Whoopi Goldberg Rants about Diablo IV Not Being on Mac: “It’s Really Pissed Me Off”

[Brian_B]

If we look at steam stats it shows windows at 96% and OSX at 2.4%. That seems more realistic.

I don't disagree with you, but we are looking at two different measures.

One is combing through web server logs to look at what clients are hitting. The other is just looking at gamers. There are going to be some natural skews there based on those demographics. Your data source is more appropriate for "gaming" population though, I admit and I wish I had thought of that - although even that is skewed by the lack of a tool and games such as this.... it might be higher if more games were ported or the tools were easier to use / more readily available, and it will miscount instances of things like Bootcamp and Parallels/VMWare Fusion (not that those work on Mx Macs as they did before, but still).

But I don't doubt OS X is single digit percentage of all computer users.

 

[MadMummy76]

I don't disagree with you, but we are looking at two different measures.

One is combing through web server logs to look at what clients are hitting. The other is just looking at gamers. There are going to be some natural skews there based on those demographics. Your data source is more appropriate for "gaming" population though, I admit and I wish I had thought of that - although even that is skewed by the lack of a tool and games such as this.... it might be higher if more games were ported or the tools were easier to use / more readily available, and it will miscount instances of things like Bootcamp and Parallels/VMWare Fusion (not that those work on Mx Macs as they did before, but still).

But I don't doubt OS X is single digit percentage of all computer users.

I never heard a single person complain so far that games are not on MacOS, or whatever it is called now. It was never a gaming platform. But I'm bigoted against apple users.

 

[Brian_B]

I’ve bought a lot of games just to support OS X development, but yeah - it doesn’t do a lot of good

 

[Zarathustra]

More than I thought even:

Operating System Market Share Worldwide | Statcounter Global Stats

This graph shows the market share of operating systems worldwide based on over 5 billion monthly page views.

gs.statcounter.com

Operating Systems Percentage Market Share
Operating System Market Share Worldwide - May 2023
Android 34.78%
Windows 29.28%
iOS 16.94%
OS X 8.93%
Unknown 6.23%
Chrome OS 1.68%


This treats mobile devices / OSes in the mix as well, which some people may take offense to, but I think it's valid.

The do have a "Desktop Only" version:

Desktop Operating Systems Percentage Market Share
Desktop Operating System Market Share Worldwide - May 2023
Windows 61.87%
OS X 18.87%
Unknown 13.01%
Chrome OS 3.54%
Linux 2.69%
FreeBSD 0%

These are usually based on browser data. If you want to see how large a portion of the "gaming" market they have, the best choice is probably to look at Steams hardware survey:



So, we are talking 2.39%

Admittedly higher than I thought, and surprisingly higher than Linux despite how much talk there is about gaming on Linux these days, but still, gaming is 96.14% Windows, so devs can easily be forgiven for ignoring all other platforms.

 

[Dan_D]

Was this just an Apple marketing ploy or.... Is Woopi way cooler than I thought?
My mind is breaking......

She's not. She's a typical far left whacko. She's just mad because her sweatshop born favorite computer brand that overcharges people for stainless steel cases with feet or hundreds of dollars for monitor stands doesn't care about gaming.

 

[LeRoy_Blanchard]

I don't think Steam's survey results are all that accurate either. They don't gather the stats on every single host that installs Steam and logs in. It randomly picks people.

I've been a steam user for over a decade and I've only got the "survey consent" popup thing like once.

 

[MadMummy76]

If you consent once, you participate forever, isn't that how it works? BTW I think the whole consent thing is superfluous, there is no way they don't send back the system info as part of regular telemetry already.

 

[DrezKill]

I've been a steam user for over a decade and I've only got the "survey consent" popup thing like once.

Interesting. I've had my Steam account since January 2005, and get the Steam survey shiznit pretty often, on both laptops and desktops. I'd say at least a few times a year.

 

[LeRoy_Blanchard]

Interesting. I've had my Steam account since January 2005, and get the Steam survey shiznit pretty often, on both laptops and desktops. I'd say at least a few times a year.

I leave my Steam client running on my computer 24/7 and am on it nearly daily. I can only remember one time I've received that message asking if I consent to it.

If you consent once, you participate forever, isn't that how it works? BTW I think the whole consent thing is superfluous, there is no way they don't send back the system info as part of regular telemetry already.

No, the take the surveys once a month and ask for consent from those who they ask.

 

[Zarathustra]

I leave my Steam client running on my computer 24/7 and am on it nearly daily. I can only remember one time I've received that message asking if I consent to it.



No, the take the surveys once a month and ask for consent from those who they ask.

I've been sampled 3-4 times over the last 20 years. It's almost always when I am on my laptop or something, and thus doesn't truly represent me, but it is what it is.

