Valve -Steam Machines and Linux Gaming NOT Dead

heatlesssun said:
If only a couple of percent of your sales come from Linux though, the development and support efforts can easily eat that up.
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Ding... you just hit on the exact reason Valve spends money developing Linux things.

The point of burning the money is so that game developers need not.

If you develop your game right now in say Unreal Engine... or Unity or any of the major engines, they are cross platform. You don't have to make major changes to your game to publish it on MacOS/IOS/Android/Linux. If you used DX code mainly you are going to have to do porting which yes is more expensive and tends to be a pain in the backside. If you however used Vulcan code... and a major engine. With very very little work you can easily release your title on 5-6 platforms instead of one.

That is what Valve has been spending money on. If as you say windows ever gets locked down... boom Linux is ready to go. If that doesn't happen and Macs see a surge in gaming use, same thing the industry can shift that way and Valve will profit. People also forget that there is a steam mobile.... all the tech they are developing to ensure the industry is cross platform and not locked to stupid DX also helps steam in that market. The day isn't here yet but 5-10 years from now its very possible that the same games we play on our PCs will be running on our phones and tablets... if that day comes Valve will be set to profit either way thanks to spending money on open APIs ect today.
 
ChadD said:
Ding... you just hit on the exact reason Valve spends money developing Linux things.

The point of burning the money is so that game developers need not.

If you develop your game right now in say Unreal Engine... or Unity or any of the major engines, they are cross platform. You don't have to make major changes to your game to publish it on MacOS/IOS/Android/Linux. If you used DX code mainly you are going to have to do porting which yes is more expensive and tends to be a pain in the backside. If you however used Vulcan code... and a major engine. With very very little work you can easily release your title on 5-6 platforms instead of one.

That is what Valve has been spending money on. If as you say windows ever gets locked down... boom Linux is ready to go. If that doesn't happen and Macs see a surge in gaming use, same thing the industry can shift that way and Valve will profit. People also forget that there is a steam mobile.... all the tech they are developing to ensure the industry is cross platform and not locked to stupid DX also helps steam in that market. The day isn't here yet but 5-10 years from now its very possible that the same games we play on our PCs will be running on our phones and tablets... if that day comes Valve will be set to profit either way thanks to spending money on open APIs ect today.
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While cross platforms APIs and tools can make cross platform delivery much more cost effective a developer still has to build, test and support each native client. If one of those platforms is only pulling in a couple of percent of the sales, it can be an iffy proposition when it comes to profit for mid-range and smaller titles. If the volume were there developers would be much more active with Linux development.
 
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heatlesssun said:
While cross platforms APIs and tools can make cross platform delivery much more cost effective a developer still has to build, test and support each native client. If one of those platforms is only pulling in a couple of percent of the sales, it can be an iffy proposition when it comes to profit for mid-range and smaller titles. If the volume were there developers would be much more active with Linux development.
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Games are not mission critical bit of software. Its not like any game developer has a dedicated 24/7 support line or any such non sense. The costs of support are not as show stopping as your making out. Even on big AAA titles support rarely means you can expect speedy personal support... propery written cross platform software means any platform gets the same patches. Reducing "support costs" is also a big part of what Valve has done with SteamOS. They have given developers a single target system, no game developer is obligated to ensure their game runs on Arch, SUSE, Redhat or anything other then SteamOS with its set Ubuntu base. (although most game developers have chosen to include Ubuntu in their support list). The few developers that claim "support costs" as an excuse are being disingenuous, or they are mis informed and perhaps both.
 
LOL at Valve trying to pump up its dying business before take over by their new Chinese masters, Tencent.
 
ChadD said:
Games are not mission critical bit of software. Its not like any game developer has a dedicated 24/7 support line or any such non sense. The costs of support are not as show stopping as your making out. Even on big AAA titles support rarely means you can expect speedy personal support... propery written cross platform software means any platform gets the same patches. Reducing "support costs" is also a big part of what Valve has done with SteamOS. They have given developers a single target system, no game developer is obligated to ensure their game runs on Arch, SUSE, Redhat or anything other then SteamOS with its set Ubuntu base. (although most game developers have chosen to include Ubuntu in their support list). The few developers that claim "support costs" as an excuse are being disingenuous, or they are mis informed and perhaps both.
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It all boils down to money for a commercial developer. As it stands now there are simply not enough Linux gamers to make it worth while for most game developers otherwise I'm certain that there'd be a lot more Linux titles out there. Maybe cross platform tools make it almost free to do Linux versions and in turn gets more gamers on Linux.

