Nearly 40% of Linux gamers on Steam are on Steam Deck

I don't stop being surprised how low the percentage of the 1 - 2 million Deck users is compared to all Linux users. :)


Last edited by Eike on 3 July 2023 at 6:26 pm UTC

Looking at those numbers: bets on whether Linux exceeds MacOS in Steam share by the end of the year?

> you usually only get the survey on one machine.
Not in my experience. I had it on two different desktops one week apart just last spring and I've had it on my laptop as well.

Looking at those numbers: bets on whether Linux exceeds MacOS in Steam share by the end of the year?

Wow, this is hefty!

Linux 1.44% -0.03%
OSX 1.79% -0.60%

So it's 2.39 => 1.79 in a single month, and this cannot be due to China, or Linux would have seen a similar drop!

> you usually only get the survey on one machine.
Not in my experience. I had it on two different desktops one week apart just last spring and I've had it on my laptop as well.

Got it on my Steam Deck, my laptop and my PC, this month. I decided to distro hop on my PCs and it triggered the survey for each fresh install (wasn't a fresh install for my Steam Deck).


Last edited by Mohandevir on 3 July 2023 at 7:43 pm UTC

After the last update, for me Steam is now totally broken in my computer, fonts are huge and menus do not fit into the space they are given. So yeah, I am not gaming in my Linux desktop for a bit as it also lost all the games due to folder change, which I am not able to fix without tinkering as also the configuration modal is broken. :)

On the other hand, I have no interest to game in my computer right now, I guess.. I just use my Steam deck instead.

If someone else has ran into the scaling issue, please let the rest of us to know how to easily fix it.

On my desktop I've got the menu click issue, i.e. I cannot remove games/view the settings menu either in the context menu or through the gear icon without holding shift or control.

After the last update, for me Steam is now totally broken in my computer, fonts are huge and menus do not fit into the space they are given. So yeah, I am not gaming in my Linux desktop for a bit as it also lost all the games due to folder change, which I am not able to fix without tinkering as also the configuration modal is broken. :)

On the other hand, I have no interest to game in my computer right now, I guess.. I just use my Steam deck instead.

If someone else has ran into the scaling issue, please let the rest of us to know how to easily fix it.

You could try
GDK_SCALE=1 steam
in the terminal.

Something to keep in mind though, is that for a lot of people the Steam Deck will be an additional system, not their only one used by Steam but you usually only get the survey on one machine.

This is definitely not the case. You get the survey on every machine with Steam, although at different times for each machine. Those for whom the Deck is a complementary system will have an entry in the survey from the Deck when it's the Deck's turn, and an entry in the survey for their other machine when it's the other machine's turn.

Wow, this is hefty!

Linux 1.44% -0.03%
OSX 1.79% -0.60%

So it's 2.39 => 1.79 in a single month, and this cannot be due to China, or Linux would have seen a similar drop!

Well, the 2% increase of simplified chinese certainly had an impact, but look at the change of used Languages for Linux:

English 80.13% -4.35%
Simplified Chinese 3.84% +1.66%
German 3.32% +0.41%
Russian 2.93% +0.51%
French 1.71% +0.21%
Spanish - Spain 1.36% +0.21%
Spanish - Latin America 1.20% -0.02%
Portuguese-Brazil 0.94% -0.01%

I'm currently to lazy to do the maths, but this month is kind of odd. My impression is we would have seen a very similar dip to OSX if it wasn't for the Steam Deck.

Looking at those numbers: bets on whether Linux exceeds MacOS in Steam share by the end of the year?

Wow, this is hefty!

Linux 1.44% -0.03%
OSX 1.79% -0.60%

So it's 2.39 => 1.79 in a single month, and this cannot be due to China, or Linux would have seen a similar drop!

Actually, I think it could be due to China. After all, in a month where the Steam Decks surged, I would normally expect that to imply rapid Linux growth, but instead we see a small Linux decline. So like, a rise in China stuff turns MacOS static or slight decline into a big decline, turns Linux major gains into slight decline--that would check out.
Not saying that's it--the survey always breaks my brain, there's always stuff that doesn't seem to make sense.

