this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024

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Linux user share on Steam breaks 2% thanks to Steam Deck (www.gamingonlinux.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago (2 children)

That’s actually lower than I thought it’d be. I sort of assumed it hovered in the 3-4% range. No clue why I did though lol

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

I think your number is from a statistic on share of desktop usage. But I could be wrong about that too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

that's the desktop usage which is different than steam userbase

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ahem... thanks to me.

I recently made Steam run on my Debian PC.

Win10 has one more year and I need to make preparations. Now I'm ready to ditch it to have more space for games.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Made? Steam runs natively on Linux.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I made my PC work by pressing the power button. Linux devs made it work by writing and releasing Linux and countless utilities and applications. Let's call it a draw.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Let's call it a draw. 😂

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"Made work" = click install

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Not quite. You need to try 3 different howtos that fail. You need to realize that the broken dependecies won't get fixed even it's about the current time64_t effort that is going on. It's because the howto is simply crap. Then you find one that you haven't tried, yet.

Then it's easy: add the official steam apt repository, get the signing key and apt-install steam package with some few dependencies.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

this is why i use debian for work/servers where i need reliability anfd slow paced stable software and fedora at home where the odd bug or faulty update (which rarely happens) don't bother me that much. debian is awesome though

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

"...Valve added a special Tux item into Team Fortress 2 only on Linux..."

That's all you need? Linux exclusive items in your games?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

Bigger market share! Bigger market share!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

What’s wild is that the EU went after Apple because of “gatekeeping” yet MS has a 96% market share on Steam and Steam itself basically owns gaming on PCs and it’s just crickets.

I think it’s wild Valve has built such a crushing monopoly on top of MS’s monopoly and no one seems to care. If you’re releasing a game outside of a console, you just can’t not ship on Steam and survive. What an age we live in.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

The problem is that, at least for Steam, they're not a monopoly, nor are they necessary even within their market. Devs can and do distribute and/or market successful games without going through Steam and players can play games without ever getting Steam. I mean, if we were to take what I'd estimate are the most popular games right now:

Roblox - only a dedicated storefront/launcher
Minecraft - Up until recently, only a dedicated storefront/launcher, even now, not Steam
Fortnite - Originally only dedicated launcher, built a storefront off of that, still not Steam
Counter-Strike 2 - Steam
CoD - Not Steam? I think? Honestly its been such a mess in publishing I don't know.
League of Legends - Only a dedicated storefront/launcher
Valorant - Only a dedicated storefront/launcher
GTA V - On Steam
Apex Legends - On Steam
Overwatch 2 - popularized off Steam, turned to Steam after massive mismanagement butchered the game

Its absolutely possible to launch and maintain a successful game off Steam, and people have and continue to do so. Even exclusively talking about 3rd party storefront/launcher combos, theres a lot of options. Steam its just popular because its not only worth using (a bar most of the competition already fails to pass) but offers a lot both to users and developers from cheap, effective marketing, to tools to support Linux, to better controller support.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Here are the Call of Duty series games that are on Steam:

Call of Duty
Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2 (the older one)
Call of Duty - World At War
Call of Duty - Black Ops (and notably, there is a separate game ID for the macOS Edition)
Call of Duty - Black Ops II
Call of Duty - Black Ops III (which has very good Steam Workshop Support!)
Call of Duty - Black Ops Cold War
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (the newer one)
Call of Duty - WWII
Call of Duty - Vanguard
Call of Duty - Modern Warfare Remastered
Call of Duty - Advanced Warfare - Gold Edition
Call of Duty - Ghosts
Call of Duty - Infinite Warfare
Call of Duty - Modern Warfare II, Modern Warfare III (both the newer ones), and Warzone

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I was talking about whatever the current, popular CoD is. I don't follow the series, thus my not knowing. Last time I tried to play, it was Battle.Net exclusive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It’s now an MS exclusive and they have shitty plans for it because MS is a dumpster fire of a company that doesn’t give two shits about people and has been leveraging its monopoly since the 90s (they had to pay out millions over their practices with licensing of Windows and Office).

[+] [email protected] -9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I’m not talking about billion dollar studios. I’m talking about indie devs. And Steam is 100% a monopoly regardless of how the nerds on Reddit and here feel about Valve. They are not your friends; they are a business. Moreover, they take a 30% cut and no one has ever batted an eye, not even today. Everyone went after the Apple App Store.

Their success has been to convince gamers they are friends. That’s all. Apple on the other hand garners insane antipathy from the public.

It’s wild how public perception ignores facts.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I’m not talking about billion dollar studios. I’m talking about indie devs.

Billion dollar studios like Notch, Battlestate games, and Roblox (pre-Roblox).

Moreover, they take a 30% cut and no one has ever batted an eye, not even today.

Because unlike Apple, you can choose to instead or also sell on dozens of other storefronts that also charge about 30%, such as Humble, GMG, Fanatical, Epic, Microsoft, GOG, IndieGala, or GamersGate, or one of a half dozen or so that charge less such as itch.io, or you can just put it on your website. A monopoly doesn't mean something costs money, it means there are no other options. Theres more competition in the games retail market than there is most other areas.