Where this stands now five years into Linux support for Steam is at best a mixed bag. Steam Machines failed and anything sold these days as a PC gaming device, it's all Windows 10 and OEMs don't even fool with offering Steam OS or Linux at all on gaming machines. Yes, there are more Linux games than ever but Windows gaming has exploded and in absolute terms Linux is further behind in content than five years ago.

Stuff happens, things can change. Maybe Vulkan will usher in a grand era for Linux gaming. We're two decades into the "Year of the Linux desktop" meme. Linux has it's strengths but I just don't think that many people really care. They just want to use their devices, run their apps, play their games, etc. If it Windows, Linux, an abacus, it just doesn't matter to most.
 
jardows said:
And this statement is based on what? You do know that Atari has a new owner and that is what sparked this project, don't you? What information on the specs have you happened to get that tells you it will be a bad performer? Or are you just assuming it is going to be nothing more than than the Atari equivalent of the NES Classic?

Anyway, in it's current state, the AtariVCS is just as capable as a Steambox ;)
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They got yanked out of bankruptcy by Billionsoft, a company based out of Hong Kong. They also pulled Accolade out of the garbage bin. However, it is still Infograms. As far as I can tell, the same people are still in charge. Since they were pulled out of bankruptcy in 2015 this is what they've put out:

Alone in the Dark: Illumination - Crap
Rollar Coaster Tycoon World - Crap.
Pridefest - A soulless cash in on the LGBT market
Lunar Lander mobile - Okay I guess.
Rollar Coaster Tycoon Touch - An insult to the franchise.

From what has been shown of the switch RTC game that looks like shit as well.

What about Atari screams trustworthy to people? And lets not forget that Billionsoft's investment in Accolade brought us that new Bubsy game. Remember how that turned out? Sure seems like Billionsoft is interested in making sure their investments produce quality products.
 
heatlesssun said:
It all boils down to money for a commercial developer. As it stands now there are simply not enough Linux gamers to make it worth while for most game developers otherwise I'm certain that there'd be a lot more Linux titles out there. Maybe cross platform tools make it almost free to do Linux versions and in turn gets more gamers on Linux.

Where this stands now five years into Linux support for Steam is at best a mixed bag. Steam Machines failed and anything sold these days as a PC gaming device, it's all Windows 10 and OEMs don't even fool with offering Steam OS or Linux at all on gaming machines. Yes, there are more Linux games than ever but Windows gaming has exploded and in absolute terms Linux is further behind in content than five years ago.

Stuff happens, things can change. Maybe Vulkan will usher in a grand era for Linux gaming. We're two decades into the "Year of the Linux desktop" meme. Linux has it's strengths but I just don't think that many people really care. They just want to use their devices, run their apps, play their games, etc. If it Windows, Linux, an abacus, it just doesn't matter to most.
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I'll leave it here. You can believe what you like. Tripling the number of Linux games in 3 years is hardly a failure. You can believe what you like anyone with an impartial eye can see less then 1000 titles to 3000 in 3 years isn't failure. Factoring in the average development time of 3 years for even AA titles I think its safe to say Linux gaming is on the up swing and Valve is for sure the biggest part of that.
 
ChadD said:
I'll leave it here. You can believe what you like. Tripling the number of Linux games in 3 years is hardly a failure. You can believe what you like anyone with an impartial eye can see less then 1000 titles to 3000 in 3 years isn't failure. Factoring in the average development time of 3 years for even AA titles I think its safe to say Linux gaming is on the up swing and Valve is for sure the biggest part of that.
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I said it was a mixed bag at best. Steam Machines failed and virtually no other PC gaming devices sold with Steam OS/Linux on them in retail. Yes there's content and coming from nothing is good. And the content growth would look decent even compared to Windows a couple of years ago but then game content growth on Windows in the last couple years took off even by Windows standards. Windows got over 2000 new titles on Steam in just Q1 2018. And the well below one percent Linux user base on the Steam Hardware Survey that at one point was getting close to 2%. VR users for March 2018 are showing at a higher rate than Linux users.

I seriously doubt this was what Valve was hoping for five years into this unless Valve didn't have any expectations.
 
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About a year left to go, think they will have Gearbox make HL3... Gordon Freeman Forever...
 
