Linux user share on Steam hits second highest percentage in years

I'm just curious how they handle people using multiple OSs.

Like plenty of people use Windows on their desktop, but switch over to Linux when they use their Steam Deck. How does that count?

Quoting: LNX

QuoteThanks though to Proton

for killing native linux games development

Proton hasn't killed that. Natives were dying before that... and Valve promotes natives for the long term.

Quoting: LNX

QuoteThanks though to Proton

for killing native linux games development

No, really, get over it. Linux game development was dying anyway. With Steam Deck, which could not exist without Proton-or-equivalent, we could see enough market share for Linux game development to rise again. Without it we were on a slow train to nowhere.

Quoting: BlooAlienYeah, I keep seeing people say that Proton is killing native Linux development (or guaranteed to be the death of native Linux games, or already has been/is), then I see on a fairly regular basis native Linux builds of various new (and old) games released. In addition to those native Linux games, I also see more games I've been told will never ever in a billion years run on Linux running on Linux (thanks to Proton).

I highly doubt that Proton's gonna be the death of native Linux games, but it sure does give us all access to a shit-ton of games we'd not be able to play otherwise, and gives publishers and developers a dead-simple way to support selling their games to a platform that many such publishers simply don't understand well enough to give us a native Linux build even if they wanted to. I'm thankful for all the work Valve's put into the WINE project, even if it is totally self-serving and profit-driven. An "everybody wins" scenario still means I win, even if Valve wins also.

There is definitely a market segment that's been completely evaporated by the existence of Proton: third-party ports. Your Tomb Raiders, your Life Is Stranges, your Civilizations, your Borderlands. If you're after an out-house after-the-fact means of making your existing Windows game work on Linux why would you pay for someone to do it when Valve will do it for free? The fact is, though, that the lack of growth in the Linux gaming market since the introduction of the Steam Machines meant that that segment was drying up anyway before the introduction of Proton.

Developers that make a Linux build themselves, because they appreciate the additional insight when bug hunting, because they use Linux themselves, because they're using multiplatform tooling, will continue to do so because it makes sense, regardless of the existence of Proton.

However, there's another segment: new developers, or seasoned developers starting a new project. They could develop their next project as multiplatform from the start, and use cross-platform tooling, and Vulkan & SDL rather than DirectX, and it would benefit them and us if they did so: more users of the software means faster bug finding, faster and more innovative development and improvement, actual testing and support for Linux gaming customers, and a wider recognition that Linux is a valid gaming platform. When those developers are looking around to see how they should proceed, and what the benefits and costs are, the "just use Proton!" mob are going out of their way to discourage developers from even trying to do multiplatform in a way that includes Linux. That is what harms the Linux gaming ecosystem rather than Proton itself.

In principle the growth of Linux marketshare could provide positive pressure for proper multiplatform development at a level that outpaces the negative pressure from people telling developers not to bother, but it's a long way from being a given.

Quoting: a0kamiI know market share is a meaningful information but has anyone been keeping tab on absolute linux user number estimates ?

Because Steam userbase is constantly growing so a market share growth within a absolute numbers growth is kinda cool actually.

From Liam's handy-dandy Steam Tracker page:

QuoteFor an estimation of the total number of Linux users on Steam, Valve reported they had 132 million "monthly active users" in March 2022 (source).

Using the latest months recorded share (Apr-2022 - 1.14%): 1,504,800 estimated "monthly active users" for Linux+Steam.

To be clear, that is not the total, that is monthly active.

QuoteBut I do keep in mind "being this or that OS user" does not necessarily mean "there have been sales for this or that OS" or "people equally play that amount of time regardless of their system".
I mean there are tons of statistical biases which prevents us to ultimately declare whether Linux is doing well or not but with some hindsight it's looking good.

Some developers talk about sales per platform, but most don't. Of the ones that have gone public with their sales data, those that don't market to Linux users specifically have sales proportions in line with the Linux marketshare, or sometimes a bit lower; those that do market to Linux users specifically tend to have sales proportions higher than that, sometimes significantly so. And in both cases those are generally given as unit sales rather than revenue.

Quoting: kuhpunktI'm just curious how they handle people using multiple OSs.

Like plenty of people use Windows on their desktop, but switch over to Linux when they use their Steam Deck. How does that count?

It's a hardware survey rather than a user survey. If you have two machines (including one machine that runs two OSes) then they both get counted.

Quoting: LNX

QuoteThanks though to Proton

for killing native linux games development

This kind of sounds like just whining because you didn't get your way. I can understand someone who has strong free software principles and doesn't want to play proprietary games. I can even understand people who only want DRM-free games. But what is the actual ideology of someone who doesn't like game support on Linux unless it's native? You can't claim you're doing it to advocate for free software. Wine, Proton, DXVK, etc. are all free and open source. You're kind of spitting all over their work and not actually contributing anything other than a complaint about not getting things your way.

I'm not trying to be harsh, but I just really want to understand how being mad at Valve and the FOSS community for making more games work on Linux is productive. Would you rather go back to having most games not work on Linux?

Quoting: Guestwow if this keeps going on, in a couple of years we will take on MacOS!

Yeah, I noticed that when another article on this brought my attention to it: MacOS is down to 2.55% this month. It was higher in the past, wasn't it, and I'm not just misremembering? I've had in my head for a while that it was "about 5%". Not surprising, of course, with how Apple seems to be doing its darndest to kill off gaming on it, but still. With Linux increasing and MacOS decreasing we could surpass it in size much sooner than I would otherwise have expected.

Quoting: GuestBlame Gabe for Microsoft's continued dominance in the PC gaming space, he helped port Doom from DOS to Windows and practically ensured M$ would set the standards going forward.

Was Linux a worthy and reliable alternative to Windows back then? Were open standarts ie. OpenGL useful?

Quoting: LNX

QuoteThanks though to Proton

for killing native linux games development

I get your sentiment, but the hard truth is unfortunately that the AAA ports where already mostly dead or at least not sustainable in the long term. See this blog post from an insider https://mdiluz.micro.blog/2021/07/19/native-linux-ports.html and also this older blog https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/05/linux-gaming-ticking-clock/ from the same author.


Last edited by jens on 3 May 2022 at 7:09 pm UTC