What I don't get is, with how easy and cheap it is for them to collect data, why sample at all? Why not just measure the whole population every month?

I mean, it costs nothing.

 

[MadMummy76]

No, the take the surveys once a month and ask for consent from those who they ask.

I'm sure they are taking a representative sample size. Like nielsen ratings are based on less than 0.05% of households and is still considered accurate. It's just our gut feeling that tells us "they didn't ask me, therefore this statistic is flawed"

 

[Niner51]

Interesting. I've had my Steam account since January 2005, and get the Steam survey shiznit pretty often, on both laptops and desktops. I'd say at least a few times a year.

I don't believe I have ever received a survey from Steam, and I'm not complaining.

 

[LeRoy_Blanchard]

I've been sampled 3-4 times over the last 20 years. It's almost always when I am on my laptop or something, and thus doesn't truly represent me, but it is what it is.

What I don't get is, with how easy and cheap it is for them to collect data, why sample at all? Why not just measure the whole population every month?

I mean, it costs nothing.

You would think they'd do that, but for whatever reason they do not. Just a simple "Can Valve use your system info to [insert reason here] tick box anyone can tick. I'd venture to say they'd have a lot more people than they think accepting it.

I'm sure they are taking a representative sample size. Like nielsen ratings are based on less than 0.05% of households and is still considered accurate. It's just our gut feeling that tells us "they didn't ask me, therefore this statistic is flawed"

You should look those up. They're not considered accurate. lol

I don't believe I have ever received a survey from Steam, and I'm not complaining.

Its automated. Meaning you don't actually have to do anything except "accept" or "decline." If you accept it, then it just gathers your system info automatically and lets Valve use it. If you decline it, then it just gathers your system info and Valve isn't supposed to use it.

 

[Zarathustra]

You should look those up. They're not considered accurate. lol

I think they used to be accurate back when everyone got their content from actual TV, but are less so today.

Still an accurate representation of what TV watchers are watching, but it misses all the cord cutters / streamers.

 

[Brian_B]

https://www.statisticshowto.com/probability-and-statistics/find-sample-size/

That said, Zath and Leroy have a good point - why bother with the survey at all = they have all the data from every install if they want to use it, and it would be easier to just have a blanket Opt In somewhere in the settings rather than bother with a randomized survey and rely on statistics and averages to show statistical data that they already have with 100% confidence.

I am of the opinion the survey is fairly accurate - I wouldn't rely on it to two decimal points maybe, but within a single digit margin of error. After all, if it were too off base, Valve does have access to the full data set and, presumably, wouldn't publish something that is knowingly false - at least beyond a reasonable margin of error.

 

[MadMummy76]

I think they used to be accurate back when everyone got their content from actual TV, but are less so today.

Still an accurate representation of what TV watchers are watching, but it misses all the cord cutters / streamers.

They started including streaming a while back.

You should look those up. They're not considered accurate. lol

Look what up? It is an industry standard that shows lived and died by for decades. It is also used in pricing ad slots. I think the only ones claiming it is inaccurate are the ones with an axe to grind. But if you have reliable sources that can prove it is inaccurate, I'd love to see it.

 

[LeRoy_Blanchard]

Yeah I'm not doing research on a subject I couldn't careless about.

The fact remains, that without knowing how many Steam accounts Steam actually counts each month means we can't possibly know just how accurate the data can be.

Take flipping a coin for an example.

You could flip a coin 5 times and it all land on heads. Flip it 50 or 500 times and it'll be more likely to be 50:50 heads:tails. People claim that Nielsen ratings are not accurate because their sample size isn't large enough for the U.S.

 

[Dan_D]

I don't believe I have ever received a survey from Steam, and I'm not complaining.

I've gotten Steam survey's a bunch of times.

 

[Brian_B]

The fact remains, that without knowing how many Steam accounts Steam actually counts each month means we can't possibly know just how accurate the data can be.

You kinda can. I'm no math wiz, but I did take a Statistics class. You may not know with multi-decimal point precision, but for what we are all looking at the numbers for - it's more than accurate enough.

 

[MadMummy76]

Yeah I'm not doing research on a subject I couldn't careless about.

You sounded so confident I thought you already did the research, or at least found and read someone else's.

The fact remains, that without knowing how many Steam accounts Steam actually counts each month means we can't possibly know just how accurate the data can be.

I'm confident Valve set this number where it is reliable to at least one percentage point. I'm pretty sure they have at least the OS / CPU info from the client installs for most users. They might not be able to use that data for the public survey, but they can compare numbers, and if the numbers match it means their sample size is adequate. So I have much higher confidence in the steam survey than any independent internet survey.