Captain we've detected an unknown life form with indeterminate life signs,
 
heatlesssun said:
That could be a very expensive thing to do with nothing in it for Valve. The fear that Microsoft would lock Windows out of 3rd party software distribution was obviously a key motivation for Steam OS/Boxes in the first place. If that ever did happen (and I just don't see what's in it for Microsoft to give up its enormous ecosystem edge on the desktop) then Valve wouldn't have much choice.
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Remember Microsoft has the Xbox brand, and Steam does compete directly against that brand, as does Origin and other similar services. So there's incentive to take out Steam, and Windows ecosystem is so big that nobody would notice that Steam has been replaced by the Windows Store.

Of course if Valve fails to build itself a backup ecosystem, then they're down right fucked. This is the reason why Google created Android and pumps what must be millions of dollars for something that doesn't make them money. Google could go ahead and close the source code for Android and sell licenses to phone makers to use Android, and just collect tons of money off the Play Store. But they don't cause Android exists for the purpose of protecting the all mighty Google search engine against Microsoft and Apple. Google does a lot of things that's free to protect their search engine.

I don't see that happening. It's unrealistic to expect that level of compatibility if developers never test for it.
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It'll happen, much like how a PS4 and Switch emulators will exist in time. The problem is that the developers behind Wine are also working on CrossOver, which is Wine you pay for. In fact that's why Wine-Staging is so valuable because it has nearly a thousand patches that are usually found in CrossOver to increase performance and compatibility in Wine. So Wine itself is just a beta test for CrossOver, and therefore not nearly as good as the final product.

At some point someone will probably fork it, and make it better. But again, that's going to take a while unless something is drastically done.
 
BloodyIron said:
WIth the scale that STEAM is, a percentage or two is literally tens to hundreds of thousands of users. That's plenty of an audience to make money from.
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Fun fact, there's more games on Linux with Steam than there is on Xbox One and PS4. Just not all the best games like Fallout 4 and Dark Souls 3.
 
heatlesssun said:
While cross platforms APIs and tools can make cross platform delivery much more cost effective a developer still has to build, test and support each native client. If one of those platforms is only pulling in a couple of percent of the sales, it can be an iffy proposition when it comes to profit for mid-range and smaller titles. If the volume were there developers would be much more active with Linux development.
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Sadly I have to agree. I use a cross platform compiler, but still you can't just write a generic program in windows and expect it to run in Mac/Linux (let alone Android etc.) there is almost always some testing modification to do, it may work fine but look awful etc.. A lot easier than writing a whole new program from scratch but not a 0 investment.
 
I find discussion of Windows gaming completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand and have absolutely no desire to participate in such discussion for that exact reason. However, I find this quote by Valve to be interesting:

We also have other Linux initiatives in the pipe that we're not quite ready to talk about yet
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Hmmm...I wonder what that could be!
 
Mazzspeed said:
Hmmm...I wonder what that could be!
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Hopefully a replacement for SteamOS in the form of Ubuntu Steam version.

Steam machines where never going to be big sellers... who wants to buy a PC that can Only game. If MS released a Xbox branded PC that could game and only game it wouldn't gain any more traction then the steam machine did.

I think its time for them to make the Ubuntu marriage official and let Ubuntu release a LTS version of Ubuntu with integrated Steam and Big Picture mode by default... yet still have access to a proper Gnome desktop.
 
Mazzspeed said:
I find discussion of Windows gaming completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand and have absolutely no desire to participate in such discussion for that exact reason. However, I find this quote by Valve to be interesting:
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When a company has to give public reassurances that everything is "a ok" with one of its offerings because of broad public sense of failure, naturally people are going to talk about more successful competitors and make comparisons.

Mazzspeed said:
Hmmm...I wonder what that could be!
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We'll see. Valve constantly makes these kinds of teases often with little follow through.
 
heatlesssun said:
When a company has to give public reassurances that everything is "a ok" with one of its offerings because of broad public sense of failure, naturally people are going to talk about more successful competitors and make comparisons.
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Yes sort of like MS admitting windows development is on the back burner... but don't worry everything is a ok.
 
ChadD said:
Steam machines where never going to be big sellers... who wants to buy a PC that can Only game. If MS released a Xbox branded PC that could game and only game it wouldn't gain any more traction then the steam machine did.
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I see your point but that really isn't the problem with Steam Machines. A better analogy would be an Xbox that can only play 20% of Xbox games.
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ChadD said:
Yes sort of like MS admitting windows development is on the back burner... but don't worry everything is a ok.
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And today Microsoft just released two Redstone 5 builds, one for desktop and HoloLens. Windows still makes Microsoft billions each year but yeah, desktop OSes aren't the priority anymore because there's just not much overall growth. Maybe this is a bad thing for Windows, I never said it couldn't be. But the future of Linux isn't on the desktop either. It's in mobile, AI and the cloud.
 
heatlesssun said:

I see your point but that really isn't the problem with Steam Machines. A better analogy would be an Xbox that can only play 20% of Xbox games. ​
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Don't be silly xbox is a console >.< It won't run windows it won't run linux it does nothing but play games and that is fine.

