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Dropsy has such great reviews so far, but I have to admit I'm pushed away by the art style. Not because it's bad, but because to me it "feels" very much like any number of much more cynical animations and games where things turn dark and generally awful. I see art like that, and I'm spending all my time waiting for the other shoe to drop, for someone to reveal that life is shit and everyone is going to take advantage of everyone else. Everything I hear about the game tells me it's just the opposite, but I have trouble not making that association.

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Devolver Digital is on itch.io now, nice.

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Guys, stop trying to convince yourselves that we're significantly bigger than 1-2%. We are not, there's not a single statistics anywhere in the world (browser stats, client stats, workplace stats, whatever stats) that indicates that the Linux desktop in general surpasses 2%. Not one. The only communities we are bigger, are in certain professional science, educational and computing communities.

Now why on earth should Linux be anything different as a gaming platform. It's an absurd claim. In fact we should be amazed we even reached the first 1%.

Let there be no doubt: We need (as in: absolutely fully depend on) the Steam machines to succeed in order to change this in the short term. Without a success of the Steam Machines we may look at a decade ahead where we struggle with reaching even 5%, let alone beating the Mac share.

So just stop. Put that discussion to rest and bury it. The Steam stats are pretty much 1:1 to any other stat out there.

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Quoting: BdMdesigNDid you understand how a survey works?

No.

Yes. But I didn't argue that the survey was precise.

QuoteOk only for you:

Steam have actual ca. 6.200.000 users.

So steam aks now the 6.200.00 users in the HWsurvey.
Now all Windows clients get this poll but not all Linuxuser.

QuoteI got it more often on Linux.

In such a survey, 100% are those who also participate in it and not the total 6,200,000 users.
And that is precisely the reason why this survey says nothing.

This is why pretty much ANY survey 'doesn't say anything'. Because the rest could per chance be actually completely the opposite.
Actually our little survey here is even worse:
We've got ~80 comments. Not every commenter stated that they would only, or more often, get the poll on Windows - but we just assume we all did.
Now assume that *at least* 1% of 6.200.000 Steam Users are Linuxers (maybe even more, but this would just show that our poll here is even worse), which makes:
>62.000 Users.
In our case 100% are 80 - and not 62.000 which makes just ~0.13%. And THIS should be represantative? xD

If we even took more realistic values, oh, your 'statistics' would be so SHREKT.

Again: Twice, Thrice, no, multiply Steam's Linux Users by 5 ! - And EA still wouldn't care.

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[quote=LeonardK][quote=BdMdesigN]

Quoting: poisond

Quoting: BdMdesigN

QuoteMarket share by category
Desktop, laptop, netbook Dec 2014 1.34% (Ubuntu, etc.)

Net Applications say it's 1.34%.

And again: the Steam HWsurvey is wrrong and many have it also confirmed here.
So maybe only 50% or more of the all desktopusers (Linux, Mac, Windows) are gamer.

Thus, your statement is false as false.

And you are doing the same mistake.
Maybe a higher percentage of desktop users *on Windows* are gamers and a lower one on Linux?
Hm, this would maybe even lead to lower than 1%.

Yes, we cannot "proof" it's 1%. Maybe it's more - a bit. But irrelevantly more.

Did you understand how a survey works?

No.

Ok only for you:

Steam have actual ca. 6.200.000 users.

So steam aks now the 6.200.00 users in the HWsurvey.
Now all Windows clients get this poll but not all Linuxuser.

In such a survey, 100% are those who also participate in it and not the total 6,200,000 users.
And that is precisely the reason why this survey says nothing.

And we talk here from all Linux gamer, not Steam only gamer.

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[quote=BdMdesigN][quote=poisond]

Quoting: BdMdesigN

QuoteMarket share by category
Desktop, laptop, netbook Dec 2014 1.34% (Ubuntu, etc.)

Net Applications say it's 1.34%.

And again: the Steam HWsurvey is wrrong and many have it also confirmed here.
So maybe only 50% or more of the all desktopusers (Linux, Mac, Windows) are gamer.

Thus, your statement is false as false.

And you are doing the same mistake.
Maybe a higher percentage of desktop users *on Windows* are gamers and a lower one on Linux?
Hm, this would maybe even lead to lower than 1%.

Yes, we cannot "proof" it's 1%. Maybe it's more - a bit. But irrelevantly more.

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Quoting: poisond

Quoting: BdMdesigNAs you still get to the 1%?
I and others have written often enough, that's are the 1% a fairy tale number is.

Even if you repeat the 1% here, a scattered lie is not true.

Where's the data to back up your silly claim? I don't think your hearsay is statistically significant.
According to web client usage Linux has a market share of 27.2%, of which only 1.1% are GNU/Linux. So the 0.9% Linux users for Steam seem quite plausible.

