as the Tux items are not tradable.
- philo23 14y ago
  They're likely to become tradable soon as the promotion is now over and other promotional items become tradable after their promotion is over. Still, I personally doubt they'll be worth much unlike the Ear Buds you got from playing on a Mac purely because at the time trading didn't exist. So no one went out of their way to get them, leaving only the people who actually had Mac with them, making them highly sought after because there's only so many of them. Not to mention it's outside of most peoples knowledge to run an OS X virtual machine. While with this Linux item its been expected to be worth a lot and making a Linux virtual machine is relatively a simple task, meaning now there's a lot more Tux's to go around. A similar thing to the Ear Buds also happened with a promotional item for "Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse" in the past called "Max's Severed Head" (http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Max%27s_Severed_Head http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Max%27s_Severed_Head) which rocketed in price when trading became available due to the fact there's a limited amount of them and they don't randomly drop while playing. They're currently worth around 26 keys which is ~£50 if you buy the keys directly from the store, but keys can be found cheaper and the price of course changes all the time.
notthemessiah 14y ago
Although this is true, the item giveaway probably did not affect the results of the Valve hardware survey. For this to happen, those VM users or temporary users would have had to have been on it at the time of the survey, so the numbers we see are likely genuine adopters.

cabirum 14y ago

Most of these are VMs to get a new TF2 hat, anyway.

anoncow 14y ago

More games please. Many of the bundle games are also not available.

s_kilk 14y ago
My recommendation for the day is Kentucky Route Zero. It runs beautifully on my mid-range Ubuntu laptop and frankly it has been one of the most astounding gaming experiences I've ever had.
- jebblue 14y ago
  I was thinking of trying that and Serious Sam 3. CS Source and TF2 have run great!
stoic 14y ago
How many times have you heard someone say "I'd use Linux for my desktop if it could run $GAME"? This is the biggest reason why there hasn't been as much adoption -- a great many games are simply not yet ported, or their ports haven't been made ready for Steam distribution. If a gamer's "workflow" is complicated even a little bit, such as requiring a reboot back into Windows to play one game, people will take the path of least resistance and just stay booted to Windows. This is what I currently do on my rMBP during heavy gaming sessions, because games like NBA 2K13, Skyrim, and Rift aren't yet supported in MacOS/Linux. Once the top 50-100 games are ported, Linux desktop adoption will probably explode, correlated closely with the Steam market share held by Linux users, as the last bastion of excuses for using Windows finally fades away.

saosebastiao 14y ago

As someone who has absolutely zero interest in gaming, this is the most exciting news I have read on HN for a good month or so.

Nican 14y ago

I am curios to see what version of OpenGL people have.

frozenport 14y ago
server glx vendor string: SGI server glx version string: 1.4

YokoZar 14y ago

There have been a few occasion's where I've managed to pry the number of Wine users out of Valve over the years -- the Linux usage numbers look fairly similar. Unfortunately, there was a period of about a year or two where the hardware survey would crash under Wine, so the data is probably very biased against Wine users (even I learned not to opt in).

forrestthewoods 14y ago

Meh. The one and only question that matters is "how many Linux users would buy my game that would not have bought it on either OS X or Windows". That number is significantly smaller than 2%. I'm very excited at the prospects of SteamBox and can't wait to learn more. I'm not sure Steam on desktop linux will ever be meaningful. I do wonder what happens if Steambox comes out with some flavor of Linux included but installing Windows grants an automatic 20% performance increase due to drivers. Hell, I'd install Windows even if it were only a 5% increase.

spacelizard 14y ago
A naive look would make it seem that Steambox is vaporware (no pun intended).
optymizer 14y ago
Wasn't there a post form Valve that showed they can already get 20% improvement on Linux? Given that they're also working to improve the graphics drivers for Linux, I don't really see where that "automatic 20% performance increase" for Windows would come from. Sure, the driver itself might be 20% slower, but the Linux stack is already faster than the Windows stack AND there is room for improvement.
r0s 14y ago
That question doesn't matter at all, because that's the current status quo.
armored_mammal 14y ago
I think it's more likely that Linux will end up having a small performance benefit over Windows all other things being equal.
Spittie 14y ago
See http://www.fortressofdoors.com/2013/02/steam-linux-sale-results.html http://www.fortressofdoors.com/2013/02/steam-linux-sale-resu... They may just got lucky, but ~7% of their total sales comes from users running Linux. While it's not an huge number, it's still significant, and it's likely to grow in the future.

frozenport 14y ago

What percentage of Linux gamers are also Windows gamers? If P(Linux | Windows) = 1.0, we know steam grew operating complexity instead of business.

_casperc 14y ago
The way I understand it is that they are making an investment in Linux to allow their upcoming steam box to run Linux. Also it allows (or will allow) users to avoid using Windows just to be able to play games. This is a good thing all around.