Steam machines cost more then a console... they are PCs that can easily run Linux or Windows.

No the analogy is exactly that MS selling gaming PCs with an Xbox brand and an Xbox gaming only version of windows. (as SteamOS is a gaming only Linux distro)

No one would buy those either... I'm not shocked Steam machines didn't sell like crazy. However I don't believe selling at on of them was ever Valves goal... pushing the software industry away from DirectX/Widnows only compilers was the idea... and I believe that is exactly what has happened. DX12 is mostly DOA, developers are slowly waking up and realizing locking themselves into MS APIs is a hassle.

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heatlesssun said:
And today Microsoft just released two Redstone 5 builds, one for desktop and HoloLens. Windows still makes Microsoft billions each year but yeah, desktop OSes aren't the priority anymore because there's just not much overall growth. Maybe this is a bad thing for Windows, I never said it couldn't be. But the future of Linux isn't on the desktop either. It's in mobile, AI and the cloud.
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Do you think I was looking to argue with you about Windows in yet another thread ?

I was doing nothing more then pointing out the sillyness of you arguing a point in one current thread and the complete opposite in another.
 
ChadD said:
Don't be silly xbox is a console >.< It won't run windows it won't run linux it does nothing but play games and that is fine.

Steam machines cost more then a console... they are PCs that can easily run Linux or Windows.

No the analogy is exactly that MS selling gaming PCs with an Xbox brand and an Xbox gaming only version of windows. (as SteamOS is a gaming only Linux distro)

No one would buy those either... I'm not shocked Steam machines didn't sell like crazy. However I don't believe selling at on of them was ever Valves goal... pushing the software industry away from DirectX/Widnows only compilers was the idea... and I believe that is exactly what has happened. DX12 is mostly DOA, developers are slowly waking up and realizing locking themselves into MS APIs is a hassle.
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Again, I wasn't disagreeing with your point. But yeah, the big problem for Steam Machines (to be called that they have to run Steam OS) was that they only run 20% of the games on Steam. That right there regardless of anything else is why they failed. What the hell is the point of a Steam machine that doesn't run the overwhelming majority of games on Steam? Just like Windows RT. A Windows device that doesn't actually run virtually any Windows programs.

But sure there were other problems, the biggest one being that there are shitloads of pre-built PCs with more options anyway.​
 
Valve had a real opportunity with the Steam Machines to have a couple of "blessed" configurations. Why is this important? It's the power of consistency. Consoles can get as good as performance out of older hardware as newer hardware because there are literally tens of millions of identical machines out there which means devs can hand tune code where it makes sense. If they would have had a couple of standard configs and if they could have gotten some volume out there, you could see game developers maybe doing the same kinds of optimizations.

While it's fun to mix and match parts to build my ultimate dream machine, it's a nightmare for developers since there are billions of different hardware/software combinations out there than can screw with your code in unpredictable and non-intuitive ways.

TANSTAAFL and all that...
 
The Steam Machine was never, ever supposed to compete with the Xbox. Once again, Microsoft has absolutely no relevance in this discussion. The Steam machine was intended to be more of a proof of concept in an attempt to promote gaming under Linux as opposed to being a rip roaring success.
 
Mazzspeed said:
The Steam Machine was never, ever supposed to compete with the Xbox. Once again, Microsoft has absolutely no relevance in this discussion. The Steam machine was intended to be more of a proof of concept in an attempt to promote gaming under Linux as opposed to being a rip roaring success.
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Gabe Newell himself bought Windows into the middle of Steam OS/Machines when he gave his famous "Windows 8 is a catastrophe for developers" speech. Steam's business even now is virtually all based on Windows and everyone gets what it would mean to Valve if Microsoft were to ever close off Windows entirely to only Microsoft's store. So I have absolutely no problem with Valve working to promote its own platform that's not controlled by Microsoft.

