Steam: Gamers Are Abandoning Windows 10 in Huge Numbers

Megalith

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The latest stats from Steam show Windows 10 shedding a massive 17.38 percentage points, to give it 28.6 percent share. (The 64-bit version accounts for 28.23 percent, and the 32-bit version adds a tiny 0.37 percent.) Meanwhile, Windows 7 has gained a whopping 21.47 percentage points in the same month, climbing to 65.46 percent (63.60 percent for the 64-bit build, and 1.86 percent for the 32-bit edition).

It seems likely that at least a sizable portion of the change can be attributed to China's influence. According to the Language section of Steam’s survey, Simplified Chinese surged 26.83 percentage points to 56.37 percent in October, while English fell 13.40 percentage points to 21.24 percent. It seems reasonable, therefore, to assume that Chinese gamers running Windows 7 are responsible for much of the shift we’re seeing here.
 
If it's because of China, it's probably all pirated win 7. A lot harder to crack w10 activation?

Pretty much. AND, if you have a Dell computer you can use whatever Dell OEM image you want up to Windows 7 and it will see it as legitimate. I'm guessing it is the same for other OEMs as well.

Windows 10 isn't the same and the BIOS key is different so if you can only use a Windows 8/8.1 or 10 image on a system that originally came with it.

XP and 7 images just work.

Now why they wouldn't do the free upgrade to 10 if that was the case... hmmmm. Could most definitely be something to do with pirates Windows, although I have not looked into that for years.

Maybe there were a huge number of pirated copies of 10 in China and MS found a way to crack down on it.
 
No some has to do with min of the game that where working under Win 7 now don't work under Win 10 like not long ago my sister law sister go new system and min of her HOG (Hidden Object Games) would run so she had install Win 7
 
most likely due to windows 10 telemetry more than any notion that 10 is more difficult to pirate. and besides windows 7 is better for pc gaming how can a billion Chinese be wrong ??
 
If it's because of China, it's probably all pirated win 7. A lot harder to crack w10 activation?

If anything, 10 is easier since it will activate even with pirate keys, or just the accessibility bypass. Activation a non-issue either way, and if there was something compelling in 10, they would choose it.

It does say a lot about the sad state of the flagship OS when even thieves and pirates don't want it. It's continued to struggle even when basically offered free, and the only reason 10 has seen a small 4% gain since January is because it's preinstalled on new PCs and people don't have a choice.

The telemetry, draconian updates, useless cellphone oriented default apps and uninstallable Cortana/Edge/Store bloat continues to be cancerous for Windows 10 adoption.
 
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W10 Enterprise user here and I totally understand why gamers would prefer W7 over W10. I constantly get popups when I'm playing games "W10 wants to update", it tabs me out of my game and then I have to prevent it from updating, though it will bug me again a few hours later. Playing CS:GO or other competitive game is terrible on W10 and I'm really thinking about switching to W7 even though I'm on a 7700K which will probably be a pain in the butt to figure out. I don't know what Microsoft was thinking with their updates and telemetry shit, but it's making me rage hard.
 
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So gamers aren't abandoning it, there are just a ton of Chinese players now...
Because PUBG popularity explosion in China.

So W10 users aren't necessarily abandoning it in droves and switching to 7. But unfortunately for 10, if Windows 7 keeps adding users, the end result is the same. It's an opportunity cost for 10, an embarrassment for a flagship OS and reveals deep problems that MS is going to have to face.

More 7 userbase also ensures developers continue ignoring DX12 and remain focused on DX11.
 
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Sheesh. What did Steam do in China to get that huge a jump in Chinese customers?
 
On my win10 machine I play tons of games from 1990’s, something my Win7 machine had issues with.

Ok also have never been interrupted while gaming letting me know about a patch. Probably because I set mine up to check for patches at 1am.
 
Like which games exactly?

None of the games I currently play have any issues with win10
Deus Ex Invisible War non-GOG copy, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars with the later update. I need to test more, I've heard reports of more of this sort of thing.
 
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most likely due to windows 10 telemetry more than any notion that 10 is more difficult to pirate. and besides windows 7 is better for pc gaming how can a billion Chinese be wrong ??
Read the article no one cares about telemetry, what happened is the Chinese came online with PUBG, and not surprisingly a billion person market significantly shifted the normal. But hey everyone wants to use a statistic to prove their own soap box regardless of if it has any truth or not. Basically the title here at Hard is not just click bait, its more of a blatent lie as there is no 17% of people abandoning windows 10 its just millions of new windows 7 activations from a new untapped market.

If we are going to go down that route maybe we should also mentioned that Linux lost nearly half of its market share plundering down to 0.35%.

BTW if you look at the market and think about it this all makes sense. The Chinese are really just starting to wake up to gaming, so a game like PUBG that is slow and easy to digest and does not have an established over skilled userbase is great for millions of people who are wetting their feet in FPS gaming. This was the same exact scenario that allowed CS to blow up back at the end of the 90s.
 
That's the sad part right there. Sure, it can run DX12 games, but god knows how many 5-12 year old games it CAN'T run.