Their success has been to convince gamers they are friends. That’s all. Apple on the other hand garners insane antipathy from the public.

The difference is that Apple follows the same sort of business practices as much of Steams competion, and the industry in general. They invest in measures to stifle competition, often at the cost of the user, rather than using their position for R&D or development that might help users. People view Steam positively because they're one of a very small number of companies that try and make a good, or at least innovative product, even if their end goal is still to get your money. Compare that to Epic, where they immediately started limitting consumer choice by buying exclusivity and by doing things like removing the Linux versions of games they bought (even after they had already been paid for), or what you're complaining about, Apple, where they prevent installing anything they didn't approve (esspecially anything indie), and don't allow devs to use services other than their own.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Sorry how is forcing me to run their stupid app that gobbles system resources, ugly as hell and super invasive to run every game good for the user?

You can’t move purchases out of your Steam account and Steam won’t even let you transfer it after you die. Not sure how that’s good for me like I’m dead you can’t let my kid have it because you’re so nice.

They will ban you indefinitely even over a small dispute, like say a charge back or sometimes just a random violation of their TOS which says they can ban you for no reason.

Needing an internet connection even for single player local games is also great stuff.

If you own a game and then buy a bundle with that game, they don’t give you another copy (that you could gift to someone) which is wild because you literally paid twice for it.

You like Vavle as much as Apple fanboys like Apple. I get it. But they are just as shit of a company as every other company. Like I said, they aren’t there for you. They just have good marketing and a good front facing VP. Also they control so much that just wait another 5-10 years when management changes. It won’t be good for the user I can tell you that.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Sorry how is forcing me to run their stupid app that gobbles system resources, ugly as hell and super invasive to run every game good for the user?

Valve doesn't force you to run it, game devs do. Steam's DRM isn't mandatory for developers to implement. For example, I know FTL is drm free on Steam. If I remeber right, SteamPipe can also be used for a much more lightweight experience as well, if you don't want to do anything but install games (and not use their DRM or features).

You can’t move purchases out of your Steam account and Steam won’t even let you transfer it after you die. Not sure how that’s good for me like I’m dead you can’t let my kid have it because you’re so nice.

They will ban you indefinitely even over a small dispute, like say a charge back or sometimes just a random violation of their TOS which says they can ban you for no reason.

This isn't good, but its standard and unless licensing laws and/or other big publishers change, I doubt this will. Its not something that makes Valve any less of a standout in the market when every other company does much worse than this.

Needing an internet connection even for single player local games is also great stuff.

For developers that do chose to implement DRM, the offline mode on Steam is relatively permissive.

If you own a game and then buy a bundle with that game, they don’t give you another copy (that you could gift to someone) which is wild because you literally paid twice for it.

Again, this is set by the publisher/dev. Valve offers the option to discount the pack by the given amount. Not as good as traditional physical software, but again, its not as bad as basically all of the competition so...

But they are just as shit of a company as every other company. Like I said, they aren’t there for you. They just have good marketing and a good front facing VP.

Yes, because providing tools for gaming on Linux doesn't affect the customer buying/using their products. Neither does VR, or portable PC hardware as they're exactly the same offerings as a desktop PC with better marketing. Neither does improved controller support - its just flashy UI for what was already easy to do. Neither does providing tools and hosting for a modding API - any dev who doesn't launch with a home-made one is just too incompetent to be selling games anyway. None of these things are anything more than flashy marketing, so we should just be using itch.io's VR headset for the lower rates and Epic's Linux compatibility tools for those who don't want to support Microsoft's anti-consumer practices. And of course, instead of doing these things, they're secretly buying exclusivity to every game and preventing you from repairing your devices despite the repair information provided (but you don't realize because of marketing).

Also they control so much that just wait another 5-10 years when management changes. It won’t be good for the user I can tell you that.

Given that Gabe Newell owns a majority share from what we know, and he has shown a desire to build a stable, competitve company rather than just trying to join the race to the bottom, it'll likely be longer than 5-10 years. That said, yes, this is a concern, but thats unavoidable, and "but someday they might not be good" isn't a reason to dislike them as they are now.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

forcing me to run their stupid app

you don't... for non-DRM games you can just launch the executable from the installation directory

Needing an internet connection even for single player local games

see above - therefore not true

You are just mad about things that aren't real, yet scream about fanboyism. Cute.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

For indie developer you got itch.io... then the void.

How this is Valve fault? You can't blame a company in both direction for the same argument, you have to pick a side for your criticism.

Valve was accused to allow all sort of shovelware by indie developers... then you got the competition like GoG that say: " sure, we will have store curation: we will give indie developers the discipline that Valve won't "

How things gone for GoG in the indie sphere? You remember any indie recently booming on GoG... Because surely can name few on both Steam and itch.io.

There are different types of monopoly: the one that attempt Epic by using bribe money just so everyone come to their Battle Royale... and one you get because all the companies around you ignore what customers and business (indie Dev) wants: a democratic platform like itch.io (in which Valve is closer with its approach)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Plenty of games succeed without steam tho. Fortnite for example.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Plenty. Lists one. One that is powered by a multi million dollar company. Got it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

MS wasn't designated a gatekeeper in the EU Digital Markets Act? 😮

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