The Steam Machine was more than a proof of concept, it was a way to get Linux devices out there for gaming because no one was selling gaming PCs with Linux on them. You're never going to get a large number of Linux PC gamers though DIY PC gamers. I'm not saying that Valve was expecting a hit with Steam Machines but they to be going for more than what's materialized in the last five years. Valve just seems to be taking as little risk and not investing a whole lot in this effort. Which is understandable, Linux isn't going to make them any directly with their business model, they just need gamers to sell to and it doesn't matter the platform. And I feel that's kind of how they are going about it. Dabble here, dabble there, hope for the best.
 
heatlesssun said:
Gabe Newell himself bought Windows into the middle of Steam OS/Machines when he gave his famous "Windows 8 is a catastrophe for developers" speech. Steam's business even now is virtually all based on Windows and everyone gets what it would mean to Valve if Microsoft were to ever close off Windows entirely to only Microsoft's store. So I have absolutely no problem with Valve working to promote its own platform that's not controlled by Microsoft.

The Steam Machine was more than a proof of concept, it was a way to get Linux devices out there for gaming because no one was selling gaming PCs with Linux on them. You're never going to get a large number of Linux PC gamers though DIY PC gamers. I'm not saying that Valve was expecting a hit with Steam Machines but they to be going for more than what's materialized in the last five years. Valve just seems to be taking as little risk and not investing a whole lot in this effort. Which is understandable, Linux isn't going to make them any directly with their business model, they just need gamers to sell to and it doesn't matter the platform. And I feel that's kind of how they are going about it. Dabble here, dabble there, hope for the best.
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Don't try to twist this into a Windows discussion.

Valve has done a lot for Linux and gaming, far more than anyone before them with far more success than anyone before them. Good on Valve. There really isn't any more to discuss and Microsoft has no relevance in this discussion. Steam boxes were not simply an attempt to sell gaming PC's with Linux on them, SteamOS was essentially the common platform for which all Linux games were compatible. As it turned out, fragmentation wasn't an issue and SteamOS wasn't really necessary. However a great many people I've encountered really seem to like SteamOS and it's simplistic big picture mode.
 
Mazzspeed said:
Don't try to twist this into a Windows discussion.

Valve has done a lot for Linux and gaming, far more than anyone before them with far more success than anyone before them. Good on Valve. There really isn't any more to discuss and Microsoft has no relevance in this discussion. Steam boxes were not simply an attempt to sell gaming PC's with Linux on them, SteamOS was essentially the common platform for which all Linux games were compatible. As it turned out, fragmentation wasn't an issue and SteamOS wasn't really necessary. However a great many people I've encountered really seem to like SteamOS and it's simplistic big picture mode.
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Sure, Valve has definitely done far more than any other company/group/person in the past 10 years for linux gaming.

But at the same time, look at the steam survey. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

So even after the launch of the obviously not selling steam machines, steam os, Linux accounts for a whopping .33% of their userbase. What's really funny is if I check archive.org for historical results.. way back in Aug 2016 Linux was at .81%. Aug. 2015 it was .89%.Aug 2014 it was 1.11%

Wait... so even according to Valve's own public statistics, even if the number of linux users may have grown, the actual marketshare is 1/3 of what it was since mid 2014? https://web.archive.org/web/20140805173727/http://store.steampowered.com:80/hwsurvey

Of course what Valve isn't going to public discuss is the average amount of money spent by a windows/max/linux user, but even if the linux users spent 2-3x as much as a windows user in the steam store that still wouldn't equate to 1%.The linux marketshare according to valve has collapsed on itself even with their efforts. Obviously the steam survey can be considered more accurate than just asking people off the street, but in any other polling method that would be nowhere near outside the margin of error. Linux customers on steam are apparently a statistical anomaly that can be ignored.
 
The Steam usage survey is useless and really doesn't highlight anything in relation to usage statistics due to the fact that Valve fail to mention a very vital statistic that makes percentages worthwhile with anything even remotely resembling any form of accuracy.

Microsoft just announced that Windows is going to be taking a lower priority as opposed to their cloud and office products, now I don't believe in claiming that any OS is necessarily better than the other and for that reason I believe that mentioning what OS you personally prefer is pointless as everyones needs differ wildly, but assuming I am a Windows user - I really want Linux gaming to evolve to the point whereby, in the off chance that Windows becomes an OS I don't like, Linux is a viable option I can switch to with a minimum of hassle.

The reality of the situation is that Valve is making that more of a possibility today than anyone before them and the platform is still growing. This is a great thing considering the PC as something more than just a Windows box.
 