Not that many I'd think, but really games are going to break when going to a radically different OS. XP broke a lot of games, Vista broke a lot of games, 7 didn't do too much harm since it was based on Vista. At some point some level of backwards compatibility has to be let go in order for things to advance.
 
Read the article no one cares about telemetry, what happened is the Chinese came online with PUBG, and not surprisingly a billion person market significantly shifted the normal. But hey everyone wants to use a statistic to prove their own soap box regardless of if it has any truth or not. Basically the title here at Hard is not just click bait, its more of a blatent lie as there is no 17% of people abandoning windows 10 its just millions of new windows 7 activations from a new untapped market.

If we are going to go down that route maybe we should also mentioned that Linux lost nearly half of its market share plundering down to 0.35%.

BTW if you look at the market and think about it this all makes sense. The Chinese are really just starting to wake up to gaming, so a game like PUBG that is slow and easy to digest and does not have an established over skilled userbase is great for millions of people who are wetting their feet in FPS gaming. This was the same exact scenario that allowed CS to blow up back at the end of the 90s.

Nitpicking, its highly doubtful that these are new windows 7 activations, and the thing about "waking" up to gaming is bluntly wrong, these people were playing games way before PUBG, only they did not appear on the Steam Survey or in user numbers beacuse the games they play are not on Steam. MMOs, Overwatch, uses Battle.net, League of Legends, etc, etc.
 
Read the article no one cares about telemetry, what happened is the Chinese came online with PUBG, and not surprisingly a billion person market significantly shifted the normal. But hey everyone wants to use a statistic to prove their own soap box regardless of if it has any truth or not. Basically the title here at Hard is not just click bait, its more of a blatent lie as there is no 17% of people abandoning windows 10 its just millions of new windows 7 activations from a new untapped market.

If we are going to go down that route maybe we should also mentioned that Linux lost nearly half of its market share plundering down to 0.35%.

BTW if you look at the market and think about it this all makes sense. The Chinese are really just starting to wake up to gaming, so a game like PUBG that is slow and easy to digest and does not have an established over skilled userbase is great for millions of people who are wetting their feet in FPS gaming. This was the same exact scenario that allowed CS to blow up back at the end of the 90s.

PC gaming has been huge in China for several years. There are tons of places Chinese gamers can go and pay per hour to use a computer to play games. The only thing the Chinese market is starting to "wake up to" right now are modern consoles as China only recently started allowing Sony, MS, and Nintendo to sell their consoles. China is the biggest market on the planet for free-to-play MMOs and is the largest subscriber base for WoW. Chinese company Tencent is the largest video game publisher on the planet. So, no, China is not remotely "waking up" to gaming they've been awake to it for a long time and they have the potential to become as important to game developers as they are to Hollywood.
 
Deus Ex Invisible War non-GOG copy, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars with the later update. I need to test more, I've heard reports of more of this sort of thing.

damn, those games are over a decade old.
I know this may sound absurd, but have you ever thought of getting the console version?

Sure, most of us make fun of console graphics, but at least 10yr old consoles will run 10yr old games.
and if we're lucky, there's backwards compatibility with consoles
 
If it's because of China, it's probably all pirated win 7. A lot harder to crack w10 activation?
Now why they wouldn't do the free upgrade to 10 if that was the case... hmmmm. Could most definitely be something to do with pirates Windows, although I have not looked into that for years.

Maybe there were a huge number of pirated copies of 10 in China and MS found a way to crack down on it.
A simple KMS activator will do.
 
tetris42 said:
Sure, it can run DX12 games, but god knows how many 5-12 year old games it CAN'T run.
damn, those games are over a decade old.
I'm sensing not much coming from this discussion.

Those are just two quick examples. And telling me to spend more money get a console, get a duplicate copy of the game, with worse graphics and worse controls just doesn't sound like progress to me. The point isn't just those two games, those were quick examples; it's figuring out how much of my library Windows 10 is going to destroy with updates.
 
Not that many I'd think, but really games are going to break when going to a radically different OS. XP broke a lot of games, Vista broke a lot of games, 7 didn't do too much harm since it was based on Vista. At some point some level of backwards compatibility has to be let go in order for things to advance.
Then what's the answer to playing old PC games? Virtualization only takes you so far. Once you get into 3D accelerated ones with a heavier load that's not much of a solution.
 
Sorry, I use a modern computer. No Windows 7 for me

(I do have a VM of Windows 7 installed and this fucking window pops up repeatedly, it would drive me crazy as the actual OS).

microsoft-blocking-updates-windows-7-8.1.jpg
 
Then what's the answer to playing old PC games? Virtualization only takes you so far. Once you get into 3D accelerated ones with a heavier load that's not much of a solution.

Build or buy an old computer. That is the only reliable way to do it. You can't expect companies to keep legacy support forever.
 
Windows 10 sucks, IMO. Buggy, bloated, invasive, convoluted and redundant bad-looking UI...

Deus Ex Invisible War non-GOG copy, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars with the later update. I need to test more, I've heard reports of more of this sort of thing.

Of games that I've tried to play, attempting lots of troubleshooting and work-arounds, MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries, and one or two other games (I don't immediately recall which ones) also don't work on Windows 10.
 
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