So, at the turn of the new year I ran a quick poll on how many GOG'ers are using Linux in some way.
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/linux_users_raise_your_hand_2014

A little over a year before that I had run another one. It was slightly different in that it also polled for Mac users (it was pre-mac support I believe)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/linuxmac_users_raise_your_hand

Before that another forum member had run one.
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/linux_users_report_here

Now with a few polls in existence I am tempted to try and do some kind of comparison to see if there is any information on the topic to be gained. Since each poll has some unique/divergent qualities to it, making any real conclusions will be speculative work, but I find the more recent poll to be interesting.

The interesting part is how much less activity the most recent poll garnered than the other two. The first and second polls are currently within one post of one another, and the final poll has less than half the number of post than they do. Such a drastic difference makes me curious as to why that might be, and think it might be worth talking about to those of us interested in the topic.

Before drawing any conclusions there are some pollution factors to weigh in. The first poll has no sense of time to it, in that it did not get all of its post in a small amount of time. There are posts spread out over a two year period, well after the second poll( done by me) even, which makes it hard to gather anything out of in terms of how many people are using it at any particular time.

In the second poll I asked for mac users as well as Linux, so it makes sense that there would be more posts, but the number of Mac users in that thread don't seem to be significant enough to explain a 50% drop off. It could have generated more interest in the topic, but it's hard to say how that factors in, but it is not impossible that a little extra momentum could have taken things quite a bit farther.

The third poll was difficult to fuel. I re-raised it a couple of times in case my timing was off, but ultimately it didn't garner anywhere near as much interest as my previous poll did. So the question becomes, IF the above pollution factors don't account for the variance, what does?

Do people not want to participate if they already have? Are there actually fewer Linux users, despite all the noise around it lately (fewer, making more noise?) Or are Linux users actually starting to forsake GOG due to their current Linux position? All of the above? None of the above? Something else entirely?

**posts as a metric
The total number of posts isn't a perfect indication of how many people posted to say they do use Linux. I could count them all up, but total posts also say a little something about how much interest there is around the topic beyond the show of hands.

I think the explanation is simply that there are other places where people can get DRM free games for Linux. That and the fact that GOG has provided no evidence that they're ever going to provide Linux compatible games.

I myself refuse to buy any games here that have Linux versions as there's no guarantee that there ever going to come around, but places like the Humble Store already have DRM free Linux versions available.

There's probably also the fact that people have been trying for quite some time and I don't think GOG even bothers to weigh in on it anymore.

I can't speak for anybody else, but I think folks would settle for having Linux versions that aren't supported by GOG. In my experience, most of the time Linux games just work, provided that one has the prerequisite libraries installed. Rarely, if ever, have I had software that wouldn't work on my specific computer that normally works for other people. And when I do have problems, it's usually because the documentation isn't there.

I'd love for them to provide the freebies for Linux, as that would at least give them some idea as to how many of us are waiting for Linux support.

So it's reasonable to conclude that GOG is in fact seeing a tangible decline in Linux biased users, and it's not just some hypothetical thing that people are threatening, or could happen if they maintain their current course of non-action?

Not sure it matters if a few Linux users leave if the overall numbers are strong, but that seems like a fairly significant percentage drop for 1 year. It might not be a full 50%, but even if it's 25% you still have to then factor in that GOG most likely has more customers overall now than last year that still failed to maintain previous numbers.

Nah, we just don't bother saying anything now. There's only so many times you can make a point before we start getting sick of it. As Hedwards said, most of us will pick indies up from Desura or Humble Store now.

I think it's really one of the only reasonable positions to take. I dislike Windows and MS shows no particular interest in making a good OS, so I prefer to use something else. GOG shows no particular interest in providing me with Linux compatible games, so I restrict my purchases here to DOSBox games and ones that don't have a Linux version at all.

I'm not sure how anybody knows what the real level of interest in Linux games is, if GOG won't offer any at all for sale. Something like Warsow which is free and has a Linux version would be a great place to start. If it doesn't work, then there's no particular responsibility on GOG's part to support it, but it might clear up some of the confusion about what it takes to make a game work on Linux.

Another point is that you can make many games run in wine. I cannot play Commandos on my Win7, but I can on XP and the Ubuntu partition of my machine can also run it under Wine. It might not be the perfect solution, but it works.

