Okay Geek Farm
Indie Game Developers: Please read Steam's Hardware & Software Survey
Brandon Davenport
Are you an independent game developer? You really need to take a look at this — Steam has released a series of charts and lists that take a deep, deep look into Gamer’s systems, and what they use day-to-day. You can see what OS is most popular, what graphics cards are on the rise and multi CPU adoption among Steam’s massive audience — Lets take a look.
Steam’s Survey is so accurate, it’s scary
When it comes to statistics, it’s always kept anonymous and no statistic is tied to a single user, but what really scares us about Steam’s stats is how accurate it is. When I looked at the stats above, it basically matched my configuration at home to the letter (except I have a GTX 265 and a 1TB Hard Drive). Steam has really hit it on the nose when it comes to understanding their users, and this is a gold-mine for game developers.
If you are a game developer, read this
You are a developer with no cash to spend on frills — Do you wonder if your potential customers have flash installed? How about Silverlight, or Games for Windows? Maybe even Ventrillo or TeamSpeak? — It’s all here in Steam’s survey. This is a gold-mine of info, not just for hardware and system specific software, but also applications that could be vital to your next game release like Adobe Air, Silverlight and Flash (maybe even Torrent clients). The steam community speaks loudly for every PC gamer in the world, and represents everyone who would be downloading, buying or pirating your game — even if they don’t use Steam.
Not only that, but the hardware survey would really help you developers understand where the sweet spot is when it comes to game requirements, and also predict where the next curve will lead you. Again, this is a gold-mine of info for game developers, so we seriously recommend you check it out. You’ll be thinking with portals in no-time!