Mazzspeed said:
The Steam usage survey is useless and really doesn't highlight anything in relation to usage statistics due to the fact that Valve fail to mention a very vital statistic that makes percentages worthwhile with anything even remotely resembling any form of accuracy.
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Granted, many Linux gamers believe these figures are distorted or inaccurate, but long story short most Linux game studios don't tend to report their Linux customer base at more than 1% except in some rare and extreme cases.
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https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Steam-March-2018-0.33

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Mazzspeed said:
The Steam usage survey is useless and really doesn't highlight anything in relation to usage statistics due to the fact that Valve fail to mention a very vital statistic that makes percentages worthwhile with anything even remotely resembling any form of accuracy.

Microsoft just announced that Windows is going to be taking a lower priority as opposed to their cloud and office products, now I don't believe in claiming that any OS is necessarily better than the other and for that reason I believe that mentioning what OS you personally prefer is pointless as everyones needs differ wildly, but assuming I am a Windows user - I really want Linux gaming to evolve to the point whereby, in the off chance that Windows becomes an OS I don't like, Linux is a viable option I can switch to with a minimum of hassle.

The reality of the situation is that Valve is making that more of a possibility today than anyone before them and the platform is still growing. This is a great thing considering the PC as something more than just a Windows box.
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Ok, and what statistic would that be? Seriously, let us know. Obviously you can't tell us the numbers, but what statistic are you talking about? I pointed out the obvious missing statistic is dollars spent per user, which is what matters to Valve's bottom line. But at the same time even if we assume the linux users love spending three times as much as a windows user on average, it still wouldn't bring that number up to anything of statistical significance.

I'm not against gaming on linux, it'd be great if there were more platforms to game on. But to think that the userbase really matters in the grand scheme of things when it's not even half a percent? Come on. Even the OSX userbase on steam has enough of a leg to stand on to say that they might actually count for something. But even if you added the Linux userbase to the OSX users it doesn't bring them up to 2% when that Linux user market share has been shrinking for years. Again, marketshare which is what those charts show, does not equate to individual users. But when you have to look at market share with regards to spending your money in an attempt to make money you can either assume that the Linux segment is a massive untapped vertical(which has been claimed about everything regarding Linux on the desktop for 25 years now), or the more realistic approach... there are few customers to make money from.
 
heatlesssun said:
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As is the case with most Linux steam users... I ain't never been asked to take no survey. So as I say BS... and even if we really are only 1% of all the gamerz in de world... who cares. The one and only time I got a request for a survey was when I was logged in on the wives windows box. lol

Bottom line is as has been discused by Valve themselves the idea is to foster openness in the gaming industry. Having an entire industry developing software with 3-5 year dev cycles for ONE API that is closed sourced and can be locked off at any time is beyond stupid. EVERYONE windows gamers included should be thankful that Valve spends the cash they do keeping full time Linux code monkeys around pushing cross platform open API gaming tech. Sure we can wish Valve would spend more of their warchest on the effort. Regardless facts are facts they are the only major player spending money on Specific Linux game tech development. The only other major companies contributing in that field are the GPU / CPU companies and most of that work is indirect as their efforts are mostly aimed at Pro compute/3D pipes. (Linux is the superior OS when it comes to pro OpenGL software... and that is the market that most of the non Valve development money goes)
 
ChadD said:
As is the case with most Linux steam users... I ain't never been asked to take no survey. So as I say BS... and even if we really are only 1% of all the gamerz in de world... who cares. The one and only time I got a request for a survey was when I was logged in on the wives windows box. lol

Bottom line is as has been discused by Valve themselves the idea is to foster openness in the gaming industry. Having an entire industry developing software with 3-5 year dev cycles for ONE API that is closed sourced and can be locked off at any time is beyond stupid. EVERYONE windows gamers included should be thankful that Valve spends the cash they do keeping full time Linux code monkeys around pushing cross platform open API gaming tech. Sure we can wish Valve would spend more of their warchest on the effort. Regardless facts are facts they are the only major player spending money on Specific Linux game tech development. The only other major companies contributing in that field are the GPU / CPU companies and most of that work is indirect as their efforts are mostly aimed at Pro compute/3D pipes. (Linux is the superior OS when it comes to pro OpenGL software... and that is the market that most of the non Valve development money goes)
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And any survey/poll with a half percent margin of error is basically a miracle, so as stated... you're statistically irrelevant to valve.
 
Merc1138 said:
Ok, and what statistic would that be? Seriously, let us know. Obviously you can't tell us the numbers, but what statistic are you talking about? I pointed out the obvious missing statistic is dollars spent per user, which is what matters to Valve's bottom line. But at the same time even if we assume the linux users love spending three times as much as a windows user on average, it still wouldn't bring that number up to anything of statistical significance.