Although furthering my dropping of Windows would be more confidance that I could easily get to play my games on Ubuntu without Wine or too much fiddling (I know I am not a "true blood Linux user"). I am for now okay with keeping my Windows for playing games and using the Ubuntu side for the more experimental times. Also I buy quite a number of HB's with all their Linux distribution packets, so I can always get games there.

Didn't even noticed your thread. Now posted inside as it's deserving to know users.
I sincerely hope GoG do something…but will loose my hopes if it continues. Today, there is at least a good place to go for Linux users…Humble Bundle… Why should Linux users use a low quality solution like this one? What we could call "a patch"? Especially as we know that some games sold here are already available with native Linux versions elsewhere…
Why are we supposed to have less rights than others and less quality?

I might be overly optimistic, but I'm hoping the Steam Box will be a game changer. I reckon it could easily triple the installed user base on Steam by the end of this year. Other vendors will have no choice but to support Linus eventually.

Here's hoping nobody necros this thread at the end of the year :S

Edit: Not Linus, Linux! You guys understand the mistake, though, right?

The Steam, Desura and Humble Bundle stats provide a good idea of the potential.

Linux usage on Steam commands 2% of the overall Steam market - roughly the same as Mac - and that despite the majority of Linux users actually being staunchly anti-DRM (for obvious reasons). There was some post-mortem I read a while back showing how, despite the substantially smaller market share of Linux on Steam, Linux users actually accounted for a much larger share of sales of a particular game owing to the fewer number of games available for the platform. If anyone knows which game that was, please feel free to tell me.

On Desura, it's much higher - while only 1% of users have a client that reports Linux use, there's a substantial number of people using the semi-official Desurium client, which is really only used under Linux and does not report the OS used. Around a quarter of clients do not report their OS, so it's a safe bet that Linux users account for around one-fifth of Desura traffic. It's probably the reason why most indie devs publishing there provide a Linux version.

Based on the current Humble Bundle, Humble Store sits between this, representing around 10-12% of sales (I must confess at this point that I often buy stuff from Humble Bundle from my Windows work PC or from my Windows gaming installation, and I don't always remember to check the Linux box, so if other people are in a similar position, the real value may be slightly higher).

On the whole, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Linux sales would account for around 10% of income, and GOG would certainly enjoy a certain amount of goodwill through the shared DRM-free philosophy. When was the last time the big LT had anything major to do with Linux?

Yeah, open source and DRM-free are two peas in the same pod. Plus, in general, Linux users are quite good at voting with their wallets for software they desire/support. Hehe, nothing. It's just that I read an article recently and he was asked for a comment. Can't remember what it was about, though.

It's interesting that Linux on Steam is doing that well, seeing as the Linux catalog over there is so tiny.

I remember back in the early days of the HIB, that the Linux users were paying considerably more per bundle than the OSX or Windows crowd. I suspect that part of that was the fewer options for their gaming dollar, as well as an increased incentive to reward developers that were interested in serving them.

There's sort of a chicken and egg problem where the market won't start to really develop until developers offer their games for the platform. I know that the guys over at Codeweavers don't seem to have any problem making money, despite their product being heavily based on Wine.

I wonder about how accurate such numbers are. I mean how do the account for the double OS user? People are rarely 100% Linux, and if they just look to see how many users are logged on under linux vs windows vs mac well that doesn't really say much. Most games dictate that I be playing on Windows or use Wine which I assume reports as windows. In the first case I would get lumped in with Windows stats for that reading because I couldn't play the game I wanted on Linux, or only have Windows handy. In the second I am actually on Linux, but getting counted as windows anyway. It seems there are several ways to report wrong, and they generally favor accidentally counting in one direction not both.

If it's a who has used Linux thing then maybe none of that applies, but that's not a good way to do it either.

We need an all purpose linux thread.

Steam does track play time, so I'm guessing they have some way of estimating how much the games are being played on Linux versus Windows versus OSX.

The one here
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/linux_support_on_gog

has more or less turned into that. But if your looking for one to shove every Linux discussion into, well that isn't going to happen. Nor should it.

Now if you mean forum well then
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/alternative_os_forum_linux_mac