• artyom@piefed.social
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    4 days ago

    I’m extremely skeptical about Steam’s statistics. They seem to have wild fluctuations like this on a regular basis. Not to mention the statistics they show about me in their “year in review” are often just very very wrong.

    • ampersandrew@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      They fluctuate a lot, but I have yet to see a fluctuation that can’t be explained away as “a ton of Chinese players played this month” or “a ton of Chinese players did not return this month”. You can check Gaming On Linux’s Steam Tracker page, and the rise has been fairly steady when you filter for English only. That said, these surveys are often revised a handful of days after initial posting, so check back in a week to see the more accurate data.

    • rtxn@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      The survey is always offered only to a random subset of Steam users. The results only ever represent the fractions of users who took the survey, and are not representative of the entire Steam ecosystem as a whole. Unfortunately, this means that the increase/decrease in Linux usage is probably within the margin of error and is not a reliable statistic.

    • homes@piefed.world
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      4 days ago

      Especially when compared with macOS, an operating system famously known as NOT a gaming operating system.

      That’s like saying you made a car that gets better gas mileage than a bicycle.

      Like, ok. But how well does it run Photoshop or AfterEffects?

      • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I’d be pretty impressed if you showed me a car with better fuel economy than a bicycle. I don’t know about you lot, but I haven’t had to refuel my bicycle a single time since I bought it.

      • jerryq27@programming.dev
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        4 days ago

        It matters when game devs argue that they don’t support Linux due to player count, but are perfectly fine making builds for MacOS (See Riot Games). Showing these stats pushes back against that argument and gives devs more incentives to support Linux.

      • GalacticHero@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I have a MacBook that I use opportunistically for games. It’s not my primary gaming machine, but I keep Steam on it for if I’m on a work trip and have some down time or whatever. I imagine a lot of the Mac users in the survey are in the same boat.