I got the steam survey recently BTW, maybe I'm the +0.07% *snicker*

And you are wrong. Loool.

Did you read the "Statistics" right? No you did not.

QuoteMarket share by category
Desktop, laptop, netbook Dec 2014 1.34% (Ubuntu, etc.)

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Market_share_by_category )

Net Applications say it's 1.34%.

And again: the Steam HWsurvey is wrrong and many have it also confirmed here.
So maybe only 50% or more of the all desktopusers (Linux, Mac, Windows) are gamer.

Thus, your statement is false as false.

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I badly want a linux release on this game. A proper racing game is still missing in my collection.

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I wouldn't buy EA-Games anyway, even if they were available on Linux.
Too often I was disappointed after I spent my money on their games.

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As for the 'games bought' issue: I guess there's some saturation from (lots of?) older games. You grab them in some sale for little money, but after a while you have all that you're interested in, and after that there's only the new ones, which are mostly on the not-so-cheap side, so you (at least I...) buy at most one of those per month...

So yes, some aditional info on the total money spent would be interesting. Counting (only) in dollar should be OK, maybe you can add a popup-link to a currency converter to the next questionaire?

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I can't wait for a proper racing game on Linux :o) Go Feral go!

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Quoting: BdMdesigNAs you still get to the 1%?
I and others have written often enough, that's are the 1% a fairy tale number is.

Even if you repeat the 1% here, a scattered lie is not true.

Where's the data to back up your silly claim? I don't think your hearsay is statistically significant.
According to web client usage Linux has a market share of 27.2%, of which only 1.1% are GNU/Linux. So the 0.9% Linux users for Steam seem quite plausible.

I got the steam survey recently BTW, maybe I'm the +0.07% *snicker*

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The problem with 'how much did you spend' is that there lots of different currencies, and regional pricing differences, which would make it difficult to answer, and to gleam any sort of insight from the responses.

Unless you have a two-part question: 'What currency do you use? How much did you spend?'. Then the results could be collated by currency.

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Quoting: burnallI wonder if you could use your steam controller as a steering wheel, like Wii U does? Will steam machines or steam link feature that kind of thing?

Well, the Steam Controller has the sensors to do it, so I assume the configuration tool will allow you to utilize it in whatever way you like. I can't freaking wait for this gamepad!

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Quoting: Tux1cJust a small remark on the "how many games did u buy last month" question. Just to show how much of a not accurate question it is (although I doubt there are so many people that failed as hard as I did!), I completely forgot that I had actually bought 7 linux games the last month (yes, 7!), I forgot because, although I keep my finance tightly organised (in my head), and remember everything I bought, for how much and when, those purchases were as a debt-payback from a friend, so it completely slipped my mind >< (I answered that I bought no games, and when I realised my mistake I figured it would be unfair to answer again).

I kind of alluded to this in the article as well. Some people will over-estimate and some will under-estimate - there's not much we can do about that. But what the survey does very well in this case is show us trends, like whether people are buying more or less games as whole over time.

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QuoteHere’s the first results with the “Integrated AMD” option added, so it seems we will get more accurate results from now on.

I am one of the probably 12 or so people in that new category. Hopefully respondents understand the distinction of integrated vs dedicated.

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Ubuntu KDE STEAM FtW!

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Just a small remark on the "how many games did u buy last month" question. Just to show how much of a not accurate question it is (although I doubt there are so many people that failed as hard as I did!), I completely forgot that I had actually bought 7 linux games the last month (yes, 7!), I forgot because, although I keep my finance tightly organised (in my head), and remember everything I bought, for how much and when, those purchases were as a debt-payback from a friend, so it completely slipped my mind >< (I answered that I bought no games, and when I realised my mistake I figured it would be unfair to answer again).

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I miss BF1942 multiplayer very badly. No other FPS was more fun than that (TF2 came close).

Other than that, I haven't used anything from EA in about 6 years... Of course having their titles on Linux would be a huge plus, but personally I wouldn't support or play them.

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Are the games even worth this discussion? I don't think so. Most of the games from Electronic Arts are just repeated content perhabs with polished graphics, most of the time even that missing. So why discussing about it? The older games are all working very well using Wine. The other ones are not worth to be mentioned because every year again there are the same games from this company, nothing more or nothing less. :)

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I'll just address everything in one massive post:

Quoting: Sabun

Quoting: edve98Wouldn't it be better to ask how much people spent on Linux games rather than asking how many games they bought?

Why not both?

Yeah, I was actually going to comment on that in the article (or maybe I did in last month's one?). Both types of questions have their advantages and disadvantages. I'll think about adding it in for the October survey... For now you can get an idea of how much is being spent if you look at the retailers question: less purchases from bundles would, generally speaking, mean more money being spent per game.

