Quoting: mishugashu

"PC (Windows, Linux), Mac"

Still not really right, though. If the definition of "PC" they're using is IBM PC Compatible Clone (i.e., x86 architecture), Macs are also PCs since 2006. The whole "Macs vs PCs" marketing scheme predates the Intel switch.

I feel old now.

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Good to see the project moving forward. I wish you luck finding people and time.

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Quoting: tonR

There's still a lot of ways Linux gaming needs to improve of course. It seems pulling in users from Asia would probably help quite a lot, but for that we need the heavy-hitting titles they seem to love like PUBG.

That's impossible to do with todays smartphone craziness in Asia. Significant majority of us are now rarely gaming on PC anymore. Everything smartphone.

Hang on a minute--the article we're discussing around relates to the masses of new Asian Steam users, mostly playing PUBG, in such numbers that (since virtually none of 'em use Linux) they're torpedoing the % share of Linux on Steam. So are you saying all those people don't exist? Surely if them not using Linux is sufficient to seriously drop the Linux share, them using Linux at least as much as everyone else would make it not drop, which I think could reasonably be considered "helping quite a lot".

I have no doubt that lots of Asians play games on their phones (just like everyone else). Makes me kind of glad Android uses Vulkan. Doesn't mean nobody's playing any games at home or in PC-bangs or whatever they call them.

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Quoting: Crazy Penguin

Quoting: muell> I would imagine the overall number of Linux users has increased

> I can agree as long as fairy stable means growing slowly but otherwise I just can't believe it.

Can you all just stop that bullshit? All the data suggests that there is no growth. This is nothing where your believes are somehow relevant. Linux gaming doesn't grow whereas other platforms do. That's bad news. Stop trying to spin it any other way.

The only data you have are PERCENTAGES OF A MARKETSHARE which is dropping. But Steam has a rapid grow which means the absolute numbers of Linux Gamers is also growing, just not as fast as others which results in a dropping PERCENTAGE OF THE MARKETSHARE. Got it?

Ehhh, he has a point though. Sure, it's obnoxiously expressed, but it's based on a pretty plausible reading of the rate of growth of Steam users vs. the rate of shrinkage of the marketshare . . . if you take the available figures at face value, it kind of looks like Linux gaming is not growing while the total market is.

I don't take the available figures at face value, and it does seem like a lot of the Steam growth is from Steam expanding from a market base with more Linux usage into regions with less Linux usage. But based on general figures of how much web browsing world wide is done on Linux, that points to kind of bad news about Linux gaming in the first place: The "Survey" always showed Linux Steam use as significantly lower than most figures for the world Linux desktop share, but it turns out even that was actually based on a kind of cherry-picked user base. Like, if world desktop Linux use is, say, 2.5%, and Steam Linux use used to be about 1%, then 40% as many people used Linux to game with compared to other platforms. But if actually the Steam user base used to be mostly from parts of the world with more Linux use, as compared to much of Asia where it seems to be a rounding error, that means even fewer of the Linux desktops were used for gaming. Assuming the new Steam user distribution to be much closer to a true worldwide distribution than how it used to be, that would indicate that compared to say Windows, a Linux desktop turns out to be only about 20% as likely to be used for gaming, rather than 40% (Imagining 2.5% Linux desktop share and 0.5% Steam use share and Linux use of Steam vs other approaches to gaming like GOG being comparable to other platforms). Use different figures for desktop share and the specifics shift, but the point remains: The proportion of Linux desktops used for gaming is low, lower than we thought, and doesn't seem to have budged much over the last few years.
After all the Linux progress both as a gaming platform and in terms of number and quality of available games, that's kind of depressing. I had always assumed that games was a significant factor holding the Linux desktop back, and if it achieved something like parity with MacOS for game availability and playability (which it basically has), Linux would be freed to grow significantly more both as a desktop OS in general and as a platform people played games on. This does not seem to have actually happened so far.

Of course, all this assumes the accuracy of the Steam survey, which I do not actually assume.

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I also think this is a great site and really depend on it for Linux-related stuff; I think gaming is a big part of where the Linux action is these days, and really exposes a lot of important issues for the platform as a whole. 'Cause it's like, problems that the rest of Linux has a tendency to grumble about a bit and let slide, become glaring issues for game performance and ease of development, and so a lot of the most important commentary and work on them is done in a gaming context. So I don't just get my gaming fix on here, I get a lot of my Linux news in general.

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As usual, I don't really have much faith in the Survey. As usual, I think that for game developer information what would be most useful is figures for just what percentage of $$$ get spent on Linux games, and I'm sure Valve have that somewhere in the guts of their system. It's fine to have ten gajillion new Chinese Steam users, but if they all only ever buy PUBG they're not too relevant to any developers who didn't develop PUBG.

Linux should, however, improve support for Chinese typing if it's bad. Fundamentally I think open source should be just as good for Asians as for everyone else; piracy only solves one problem with Windows. It would be nice to see them turning on to the advantages of Free Software.

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Quoting: g000hI'd probably build drones to look like ships from Star Control I and II. Urquan Dreadnought, Arilou Skiff, Chenjesu Broodhome, Ilwrath Avenger, Mycon Podship, Spathi Eluder, Yehat Terminator, Thraddash Torch, Androsynth Guardian are example ships. Those games bring back many fond memories. Free open-source release 'The Urquan Masters' was created as a modern port of those old games.

Yeah, I've played my share of both the old and the new of that. Good times . . .

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Quoting: devnullWarthunder

Wart what? What does "hunder" even mean? :D

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I'd like to build a drone which would follow me around filming my epic life. Then, I'd like to get an epic life.

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Quoting: qptain Nemo

Quoting: Purple Library GuyWent back to look at BTRE's review. Man, we're still waiting for really good pirate ship combat, aren't we? I mean, every single game with sailing and cannons, I read the reviews and once again, the actual ship combat is crap at worst or distinctly lacking at best. I want there to be wind. I want to tack at just the right moment and cross the enemy's "T". I want to take advantage of my superior maneuverability and good gunners to hold out of range of the enemy's heavier broadside and peck away with my "long nines". I want to be pirate Horatio Hornblower! None of the games seems to offer much of this. It's saddening.

Quoting: BTREI'm with you! I'd kill for a good sailing game. The Warhammer Man O'War game is the closest thing to that and it's sadly not very good.

Would you be interested and willing to provide some consultation / light QA for something of that nature in the observable future? I can't promise any compensation though.

Um, sure.

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