I'm not against gaming on linux, it'd be great if there were more platforms to game on. But to think that the userbase really matters in the grand scheme of things when it's not even half a percent? Come on. Even the OSX userbase on steam has enough of a leg to stand on to say that they might actually count for something. But even if you added the Linux userbase to the OSX users it doesn't bring them up to 2% when that Linux user market share has been shrinking for years. Again, marketshare which is what those charts show, does not equate to individual users. But when you have to look at market share with regards to spending your money in an attempt to make money you can either assume that the Linux segment is a massive untapped vertical(which has been claimed about everything regarding Linux on the desktop for 25 years now), or the more realistic approach... there are few customers to make money from.
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No one has anything even remotely resembling accurate user base figures, without that figure the percentages are a percentage of what exactly?!

Why respond in such a butthurt fashion? I'm discussing this calmly, no need to respond with attitude. Linux is steadily making headway on OSX, I've gamed under both and the experience under Linux is vastly better as sleek and sexy doesn't make for a terribly effective gaming machine. If developers are continuing to develop for Linux than they must see some value in the platform, otherwise the number of titles wouldn't be growing. Obviously the Steam statistics aren't painting a full picture.
 
Mazzspeed said:
No one has anything even remotely resembling accurate user base figures, without that figure the percentages are a percentage of what exactly?!

Why respond in such a butthurt fashion? I'm discussing this calmly, no need to respond with attitude. Linux is steadily making headway on OSX, I've gamed under both and the experience under Linux is vastly better as sleek and sexy doesn't make for a terribly effective gaming machine. If developers are continuing to develop for Linux than they must see some value in the platform, otherwise the number of titles wouldn't be growing. Obviously the Steam statistics aren't painting a full picture.
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Steadily making headway? And you're saying that I replied in a butthurt fashion?

Even if we assume that valve's marketshare statistics for linux are off by an order of magnitude, that would still only make the user base 3.3%. This is the entire issue with attempting to consider such a small figure to be worthwhile, because you have to assume that there is such a massive error on their part to even come up with a significant percentage. A reasonable assumption would be that the numbers could realistically be 2-3 times higher, but that still doesn't amount to a full percentage point.

Valve apparently doesn't want to bother marketing steam machines.
Even with years and years of development it's still a small vocal minority on enthusiast websites making statements like yours.
Your comments along with ChadD are the same sort of commentary that people have been reading on websites, and in magazines about the growing Linux userbase longer than some enthusiasts have been alive at this point(really, this exact same conversation has been happening repeatedly since usenet arguments in the 90s) and after decades there is little change.

Lets ignore steam for a moment. Heck... another common website used for these statistics statcounter. Again, having a margin of error of a half percent or less would be amazing, yet from Jan '09 to current the Linux count has been floating around .6 to a whopping 1.45% currently. Even "Unknown" is at 3% and you can't assume that's what all of the linux users must be falling into. http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-200901-201803

People keep repeating that there's no accurate stats, you know why? Because it's too small to count, to the point of not being statistically relevant. Yet no one can ever show any numbers that are contrary to this, and having a vocal minority on a forum doesn't do that.

When you are running a company, you either target that 1% userbase knowing they have limited options thus you have an ok chance at turning a profit, or you ignore the statistical anomaly and don't bother spending money developing for potentially less than 5% of your potential customer base. If even OSX users can accept the fact that their marketshare is as small as it is, why can't the linux users?

Developers and publishers, tend to go where the money is.
 
Merc1138 said:
Steadily making headway? And you're saying that I replied in a butthurt fashion?

Even if we assume that valve's marketshare statistics for linux are off by an order of magnitude, that would still only make the user base 3.3%. This is the entire issue with attempting to consider such a small figure to be worthwhile, because you have to assume that there is such a massive error on their part to even come up with a significant percentage. A reasonable assumption would be that the numbers could realistically be 2-3 times higher, but that still doesn't amount to a full percentage point.

Valve apparently doesn't want to bother marketing steam machines.
Even with years and years of development it's still a small vocal minority on enthusiast websites making statements like yours.
Your comments along with ChadD are the same sort of commentary that people have been reading on websites, and in magazines about the growing Linux userbase longer than some enthusiasts have been alive at this point(really, this exact same conversation has been happening repeatedly since usenet arguments in the 90s) and after decades there is little change.

