I waited a bit longer than usual on this, since last time Valve adjusted their numbers from positive to negative for the Linux market share. It seems as of last month, the Linux market share on Steam went up a bit. You can see them on Steam here.
When I say "went up", I don't mean we actually increased. Well, we did, but we're still not at the levels we were before PUBG's (PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS) release on Steam. Anyway…the January 2018 market share on Steam for Linux was 0.41% (+ 0.15%).
That's certainly better than a continual downward trend that we had been seeing, but as I said in a previous article on this, I fully expect it to bounce around until the incredible interest around games like PUBG subsides.
I've gone and updated my previous charts to highlight what's been happening for those interested. First up, the Linux market share on Steam just by itself to see what's been happening recently.
Now, to get some perspective on why the sudden drop, take a look at the choice of languages on Steam, the battle for the most used language.
Finally, here's a look at what would happen if we took out Simplified Chinese as a language and when we look at just English as a language in relation to the Linux market share on Steam.
You might have questions as to what's going on for January to bounce back a little, well, it could be a simple case of "1,044,000" PUBG players being banned by BattlEye.
I know many of you question the validity of the numbers from the Steam Hardware Survey, but as far as Valve are concerned they're accurate. Here's what a Valve developer said about them about a year ago:
Actually, the real login numbers are usually a bit lower than the reported survey numbers due to the noise of random distribution. The system works as intended.
Just something to think about, for all the people who think it's unfair in some way.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
slaapliedje Feb 11, 2018
Quoting: x_wingQuoting: razing32Quoting: slaapliedjeIf we could get more companies to support using Linux on company provided laptops, the desktop market share would also go up.
Actually , I used to work for a company related to IBM , and the IBM-ers I spoke to told me they had a choice of Windows or Red Hat since they used Lotus Notes at the time for mail/chat.
Not sure if this still holds true today though.
Where I work we are free to choose the OS we like (at least at dev level). Almost all the dev teams use Linux (from Fedora to Ubuntu) but, for some unknown reason, support & professional services use Windows with a lot of shitty tools in order to connect to client servers. Even though almost every devs use Windows for gaming at home. Not sure if there is a relation between what you use at work and what you'll be using at home for daily gaming/web browsing.
It's much less so now, but back in the 80s, people would bring work home with them and ended up buying IBM compatibles because Lotus or whatever didn't run on Amiga/ST.
We 'kind of' are allowed to choose OS. Basically we're not bitched at if we use something besides mac/windows, but we're 'on our own' as far as connecting to the VPN and some of the other tools they provide.
But yeah, all the sales/support drones use Windows. I even work with a couple ops guys who chose Windows10 over macOS. I cringe every time I see putty... I did show an engineer CSSH and he about lost his shit when I was typing the same command into 20 systems at once! Thought it was the greatest thing ever.
Last edited by slaapliedje on 11 February 2018 at 4:34 am UTC
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