Patreon Logo Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal Logo PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
We use affiliate links to earn us some pennies. Learn more.

Steam continues to get bigger with another milestone being reached! Yesterday Steam shot passed 18 million concurrent users online.

The exact number was 18,528,722 according to the official Steam stats page, which was hit around 3PM UTC. Around that time, over 7 million people were actually in-game as well—nuts!

If we think about how many Linux gamers that could be, it might be around 79,673 Linux gamers online if we use the current Linux market share on Steam as reported from December at 0.43%. Likely highly inaccurate, but it's fun to think about.

It was only in November of last year when it hit 17.6 million, so that's some rather quick growth. Less than two months to pull in that many more people is just insane, although it does seem like it's fuelled by PUBG which hit another all-time peak itself in the last day. It will be interesting to see what happens when the mass-hype around PUBG fades.

As of right now, from Valve's top 10 games having the most players online eight of them support Linux, which is pretty damn good. The list fluctuates of course and it would be better if PUBG supported Linux, but sadly that feels like a dream right now. Even without PUBG, there's plenty to look forward to this year for Linux gaming.

Thanks for the tip Joe!

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial, Steam
7 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
All posts need to follow our rules. Please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Readers can also email us for any issues or concerns.
28 comments Subscribe
Page: 2/2
  Go to:

slaapliedje 7 Jan 2018
Funny thing about support costs, the big server guys alread do that. Try getting hardware support from HP or Dell if you onstall Debian on your servers (for example) sure, their more expensive ones show support, but the low end ones generally only support Redhat.
cprn 7 Jan 2018
What's PUBG?
bubexel 8 Jan 2018
[ 01:00:10,299 ] BattlEye: "Initialized (v1.243)"

Tibia use that antibot system.. i doubt that its a problem to port to linux.
andy155 8 Jan 2018
LOL never received a survey for years.
Valves Surveys are just wrong.
jens 8 Jan 2018
User Avatar
  • Supporter
I really, really think dev studios need to be more drastic and flat out refuse to even look at support requests for distros other than Ubuntu and maybe SteamOS, to keep these costs down. Because this issue seems to be holding us back.

Yes, this would be my advice too. But unfortunately (part of) the Linux community can be very vocal when a gaming studio or publisher does not support a certain pet project or ideology. I guess preventing shit storms can be reason too to stay away from Linux.
gustavoyaraujo 9 Jan 2018
User Avatar
They could just give the SteamOS users better offers, some discounts if you buy a game and play it on Linux. I think that would be a big step to make the platform more attractive.
niarbeht 9 Jan 2018
They could just give the SteamOS users better offers, some discounts if you buy a game and play it on Linux. I think that would be a big step to make the platform more attractive.

That would probably be really, really easy to work around.

A different way to do things might be to cut down on or eliminate the first $X of royalties or whatever that a developer pays to Valve if those sales go towards the Linux platform.

I dunno.
Kuduzkehpan 9 Jan 2018
User Avatar
I think, valve can make a porting team for popular games to bring them to Linux.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon Logo Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal Logo PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.