Quoting: oldrocker99The many different *nix distros can be a barrier to developers as far as official support .

This is unfortunately true; Armello and a few others would not run for me when I tried Manjaro :( . I went back to Ubuntu MATE (running 16.04 beta, and it's stable as hell).

If you happen to still have a Manjaro install lying around, I'd be keen to know more about this and see if we can get a fix worked out. I've helped the Armello devs work through Linux issues before and would be glad to get to the bottom of what's going on there.

Chances are that it's going to be something that's relevant to other distros (perhaps it could even have been this Steam Runtime issue [External Link] which wasn't an issue on then-current versions of Ubuntu, but would eventually have been a problem as newer Ubuntu releases started shipping newer libraries). Since these sorts of things usually end up effecting everybody, it's hard to think of them as fragmentation issues.

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Quoting: ArehandoroI haven't read the article as I want to be fully surprised when I buy it.

That's fair. I do want to highlight that I did my best to keep the article is spoiler free. There are one or two mentions of events from the end, but given that the game takes place between the first and second book, I don't think there's anything that can't already be inferred.

Quoting: alThat being said, I believe cheeseness is australian. His english sounds a little funny to me most of the time as well :)

Too right.

Quoting: KeyrockYeah. All the English in the game is technically correct, it's just some of it is spoken in a way people wouldn't typically say things. A lot of times you can say things in English, and this will vary a bit from English speaking region to region too, several different ways. They are all technically correct and all mean the exact same thing, but only one of the ways is the way people would typically say it.

I noticed a couple of lines that seemed grammatically unsound. I also feel like there was probably a bunch of dialogue that I haven't seen yet (which is typical for adventure games). I might pull out some examples next time I play.

I'd go so far as to suggest that it impacts on the voice actors' performance (contributing to the "wooden" delivery mentioned earlier). When a line doesn't conform to typical speech patterns, it becomes harder to deliver. Voice actors for games typically don't get an opportunity to rehearse their lines and usually have fairly tight recording windows. Even if there's good direction going on, an awkward script can still have an impact.

Quoting: KeyrockAnyway, it's not a big deal and it's perfectly understandable coming from a small studio that comes from a country that doesn't speak English natively. But it's something you definitely pick up on when you're fluent in English.

I still totally maintain that it's not a big issue, but I do believe that even those who haven't noticed it would have found a better experience from dialogue performed from a script with more natural lines.

It's a fairly moot point to discuss since there's no chance of the script being changed or dialogue being re-recorded. I brought it up in the article because I felt that a player might have a better experience if they were aware of it before going in.

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Quoting: ricki42

Quoting: CheesenessI can't find the original source, but I had seen developers who'd spoken about seeing Android purchases in their sales data (mentioned in this reply to that article).

I wouldn't panic too much.

I seem to remember reading that mobile goes automatically to Windows, but I can't find that quote, so I may have misremembered. But according to Aspyr_Blair on Reddit [External Link] mobile purchases default to Windows of they aren't played on Linux. So it's: "Don't buy on mobile unless you're sure you'll play the game on Linux during the first week."

I think there are two separate concerns being conflated here.

Steam has an automated payment calculation system so that when multiple publishers are involved in a game (which is how Aspyr's business model works - they become the publisher for the Linux ports of the games they make), the right people get paid. Because SteamPlay allows people to play across a bunch of platforms, working out who a sale "belongs to" is a bit more convoluted - this is where the first week of playtime thing that everybody is crazy fixated on comes in. For developers who're self publishing their Linux ports (which I'm pretty confident makes up the vast majority of Linux titles on Steam), this stuff is irrelevant.

The understanding I've gotten from speaking with other developers (unfortunately, I have no first hand knowledge - I don't have permission to view this stuff for any of the games I'm have Steam partner access for) is that this is done separately to the actual sales and playtime data. Whether platform specific publishers can see data that's not for their platform, I don't know.

There are a couple of different ways that developers can view data, and no guarantee that a given developer is going to care enough to look at all of them. If a developer cares more about play time than sales (which I know Valve have promoted - no idea if that's more prominent in the partner site though) and it turns out a hundred thousand Linux users have bought the game but hardly play it, then they're not going to feel supported by us - and it's not going to matter what platform they purchased it on.

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Quoting: adolsonI find they polished it quite a lot since the early demo. I am not too far in, but I don't mind the voice acting. I'd rather that than have to read. :P

I think the voice acting is pretty good in general, but the English script feels a little off (not enough for me to dislike the game, but enough to notice that English is not the native language of the scriptwriters).

