Quoting: KimyrielleIt -is- a sound strategy, and I think a lesson learned from their failed attempt to push SteamOS-based SteamMachines at a time when the product wasn't yet ready to compete with established systems. If you want to gnaw away at Windows/XBox's market share, you need to present customers a fully functional system that's -at least- on par with what you're attacking. We still lack a convincing argument for gamers currently (more or less happily) using Windows for gaming to switch to Linux. Every single game available for Linux is also available for Windows, so we need to beat Windows as a -platform-.

Mind you, we may have a couple of arguments for gamers currently (more or less happily) using consoles for gaming to switch to Steamboxes. At original release those arguments weren't strong enough to stack up against the Steamboxes' disadvantages (polish problems, lack of multimedia integration, price etc), but those are the kind of thing this long game is meant to get rid of, except multimedia which will take a bit of work with the multimedia providers. Get rid of those disadvantages, and you have a console with a big library that, with the Steam controller, allows you to play games you can't normally play on consoles (like complex strategy games) and play other games better than you can normally play them on consoles. And also with games that are often cheap.

I think a future re-release, with issues fixed and a lot bigger marketing push, would have a decent chance of making a dent.

I do hear you about a feeling of lost momentum, at least in the AAA space. I'd say that, more and more, anyone much smaller than that--specifically, anyone using one of the major game engines--is likely to take a "why not?" approach to Linux just because it's so much less work releasing multi-platform than it used to be. Ultimately, though, I don't know that it's going to be a story of this studio waking up or that studio throwing a crumb. We'll see more momentum if Valve starts feeling a pinch from moves by Microsoft and decides they better get Plan B (Linux) under way seriously, or if Linux just starts organically increasing its desktop share. There are some indications that may be slowly happening, but I'd sure as hell like to see a faster shift and less ambiguous data.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: GuestThese are good news for us!Open shampagne bottles!

As a battle-hardened Linux user I accept only real pain, not the sham stuff. ;)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Really, from a "promoting Linux gaming" perspective I'd probably be more interested in Valve stats of how much money is spent buying games from the different platforms.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Old villagers who don't work but help with their wisdom. That's kind of cute.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Trade steering! Now that's realism. That's what imperialism is all about, baby!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: rkfg

Quoting: liamdaweTo add my own experience, on Linux I've seen the survey maybe 3 times in 3 years and yes I also saw it a lot more on Windows. I don't know what that says, I don't know their methods or how they do their sampling.

I noticed that survey usually asks for things that can't be detected reliably enough, like your connection speed, microphone use, Steam Link ownership and such. I now strongly believe the survey has nothing to do with calcualting the market shares. As a developer, why would you show a user a survey only to account for their platform? It's already known to the Steam binary! So I think the survey itself is overrated and if you haven't got it even once in years it doesn't mean a thing.

As to what the Steam binary "knows"--I work in a university library. Our thing is to keep track of a few million books, journals, DVDs, electronic resources of all sorts and so on. To do this we have an extremely complex and pretty damn expensive software system. And in my job I frequently come face to face with the strong distinction between what "the system knows" as in, the information is definitely in there somewhere, and what "the system knows" as in what there is any way for me to retrieve. Doesn't help that our current system kind of sucks, but it's a general problem with complex software.
So the Valve people may or may not actually know the platform information that the Steam binary must obviously have. Someone could surely code a way to retrieve that information, but whether they have actually done so or whether they just rely on the survey because it's there, we don't know. All we know is, the only data they're telling anybody is the stuff from the survey. Which may or may not be accurate, because they're also not telling us how the dang thing works.

Thinking of the survey, I think I've gotten it like once in the last few years. I don't even get it when I buy a new computer, install Linux on it and start gaming fresh. OK, my /home gets installed on the new computer from backup, but still. Not much surveyage here.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: razing32

Quoting: GuestThe future is made for the linux machines. I know it because terminator t-101 model works on linux kernel 4.5 ^_^ It will be a doom for windows 10 based robots because they need to boot themselves every time they need an update! And imagine that happens in the middle of the battle. Not a good vision for windows 10!^_^ Mankind will game on linux....hopefully. Anyway back to earth. It's a long way to linux get even 10% marketshare of operating systems when it comes to playing. One can hope it will happen in a couple of years when win7 support ends.Hopefully:)

Wouldn't be too hopeful.
I was visiting an ophthalmologist last year and I noticed out of the corner of my eye he was still using XP.

There's a lot of little specialty bits of software that people got used to using, that may have no real modern equivalent, and which only run on old Windows (or, ahem, maybe Wine). Understandably increases resistance to change.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Still don't put much faith in the survey. Valve may think it's fit for purpose, but I have no way of knowing why, and it tends to be out of step with most other data I see about Linux usage.
The one major thing I take from the data lately is simple: Chinese people don't use Linux. It would be good if something were done about that.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: razing32Is it just me , or are we milking Lovecraft and Tesla a tad too much lately ?

Stop milking dead men, people.

Eeewwww!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Why do we care how Huns spell things, anyway?

View this comment - View article - View full comments