Lets ignore steam for a moment. Heck... another common website used for these statistics statcounter. Again, having a margin of error of a half percent or less would be amazing, yet from Jan '09 to current the Linux count has been floating around .6 to a whopping 1.45% currently. Even "Unknown" is at 3% and you can't assume that's what all of the linux users must be falling into. http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-200901-201803

People keep repeating that there's no accurate stats, you know why? Because it's too small to count, to the point of not being statistically relevant. Yet no one can ever show any numbers that are contrary to this, and having a vocal minority on a forum doesn't do that.

When you are running a company, you either target that 1% userbase knowing they have limited options thus you have an ok chance at turning a profit, or you ignore the statistical anomaly and don't bother spending money developing for potentially less than 5% of your potential customer base. If even OSX users can accept the fact that their marketshare is as small as it is, why can't the linux users?

Developers and publishers, tend to go where the money is.
Click to expand...

i haven't read your post. If you can't reply in a mature fashion free of bias than I'm really not interested. I've made my points, I have in no way even mentioned a preference for any OS so I have no idea just what your opening comment is aimed at and my points are perfectly valid.

One thing I will say is that if we have say 150,000 Linux users on Steam and the overall user base grows but we still have 150,000 Linux users on steam, than the percentage will appear to drop as the overall pie is now larger. Without accurate user base figures, those percentages mean very little in relation to overall adoption.
 
Mazzspeed said:
i haven't read your post. If you can't reply in a mature fashion free of bias than I'm really not interested. I've made my points, I have in no way even mentioned a preference for any OS so I have no idea just what your opening comment is aimed at and my points are perfectly valid.

One thing I will say is that if we have say 150,000 Linux users on Steam and the overall user base grows but we still have 150,000 Linux users on steam, than the percentage will appear to drop as the overall pie is now larger. Without accurate user base figures, those percentages mean very little in relation to overall adoption.
Click to expand...

I already pointed out there is a difference between user count, and marketshare.

Pointing out that the margin of error for the polling data is likely higher than the listed marketshare for linux users is not a "bias".

Pointing out another statistic that has effectively been a flatline for over a decade is not a "bias".

Asking you to post some sort of data to back up the idea that Valve's published data is somehow flawed is not a "bias", however your refusal to do so could be shown as evidence of your own bias.

Pointing out that it requires a polling error of an entire order of magnitude to make the marketshare within Valve's published statistics actually be a meaningful percentage is not a "bias".

The fact that you've actually done the childish thing of stating that you're not even going to bother reading my post that you're replying to, because I'm the one being immature? You pull some 150,000 user figure out of nowhere, based on an assumption gathered from who knows what, and you claim to have made a point? I point to statistics, and you just make up random numbers yeah... I'm pretty sure the number of people who would consider that "valid" would still likely be a higher percentage than what Valve is claiming the percentage of their users running linux happens to be.
 
Merc here is the simple truth.

It doesn't matter if Linux gaming numbers where a true and honest 0.000%

Valve would continue spending money on Linux development... and here is why.

Its not about Linux, its about open gaming.... and being prepared for the eventual end of windows as you know it. Its why a lot of the big game engines have baked in Linux support. Unreal didn't bake Linux support in because hey look its 0.22 and it grew to 0.23 this month lets get support done.

Everyone is waiting for the eventual shoe to drop and its simple... that would be Google.

ChromeOS is a toe in the water and a shot at the cloud os. Its only a matter of time before Google decides to go after the last end user platform they don't control from the silicone up. (the PC) That could be a ChromeOS + with some form of gaming support... or more unlikely it could be a more tradtiional Linux distro such as the one Google has been using internally for years. However if you think game developers who plan game launches 5-6 years out in some cases aren't thinking about how they change gears if need be your crazy. Valve has been laying the tracks. Some developers are already seeing the fruits of that sort of with Vulcan being used now for a ton of high end Android games, Valve R&D money is helping that along.

Will Linux as we know it ever over take Windows on a PC for average buy it at Best buy type folks. Nope I doubt it... as always those types of machines need a name recognized OS to sell to plebs. I have no doubt MS has been trying so hard to make a Cloud / store locked version of windows a thing... as they see the real battle coming. ChromeOS right now is painfully cloud based, but there is nothing stopping Google from adding more local Linux bits and pushing it out to OEMS for use on higher end hardware.

Anyway my point is simple... Linux market share is mostly irrelevant to Valves long term plans imo. Steam machines haven't sold like crazy no... but I wouldn't bet against ChromeOS+ Steam approved gaming laptops down the road.
 
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