Every month Valve put out their hardware survey, inside it shows off the market-share of operating systems and Linux has continued to decline.
For September 2017, Linux was at 0.60%. This is far from where Linux market-share on Steam was some time ago, although it has never been all that high anyway.
Here's a chart provided to me by EndeavourAccuracy (thanks!), which shows the unfortunate trend:
There could be many reasons for this, all of which I've probably mentioned before at some point. The one thing I would like to stress though, is that market-share declining doesn't necessarily mean less people. The amount of people using Linux for gaming on Steam, might actually be increasing, just not as quickly as Windows so it gets swallowed up. We know for a fact Steam is constantly growing and perhaps in markets where Linux isn't popular pushing the Linux share down. However, the opposite could obviously be true too.
I don't claim to have any answers on it. All we can do is speculate, since we know nothing about how Valve actually pick the systems that get selected for a survey. We know nothing about the numbers behind the percentages, or well, anything really.
We do need to take into account people who dual-boot, which isn't going to be a small number. Even our own limited survey shows about 31.78% of people also use Windows.
Obviously it's not good to see this trend, but as long as Linux games sell enough for a developer to be happy, that's the main point. Going by the last time I spoke to multiple developers about sales of their Linux games, most games mentioned in that article were selling well above the current percentage of Linux gamers as tracked by Steam.
I highly doubt Feral Interactive would also be announcing another Linux port, if the real amount of Linux gamers was declining either, since the types of titles they port would likely need a lot of sales to be worth it, yet they have two new titles currently being teased for Linux.
What are your thoughts on this?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Mountain Man Oct 2, 2017
Quoting: VinceNardelliStill, Valve has done a pretty crappy job with steam machine and the whole idea of linux more optimised than windows.This is really the problem. Valve was really excited about Linux gaming, got us excited about Linux gaming, got a few developers excited about Linux gaming, and then it's like they just sort of lost interest. I was really hoping they were more dedicated to this whole Linux thing than they have been.
VinceNardelli Oct 2, 2017
Quoting: Mountain ManQuoting: VinceNardelliStill, Valve has done a pretty crappy job with steam machine and the whole idea of linux more optimised than windows.This is really the problem. Valve was really excited about Linux gaming, got us excited about Linux gaming, got a few developers excited about Linux gaming, and then it's like they just sort of lost interest. I was really hoping they were more dedicated to this whole Linux thing than they have been.
Losing interest is kind of their habit, from developing OS to hardware to games.
Can people really get excited about the VR after all their lost interests? I don't wish them too much luck on that because frankly they...don't deserve it
Quoting: LeopardQuoteEven our own limited survey shows about 31.78% of people also use Windows.
Including you :P
Anyway , main thing is we are so much dependent on Steam. We need at least one out of Steam but yet popular title.
Does "War Thunder" suffice?
Quoting: peterp771I wonder how much Chinese users, many of whom use pirated Windows software, contribute to these numbers. It would be interesting to see a regional breakdown.As Leopard says too, that's actually a really good point. Steam's currently exploding in popularity in China, and they're pretty much all on Windows.
But it's interesting that on the one hand we have the Netmarketshare story (even if it's not quite as earth-shattering as it first seemed), and on the other we have this. I think it just reflects the poor state of the Linux gaming market. Overall we're on the rise, but gaming is still difficult. Don't get me wrong; it's infinitely better than it was just three or four years ago, but there are still plenty of major developers who won't even look at Linux. We're nowhere near the stage where it's simply expected that a newly-announced game will be on Linux, and unusual if it isn't. Until that changes, it'll be an uphill battle to persuade gamers to switch. Maybe Atari will give us another boost, like Valve did.
But if the big games stop coming to Linux, I stop playing the big games. It's as simple as that.
ShoNuff!!! Oct 2, 2017
Last edited by ShoNuff!!! on 2 October 2017 at 11:38 pm UTC
ShoNuff!!! Oct 2, 2017
Quoting: DuncBut if the big games stop coming to Linux, I stop playing the big games. It's as simple as that.
You say no tux no bucks... but for most it's no triple A no tux. I was on board but lately... since building my new gaming rig... and being forced to use Widows in dual boot... I have enjoyed the big titles I had been missing for the last 14 years.
Though Vulkan is here... unless developers port it means less and less people stick around. Unless Feral or someone else can get deals to port for same day releases (or within a month release) market share will keep slipping for linux gaming.
7 million users in January 2014
15 million users as of September 2017
Linux share has roughly halved during this time frame.
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