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Quoting: ricki42

Quoting: EikeIf they use the data taken from (e. g.) you over all the months (not only in the month it has been asked for), there's no need to ask again. You'd just be in the data pool. They would only need to query again if, say, your hardware would have changed.

That said, it would make my test from post 2 meaningless. Maybe I can trigger the survey, but it would just change my recorded data, not add 1 to the Linux users counted.

I've been thinking that maybe that's the case. But then there'd potentially be a lot of double-counting when people switch between systems. Or they'd have to know how many systems each user has and divide by that number. But given what Cheese said above, I doubt they do that.
Your test would still be interesting, whether it changes the number or not, I'm just curious if you manage to trigger the survey.

When running Steam on Windows and Wine, I'd received multiple prompts across a year. My understanding based on all the digging around I did when trying to put together an FAQ was that you received a prompt and an option to decline if you were selected, even if you had previously participated. If they no longer do that, then I think that'd be an undocumented change to the sampling process (which isn't documented anywhere anyway, so we're all just guessing \o/ ).

The sampling bug that I'd reported years ago was about people who had previously declined not being selected to participate again, limiting the pool. When this was corrected, there was a significant shift in the ratios shown (I didn't think to archive the data, but I recall shifts in CPU, graphics card, screen resolution in the tens of percentage points).

Quoting: ricki42

Quoting: VoltageI think I have read that games bought on steam depend from which platforms you did it, making statistics.
Today I saw a windows game in sale so I thought that if I buy it from linux that may be a sign which be counted.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/how-steam-computes-linux-sales.4675
In addition, don't buy using mobile, apparently that always gets counted as Windows.

I can't find the original source, but I had seen developers who'd spoken about seeing Android purchases in their sales data (mentioned in this reply to that article).

I wouldn't panic too much.

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It seems like there are multiple issues with the same symptoms. There was definitely a locale related problem, but there may be something else at play as well.

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Quoting: TheBossNever asked you to join an argument, was just pointing out someone who believes strongly on the other side.

Sorry, I wasn't meaning to suggest that you had. It was more to ensure that there wasn't misunderstanding about my intentions with responding.

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Quoting: TheBoss@Cheese, I actually had an argument with "YanderMan" the owner of BoilingSteam on the "The survey results highlight statistically insignificant fractions"

There are plenty of aspects of the Steam Hardware & Software Survey results which definitely aren't statistically insignificant, but it does draw attention to some things that are. I'm not interested in engaging in an argument via proxy, but I am happy to stand by the calculations under the Insignificant Fractions and Margins of Error headings in the full article [External Link] and enjoy chatting with my readers - especially if it reveals something that I've missed.

Whether the sampling is reliable/not buggy and whether the aggregation is appropriate/not flawed is a separate issue IMO.

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: CheesenessI'd not spotted that post from Humble. At the time I wrote my last article [External Link] looking at cross-platform support in Humble Bundles, there had been 59 Linux debuts in Humble's promotions between May 2010 and December 2012. Of those, the majority had been ported internally by the studios that created them (that includes stuff created using engines/tech that already had Linux support).

Well even if they did not port (many) titles themselves, it was Humble that made the others do the port with the definite requirement that only titles available DRM-free on all platforms can go in a bundle. It is mostly for this IMHO substantial contribution to Linux-gaming that I still do go there now and then, at least for the HIBs. The rest is meanwhile done better by GOG.....

Don't get me wrong - I'm very glad that Humble helped provide incentive and desire for developers to pursue and investigate Linux in their earlier days (putting aside for a moment that plenty of those developers were pursuing Linux support regardless of bundle inclusion), but if they are indeed misrepresenting the hard work of developers outside of Humble as work of their own, that is a separate issue.

Quoting: ricki42

Quoting: CheesenessI still maintain that the Steam survey has significant shortcomings that make it hard to have much confidence in its results (nothing on the front has changed since this article.

The ratio and absolute number of Linux games have changed though. Currently about 25% of games are available on Linux (1947 / 7716), so adjusting the 1% that would be 4%. This is a bit larger than the median Linux sales I calculated, but not hugely, and in agreement with the average (though I don't think the average is a good indicator for such a skewed distribution). But I'm not sure if this kind of linear adjustment is still valid when there are so many games available. Almost 2000 games is likely more than any of us can possibly play, so we actually get to pick and choose a lot more than in 2013; personally I have a huge backlog, so I don't immediately jump on every available Linux game any more.

