You can't say Linux has millions of users based on steam percentages without accepting that steam has at least 100 million mau. From https://www.demandsage.com/steam-statistics/ we can take that steam has 132 million mau.

That said at 2% or even 4%. Linux isn't trending enough for a game developer to make a Linux only game and it's even hard to justify it over other platforms like consoles. Additionally from a game dev perspective, might as well just wait to see if proton works with the game. Linux native builds are on the decline and support for Linux on steam is becoming more irrelevant to developers. Game developers aren't supporting Linux and because of valve's efforts they shouldn't need to.

[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure what you're trying to convince me of or why. I just explained why it's worth tracking the percentages with and without Chinese users, and why this article, as written, needs additional context. And that number 130M is over a year and a half old, by the way, like I said before.

[–] MJBrune@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I was just trying to explain, as you were talking about a game developer perspective, that your take is skewed and not how game developers look at Linux or Chinese players. the 130 million figure not from this year doesn't matter that it's older, it's just a rough baseline. We won't ever have exact numbers and even if we did, from a game developer perspective, you will be building a game to release in the future. So unless there are drastic trends to project, we shouldn't worry. There are no drastic trends here other than "Oh, hey, the steam deck is gaining numbers, that might be interesting." Overall doesn't matter because it's not the game developer's choice to support Steam deck or not, it's Valve with Proton as we saw with BG3.

So the game developer's perspective here, from simply a business standpoint, is to ignore Linux entirely. That said morally, I fully support Linux by making Linux native builds for all my games. That's a moral standpoint and not business so I can't expect most developers to follow suit.

[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It really feels like you just showed up to argue, man, because you took us so far from we started. Just look at the Steam Tracker page on GOL and take a look at English-only versus the one that shows Chinese players. That's all. The "surge" is easily explained.

[–] MJBrune@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

You literally replied to me, I was agreeing with the original commentor and you showed up to disagree.