Valve Reveals First Month of Steam Linux Gains 295
An anonymous reader writes with news that Valve has updated its Hardware & Software Survey for December 2012, which reflects the first month of the platform being available for Linux. Even though the project is still in a beta test, players on Ubuntu already account for 0.8% of Steam usage. The 64-bit clients for Ubuntu 12.10 and 12.04.1 showed about double the share of the 32-bit versions. MacOS use also showed growth, rising to about 3.7%. Windows 7's usage share dropped by over 2%, but balanced by the growth of Windows 8, which is now at just under 7%. The total share for Windows is still about 95%.
Re:DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm against DRM when it's a problem, but I've never had a problem with Steam.
If the only reason I'd ever even notice your DRM is trying to do something illegal, I really don't have a reason to take issue with it.
Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Steam IS DRM.
Steam is a distribution system that uses DRM. They could choose to stop using it and still be a distribution system.
Re:Doesn't help that Steam client is poorly writte (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It Could Be More (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps their engineers are not that skilled?
They started with getting it to work on one distribution (on of the more popular ones), they will get it to work on others.
The articles describing how the worked with graphics card manufacturers to improve performance on linux suggests that their engineers are quite skilled, but only human, so they cannot do everything at once.
Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if I can really pinpoint why I don't consider Steam to be the kick to the dick that almost all other DRM is.
Two reasons.
1) It continues to just work.
2) You get at least the game-play value out of it that you spent.
I've picked up a lot of sub-$5 games on steam. You know how much I will care if at some point I can no longer play them? About as much as a care that I let $5 worth of cheese spoil in my refrigerator this week. I wish it didn't happen, but it doesnt pain me.
Re:Doesn't help that Steam client is poorly writte (Score:5, Insightful)
You've gone to far. RealPlayer is literally the worst program in the entire world.
Re:DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
ComplainersThe world is passing you by... (Score:5, Insightful)
You can spend all your time fighting extraordinarily un-restraining DRM, or you can play games.
Stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. From the numbers, having Steam support linux games at all is pretty silly from the business perspective.
It's an act of good will that it exists at all.
So, keep complaining, if you think that's getting you anywhere. I'm going back to playing games
Re:Doesn't help that Steam client is poorly writte (Score:5, Insightful)
Are we running the same Steam? I've been using it for years, and never encountered anything just described. It's quick and gets out of the way as soon as I tell it I want to play a game. In fact, my only irritation is that it has to install the DirectX runtime or VC RED (whichever it is) for each new game, but I sort of understand why it's doing that, and it only happens once.
Re:Doesn't help that Steam client is poorly writte (Score:5, Insightful)
You obviously haven't used Excel for Mac.
1) No multi-threading, which is a problem when the application pretty easily maxes out a core.
2) Bizarre keyboard shortcuts that don't match the standard ones used in most applications
3) Piss poor support for multiple displays, with a resizing bug that's been around for way too long
4) Excel documents don't show up in recent items in Finder
5) Excel addresses files using a path - not a reference to the file, meaning that it doesn't notice when open files are renamed or moved. It also gets confused if you have two mounted volumes (including the home folder) with the same name.
6) Very buggy AppleScript support. I know of no other application that so easily crashes while scripted to do fairly mundane things.
7) Uses its own internal clipboard, meaning that copying and pasting can be pretty bizarre. Copying something, and then closing a document alters the contents of the clipboard. It's also slow as hell. It's not unusual for me to sit there waiting 5 seconds to put a value from a cell in to the clipboard. I could understand this if it's pasting in to a cell that is referenced in heavy calculations, but for just copying a value?
iMovie 3.0 was pretty bad. I'd take Steam of that any day.
Re:DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
You are the most retarded AC I've seen on /. in the past few weeks. Congrats! So much wrong in so little text.
Also I loved the word "paytard", it tells us exactly the type of person you are.
What margins are you expecting. (Score:2, Insightful)
From the numbers, having Steam support linux games at all is pretty silly from the business perspective.
Steam is supporting games *from* a business perspective. Its very existence is being threatened. In future steam may only exist OS X and Linux. Its mistake was not expecting this sooner, and not supporting Linux earlier. The reality is Windows is going to be overtaken by Android this year...it actually makes sense to produce games for Linux first, and cross platform is a must in today's new world.
I buy a large number of games, most are cross-platform; DRM free and pretty cheap. I don't use steam because of DRM.
Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing with steam DRM though is that you don't really even notice it is there. Contrast to that of CD's of yore where if you forgot to put the right disc in the drive, your game won't start even though it doesn't actually need it. Or when you had those challenge response code books. Or worse, the ones where you had to read the damn manual with a red filter.
Also offline mode is an option with steam too, unlike say diablo 3.
One thing about older DRM was that the pirated version offered better value than the legit version because you didn't have to bother with that crap. Steam on the other hand the legit version offers many benefits that you don't get with a pirated version, like cloud save data and no need to hunt down the game discs if you re-format your PC.
Re:Troll? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because it offers something doesn't mean the DRM part is offering it. DRM offers the content industry something. It is the delusion that they're going to make more money. In reality it detracts from people who dislike DRM and from those who end up not pirating it (because fewer people who pirate means less publicity which means fewer sales). There are a lot of shitty movies that have sold well. It has to do with publicty and piracy fuels that.
Re:RMS doesn't proprieatry games (Score:2, Insightful)
RMS doesnt' fucking bath or shave and tends to eat his own toe jam. Following RMS's example is one of the more retarded things you do in your life.
Re:DRM (Score:0, Insightful)
I'd like to see the list of games that will launch without steam being logged in. I'm sure it's incredibly tiny.
Re:DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
It's about control. You give up control over your own games and your own computer and hand it to a third party.
That's however not much different then using apt-get on Ubuntu. If Ubuntu decides to remove some software from their repositories, you are still fucked. It might all be DRM-free and Open Source, but you still need a lot of knowledge and work to get it back into working order, which isn't really a whole lot different from DRM, which oftentimes is rather easy to get rid of as well.
Re:DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
This posts smells of someone who doesn't want to pay for video games, so they instead attack others who DO wish to pay for their video games.
Not everyone subscribes to Richard Stallman's point of view of "free software is good, everything else is evil." There IS a time and place for non-free software. Verbally abusing me on Slashdot while posting as an Anonymous Coward will not change that fact.
Also, your use of Astroturfing is flawed. The definition is as follows (Wikipedia):
Astroturfing refers to political, advertising or public relations campaigns that are designed to mask the sponsors of the message to give the appearance of coming from a disinterested, grassroots participant. Astroturfing is intended to give the statements the credibility of an independent entity by withholding information about the source's financial connection.
The only financial connection I have with Valve is I spend money to buy video games that utilize their service. Otherwise, I'd consider myself an independent entity.
By the way, any idiot can put in dollar $ing$ in$tead of $'$! Just an FYI.