Quoting: NouserThere are proprietary Intel drivers?

This has been a recurring joke every month, but since *buntu 15.04, there is actually an option to install proprietary updates for Intel and AMD CPUs, so could be that. It's most likely just miss-clicks though.

Quoting: NelHi,

Is this possible to display graphics in the right order?

I mean when there are answers as "Yes &gt; Rather Yes &gt; Neutral &gt; Rather No &gt; No", they always are displayed mixed up (most votes first) leading to useless graphics.

How I think it should be:
Q3 = No, i don't have Windows partition &gt; No &gt; Yes (join both "No" answers with "No Windows at all" on end)
Q8 = Nvidia &gt; AMD &gt; AMD integrated &gt; Intel (join both "AMD" answers)
Q9 = Proprietary &gt; Don't know &gt; Open Source ("don't know" could be one or the other)
Q12 = None &gt; 1-2 &gt; 3-5 &gt; 6-10 &gt; 11+
UQ2 = No plans to buy &gt; Will buy if &gt; Planning to buy &gt; Already bought

Yeah, you're right. That's how it's actually displayed in the survey itself, but the little program Feds wrote up to generate the graphs seems to order them by popularity (which makes sense on some questions, but not on others). I'll let him know about it. He's also looking at doing tables to go along with the graphs, which would make that issue a bit more redundant anyway (hopefully that should be here next month, but no guarantee).

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Alt + Tab problem is usually a symptom of using SDL 1.2.

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There are proprietary Intel drivers?

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Quoting: edve98Wouldn't it be better to ask how much people spent on Linux games rather than asking how many games they bought?

Why not both?

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Hi,

Is this possible to display graphics in the right order?

I mean when there are answers as "Yes > Rather Yes > Neutral > Rather No > No", they always are displayed mixed up (most votes first) leading to useless graphics.

How I think it should be:
Q3 = No, i don't have Windows partition > No > Yes (join both "No" answers with "No Windows at all" on end)
Q8 = Nvidia > AMD > AMD integrated > Intel (join both "AMD" answers)
Q9 = Proprietary > Don't know > Open Source ("don't know" could be one or the other)
Q12 = None > 1-2 > 3-5 > 6-10 > 11+
UQ2 = No plans to buy > Will buy if > Planning to buy > Already bought

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Technically speaking, kickstarter is not a retailer. Also, any game you back through kickstarter you'll have to redeem through some retailer like Steam, GOG, Humble or the developer's site.

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Wouldn't it be better to ask how much people spent on Linux games rather than asking how many games they bought?

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Quoting: maodzedunHow is a wrapper a problem if you get the same performance?

It's not a problem if you only consider the immediate future. Bioshock Infinite was an excellent port. I get your opinion.

However, in the long run we need to push the industry to change. Cross-platform development using open standards like OpenGL and Vulkan is required for success in the long run. We cannot keep porting games, we need to change the industry making porting a thing of the past. This push is never going to happen if we keep accepting wrapjobs where Direct3D and Windows get all the focus.

Developers need to embrace open standards, not just accept them as second class civilians.

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One of the benefits of something like SteamOS/Steam Machines is they can say, "We've sold X number of machines with SteamOS installed." Then they can estimate a specific user base, and they can also target a specific hardware spec (likely the Alienware Steam Machine since others run similarly leveled hardware).

Right now it's all just guesses and it's an apparently low proportion of sales overall (seems to average about 3%), and it's a vague demographic. Bean counters love specifics.

Also, since SteamOS runs off of Debian and Valve considers Ubuntu a first class citizen it's likely that anything brought there will work on other Distros.

In the mean time support the developers and publishers that do care to bring out their content.

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Normally I feel at least a trace of sadness when a company states that they won't support Linux anytime soon or ever. In this particular case, all I did was shrug and thinking "Yeah, so what?". EA hasn't released a game in a while I was remotely interested in. Probably that's because they haven't released any halfway original game in like a decade. All they do is churning out yearly updates of the same old concepts and add a few new explosions (or updated player names for their sports series). Even Bioware (which I used to be huge fan of) has been completely assimilated into the EA way. I got Inquisition for Christmas, played it for a few hours and then put it away. The story just couldn't hook me at all and the gameplay was basically the same boring dumbed-down clickfest they got bashed for Dragon Age 2 already.

That being said, I still could giggle that a fat-cat company like EA isn't able to write a cross-platform engine when much smaller studios can and have done. EA's revenue is so large that 5% more revenue amounts to a fairly large sum. Should think it's profitable to do even then. But then, since EA's only field of actual innovation is developing intrusive and annoying DRM software, they probably think we don't want to have that on Linux anyway. Rightfully so.

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