I did have a typo in that post - I'd meant to write "on that front" (regarding the shortcomings which I believe undermine the survey results) rather than "on the front".

The change in the ratio of Linux users to Linux titles on Steam is what I was alluding to when I mentioned that the number of available titles had increased dramatically. I think that kind of adjustment you're exploring there is only fair when considering the potential market size (which is all the survey could ever indicate).

I'd always expected that we're quickly arrive at a transitional period where Linux gamers would no longer be purchasing every title and instead (hopefully) only purchasing ones they like. I've found it hard to keep track of whether this has had a real impact on developers' experiences. I like to pretend that it's an indication that the market size has grown enough to compensate ^_^

Quoting: ricki42But I agree that the complete lack of information from Valve about how the survey works makes it somewhat suspect. If my suspicion is correct and it really pops up more often on 'secondary' machines, that could introduce bias as older, weaker rigs (or less used Windows partitions and wine installations) are more likely to be counted. On the other hand, Steam could just remember both configurations, but then that information would have to be attached to the account, when supposedly that's not the case.

I feel like it's also worth taking into consideration the kind of work culture and attitude towards rigorous quality control. There's a strong likelihood that the survey is one person's passion project and that nobody beyond them really checks to see if it's working (the sampling bug I tried to report in 2011 and had presumably been around since July 2010 went over a year before it was noticed and corrected).

A friend of mine who worked at Valve at the time went on a hunt to find the person responsible for the survey (I don't know their identity) and passed on my full article [External Link]. Other than calling me "wordy," the only thing they had to say was something along the lines of, "I’m pretty sure we’ve mentioned some details publicly about our methodology (number of samples, what users and when we survey them). I can’t find a link in 60 seconds of googling."

In spite of the acknowledged difficulty of finding details of methodology, nothing further was published from them :(

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Quoting: TheBoss

This might also explain the initially larger Linux shares around March 2013 when many Linux users used Steam for the first time on their Linux boxes and were thus more likely to receive the survey.

A very interesting point I don't think I ever thought about, and probably quite true too.

The Tux TF2 item landed at a time when acquiring timed-exclusive hats was something that people jumped on like mad. It had to have played at least a small role.

Both the Humble data and the data from developers shows that on average, Linux users buy more games than the 1% that the Steam survey would suggest.

I still maintain that the Steam survey has significant shortcomings that make it hard to have much confidence in its results (nothing on the front has changed since this article.

Two things that have definitely changed across that period has been the number of available titles and the number of active Steam users. Taking the numbers that Valve publish at face value, if Linux users have maintained that 1% representation, then there's a pretty good amount of growth (even if it's not proportional growth) implied.

Humble helped bring many games to Linux. [External Link]

I'd not spotted that post from Humble. At the time I wrote my last article [External Link] looking at cross-platform support in Humble Bundles, there had been 59 Linux debuts in Humble's promotions between May 2010 and December 2012. Of those, the majority had been ported internally by the studios that created them (that includes stuff created using engines/tech that already had Linux support).

Humble's stances since have sapped my motivation and I no longer feel like I'm the best person to chase the data, but unless they've released another 30 odd titles that I don't know about before October 2014, that post's assertion that Humble's in-house developed ports (ports done by employees or contractors of Humble) have hit triple digits is false, and the misrepresentation gives me further reason to be disappointed.

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If anybody's interested, I gave some rambling thoughts on Overload and Descent-likes while playing the Linux teaser build here [External Link]. It probably gets a bit more interesting about 40 minutes in when another Descent fan drops in to chat.

Quoting: boltronicsWhen they first posted the download link, they misspelled "Linux" and the download link didn't work because of that, so I get the feeling that the team were extremely busy burning the midnight oil to pull the demo off.

As I understand it, there were no plans to release a Linux demo at all initially, but they sent me something to test when I offered to let them know if it worked out of the box. Since the rendering issues had reliable workarounds and performance was passable, I recommended that the build be released to backers for broader testing.

They definitely didn't have time to look at addressing problems across the campaign, but I'm glad they were willing to interrupt their plans to try Linux builds, and I'm hoping that we'll see platform parity soon.

Quoting: boltronicsthere are issues with it not working in full screen

The issue that some people have encountered running it fullscreen was something that I didn't come across when testing before the build was released to backers.

I'm still having trouble properly identifying the cause, but I'm starting to suspect that aspect ratio might be related. What resolution is the game trying to run at when you have fullscreen problems (that should be listed in the log file at ~/.config/unity3d/Revival/Overload/Player.log after the big list of available GL extensions)?

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