You're doing the same mistake, looking at the issue through numbers.
Let's say I am a power user, and I have 10 friends. I rave about a service because it serves me so well, my friends follow my lead, and now the service sees 9% users on Mac an 91% on Windows. A Linux power-user does the same, and now the service has 4.5% users on Linux, 4.5% on Mac, and 91% on Windows. Our friends then "recruit" their friends, and so on and so forth until the numbers are overwhelmingly pro-Windows - but the chains didn't start there.
Scenario 2: a Windows friend tells me a service is great, he's seen it on this video and blablabla. I check and it's just for Windows. Not only will I not sign up, I will probably badmouth it whenever the subject comes up. So chances are that at least some of our common friends will follow my lead and not sign up, even just because "what if I buy a Mac tomorrow? Their laptops are so nice, I just can't afford it right now but once I get a new job..."
You can't see these stories in a spreadsheet, because virality and clout are undocumented, so to speak, but they are often the difference between a healthy growing business and a dying MBA-driven shell of a company.
Does the math here make zero sense?
If you have 91% windows and 9% mac, and linux users suddenly surge, how do you end up at 4.5% mac, 4.5% linux, and 91% windows users still? The only way that makes sense is if the mac users converted to linux. Otherwise this would almost seem to be in favour of windows users since they're relative userbase increases enough to outset surges in linux power users onboarding? With the ten friends narrative 91 windows users, 9 mac users, into 91 windows users, 9 mac users, 9 linux users would not result in a pro-windows numbers.
Also the notion that linux users "DEFINITELY" want to game on linux seems not entirely based in facts or references to anything. I've used Mac/Linux for the entirety of my highschool, college, and career time. Interacted with plenty. I've never felt if suddenly a store widely supported linux/mac there'd be a surge of new adoption. I've gamed on Linux for a long time (and many times games run under wine/proton work better than windows which is awesome!), but I also game on windows equally, as do my peers without issue or complaint.
Secondly that second point seems entirely vengeful and needless. If one of my linux using friends said as such to me I'd think they were being overly rude and spiteful, but worst of all I think such habits taints the view of developers and maintainers about the userbases. Why would developers want to support a userbase (if indeed the linux userbase all felt this way which I believe they do not) who would " badmouth it whenever the subject comes up" simply because they received a recommendation from their friend(?) that didn't support their preferred operating system? Also "maybe I'll buy a Mac tomorrow?" seems disconnected from reality by and large.
Finally virality and clout are absolutely documented. Is that not the premise of... every single social media platform these days? Every algorithmic recommendation engine is trying to represent virality and clout, since those terms directly tie in to user views, and thus profits!
It does, if you read what I wrote. 1 mac + 10 win + 1 linux + 10 win = 1 mac + 1 linux + 20 windows = 4.5% mac + 4.5% linux + 91% windows.
> this would almost seem to be in favour of windows users since they're relative userbase increases enough to outset surges
If you read it as numbers, yes. But the point is that certain things cannot be expressed in numbers. Because the mac/linux userbase is composed disproportionately more of power-users, who have disproportionately more clout among their network of acquaintances when it comes to IT and games, their overall influence is much higher than the numbers convey. They start the chains.
Your statement on not feeling this or that, btw, is directly negated by the very history of HumbleBundle.
> Why would developers want to support a userbase
We are not talking about developers here, but distributors.
> Every algorithmic recommendation engine is trying to represent virality and clout
That doesn't mean they succeed, and regardless, we are not talking about social media here.
You seem to have gone off on a series of rants without actually reading what I wrote.
This scenario you present isn't exclusive to Linux or Mac though. I have seen this play out a number of times where a friend in my group finds a game and convinces us all to play it together; the difference is we are all on Windows. This is also exactly why companies target streamers so much, because it's just what you describe at a larger scale (and it's safe to say most streamers are running Windows).
this. its stupid how gaming companies cite the minscule 1-2% of linux market share as "not worth it" when these are the people who DEFINITELY want to play their games but because of either dev incompetence or some other issue, are not able to but they still try it. Plus, these 1-2% band together and do the work of the gaming companies by fixing bugs themselves instead of waiting and expecting them to fix it. yet developers are scared of "bug reports" as if that is some scary monster that can only be killed if they adopt inbox zero approach and having inbox zero in terms of bug reports and errors is good for managerial execs.
Of the let's be generous and say 2% of userbase uses Linux. How many of the users don't dual-boot or run Wine/Proton? And what is the realistic workload to keep releasing versions on different platforms? And fixing issues specific to those.
Some devs have even said that it's not worth it to release game on EGS and GOG due to overhead for keeping it up to date there...
i find that hilarious. as a linux person, the first place to get a bug fixed in steam+wine would be proton and not the company producing the game. the contributors will fix the game for everyone and the company will have people coming for more because of generosity of volunteers and yet they want to impose anti-cheat as the gospel
Let's say I am a power user, and I have 10 friends. I rave about a service because it serves me so well, my friends follow my lead, and now the service sees 9% users on Mac an 91% on Windows. A Linux power-user does the same, and now the service has 4.5% users on Linux, 4.5% on Mac, and 91% on Windows. Our friends then "recruit" their friends, and so on and so forth until the numbers are overwhelmingly pro-Windows - but the chains didn't start there.
Scenario 2: a Windows friend tells me a service is great, he's seen it on this video and blablabla. I check and it's just for Windows. Not only will I not sign up, I will probably badmouth it whenever the subject comes up. So chances are that at least some of our common friends will follow my lead and not sign up, even just because "what if I buy a Mac tomorrow? Their laptops are so nice, I just can't afford it right now but once I get a new job..."
You can't see these stories in a spreadsheet, because virality and clout are undocumented, so to speak, but they are often the difference between a healthy growing business and a dying MBA-driven shell of a company.