Yes, it’s true of all demographics that most people just play those few big games. None are so massive in absolute numbers on homogenized PC setups like China that they visibly swing percentages on their own.
The percentages only matter as far as observing trends, which is why this article and its Windows equivalent need to be presented in the context of how much China moves the needle in either direction, since Valve only releases numbers on total monthly active users at irregular intervals. The last time we got a number on that was March 2022, as far as I know. Home PC usage in China may be on the rise, but 12% of Windows 10 users didn’t switch to Windows 11 and Linux in the past month; Simplified Chinese dropped by 19%. That’s not a trend in user behavior, the thing that interests us about the percentages. It’s just a large part of the survey not participating in it this month.
If we had absolute numbers for monthly active users to go along with the percentages, you’re right; the percentages would matter a whole lot less. But since we don’t, we can observe trends, and those trends make a lot more sense when you get rid of outliers.
Yes, it’s true of all demographics that most people just play those few big games. None are so massive in absolute numbers on homogenized PC setups like China that they visibly swing percentages on their own.
The percentages only matter as far as observing trends, which is why this article and its Windows equivalent need to be presented in the context of how much China moves the needle in either direction, since Valve only releases numbers on total monthly active users at irregular intervals. The last time we got a number on that was March 2022, as far as I know. Home PC usage in China may be on the rise, but 12% of Windows 10 users didn’t switch to Windows 11 and Linux in the past month; Simplified Chinese dropped by 19%. That’s not a trend in user behavior, the thing that interests us about the percentages. It’s just a large part of the survey not participating in it this month.
If we had absolute numbers for monthly active users to go along with the percentages, you’re right; the percentages would matter a whole lot less. But since we don’t, we can observe trends, and those trends make a lot more sense when you get rid of outliers.