It’s not the gotcha that they think it is. Increasing share of Linux, steam deck or not is progress. Any development or considerations made for the SteamDeck and its Arch based OS benefit the non SteamDeck Linux gaming scene too.
Mostly a stab at Reddit PCMR, Lemmy PCMR has a different vibe.
I think it’s because generally speaking, thanks to the efforts of Valve with game mode etc to create the console like experience, many that have a Steam Deck don’t “use” Linux…they use Steam, they click Install and they click Play and that’s it.
Does it really matter? How many Windows users’ usage just launch a browser and use that, aren’t they effectively not “using” Windows per se?
The point is that these people don’t care or might not even know it’s Linux in the background, the Deck could auto launch Steam in full screen mode from Windows for all they know.
Hell, I’m tech savvy and I honestly don’t care that it’s Linux based, I would have bought it no matter the OS running in the background, for me it’s basically a game console, anything that needs a regular OS I do from my PC.
I would even have preferred to have it run a modified version of Windows because of the 100% compatibility with my library (I’m expecting a portable Xbox to come out at some point and to be exactly that).
My point was twofold: that the type of user that wouldn’t care about it being Linux or not just wouldn’t care either way, and that making a distinction based on… intent (?) is arbitrary. They’d have perfectly counted as Windows users if the Deck was a Windows machine, after all…
Sure and that’s why I think they should be in their own category (no matter the OS)
That’s right. Had Steam Deck run Windows, or even for those that install Windows and join the survey, they would be lumped in with the Windows metric and nobody would care as it would be a drop in the ocean.
Linux is the underdog, always has been, maybe always will be. So any uptick in metrics is far more significant than a twitch in the Windows numbers and gets a more exciting response. I think the problem is many don’t see it as true adoption when Steam Deck has such a console-like experience for a lot of users…for the naysayers it is like including PlayStations in the survey and saying FreeBSD users are everywhere. Technically yes, but also no, right?
That doesn’t make a great example because you don’t even have the option to exit PlayStation and use BSD, but I hope it gets the idea across.