Before you start making plans to evict your current rig, I want to explain how the Steam Hardware Survey actually works. Rather than representing every player that uses the storefront, the monthly census instead uses a small percentage of participants who’ve opted in as a sample. It’s anything but representative of all 154 million active users, meaning the statistic above isn’t an absolute.

Does the author know how *survey sample sizes work?

Do I?

Is it because it’s opt in or opt out?

  • SirActionSack@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 months ago

    This is a silly take. People are less likely to say no on the phone than they are to click no on a survey opt-in popup. And I am not even sure that Steam does a pop-up, users may have to go find the option to join the survey.

    So there absolutely is a sampling bias. How significant it is and how/if Valve attempt to control for it doesn’t seem to be public information but it is definitely there.