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Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

I already pointed out multiple times, that Steam survey is useless for evaluating Linux gaming market. Why would Steam even need a survey? They have full stats available, but they aren't public.

I wouldn't be surprised if a survey actually overestimated the number of Linux users. Using Linux for gaming is a choice and usually a more difficult path than gaming on Windows. So, Linux users are likely move vocal about their use of Linux, for various reasons: (1) it's often a principled choice; (2) by showing that a significant chunk uses Linux, more gaming studios will target Linux.

tl;dr: it would be nice if Valve released actual stats, but I think the survey is a good ballpark figure. In other words, the market is pretty much non-existent.

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> usually a more difficult path than gaming on Windows

Just to speak against this notion (which absolutely used to be true, no contest there): anecdotally, I don't find that to be true anymore, at least using Steam.

It works really smoothly for me, just as on Windows. In fact I'm just about ready to drop Windows as a gaming plaform. Maybe some titles aren't available for Linux, but I still have enough to fall back on.

Perhaps by "difficult" here OP means "access to games" and not just setup.

If you choose to game on Linux, you are intentionally restricting the number of games you can play. And for some people that's obviously ok, but for most (as stats show), it's not ok.

I wouldn't worry about total number of Steam users or their percentages. It's pretty irrelevant. What's more important, is potential of sales per OS. So for all intents and purposes, that survey is pretty useless. But numbers from HB are actually something you can evaluate.

> by showing that a significant chunk uses Linux, more gaming studios will target Linux.

That's already happening, if you paid attention.

You're being pretty confrontational here, and I don't think it's necessary..

No matter which way you slice it, the Linux gaming community is tiny when compared to Windows and consoles. Sure, it's growing, and there are more and more games coming to the OS, and more choices = better of course.

But we are a long way from Linux being a platform that matters in the overall computer gaming world.

I'm not confrontational. I just prefer when those Steam numbers aren't used like some absolute indicator of some situation, and they often are. They aren't demonstrating sales potential, so developers shouldn't use them for evaluating viability of Linux releases.

Making statements like "if you paid attention" or calling people "desperate" is confrontational language, or at best unnecessarily harsh.

Linux gaming is obviously a subject that you hold dear - you've jumped in multiple times on almost every single top thread in this discussion - and that's ok, but ease off a bit..

Let your points stand on their own merit, you don't need to call people out because they're not as deeply informed on the subject matter as you are, or because they don't agree with your perspective.

Statistics are often twisted around or taken out of context to make an argument, which is wrong. So don't get upset if that is dismissed to make conversation fact based, not speculation based. And this particular stats example is waved around often for that incorrect argumentation.

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