Now if they'd just release the Steam Deck in China it might smooth out the whole China factor thing.

> you usually only get the survey on one machine.
Not in my experience. I had it on two different desktops one week apart just last spring and I've had it on my laptop as well.

Got it on my Steam Deck, my laptop and my PC, this month. I decided to distro hop on my PCs and it triggered the survey for each fresh install (wasn't a fresh install for my Steam Deck).

Just to add, The survey on the Deck is probably pointless anyway. It's a known fairly fixed configuration on their own hardware. Survey or not, their numbers are prolly near 100% accurate for the Deck as it's phoning home to Valve anyway.

Either way, it's not like they can't tell you have multiple machines when they get different hardware from the same account / IP address.

After the last update, for me Steam is now totally broken in my computer, fonts are huge and menus do not fit into the space they are given.

Is your computer "older"? I noticed on my older laptop (2015), Steam has gotten very sluggish this year. It takes almost 3-5 min to start (and that's with a new SSD and memory). I tend to game on my laptop, streaming from my desktop, so maybe this is their way of telling me I need to upgrade, lol.

imho the China market is probably the only where the Steam Deck isn't an obvious pick

afaik they have enjoyed a bunch of PC-like portables that never took off elsewhere, at unusually competitive pricing

it's also a place where replacing SteamOS 3 for Windows might happen more often due to how disproportionally adverse that market is to linux, riskng this become a more well established trend... it was smart of Valve to use windows support on the hardware as a safety net feeling for prospective purchasers that are windows gamers, but we do not want that to change into a "go to" choice anywhere

maybe Valve is trying to make a stronger name for the Deck worldwide before taking a chance there

meanwhile their linux devs keep hammering perf gains for the linux driver stack and making a stronger case for "better with linux" (this is already a thing, which my past self from 10 years ago probably wouldn't believe if my current self walked out of a time machine and showed him some current news... even after believing time travel is real, nonetheless)


Last edited by Marlock on 3 July 2023 at 9:22 pm UTC

maybe Valve is trying to make a stronger name for the Deck worldwide before taking a chance there

I think having an official third party releasing in Hong Kong is as close as Valve wants to get to an official release in China. They've had to make a Steam For China since Chinese customers were using VPNs and vanilla Steam to get round the restrictions on gaming in China; there are 30-something games released per day on Steam, but around that many are authorised for sale in China per year; if you're too young it's a legal requirement that you're only allowed to spend a specified number of hours per week gaming, and only at specified times. It's just way too many headaches all round to try to sell a vanilla-Steam-based gaming machine whose main attraction is that you can play on it whenever you want.

Hopefully some of them move to linux on desktop.

Looking at those numbers: bets on whether Linux exceeds MacOS in Steam share by the end of the year?

Wow, this is hefty!

Linux 1.44% -0.03%
OSX 1.79% -0.60%

So it's 2.39 => 1.79 in a single month, and this cannot be due to China, or Linux would have seen a similar drop!

First they killed 32bit support... then they moved to ARM. Granted I will never understand how the mac got any games made for it... don't know a single mac user that games on their laptop...

Granted because I hang out on this site I know more Linux gamers... but we can get proper gaming hardware...

First they killed 32bit support... then they moved to ARM. Granted I will never understand how the mac got any games made for it... don't know a single mac user that games on their laptop...

Don't forget "froze on an ancient version of OpenGL and then ditched the idea of cross-platform graphics APIs entirely."

I chatted to one person that was peeved that they couldn't play games they owned on Macs any more. I said they should get a Deck. They did, and seem happy with it.

First they killed 32bit support... then they moved to ARM. Granted I will never understand how the mac got any games made for it... don't know a single mac user that games on their laptop...

Don't forget "froze on an ancient version of OpenGL and then ditched the idea of cross-platform graphics APIs entirely."

I chatted to one person that was peeved that they couldn't play games they owned on Macs any more. I said they should get a Deck. They did, and seem happy with it.

Ha, yeah. When all the rumors that Apple were going to release a VR headset were still going, I had to ask, 'why? They crapped on all gaming but mobile with their recent moves.'

maybe Valve is trying to make a stronger name for the Deck worldwide before taking a chance there

I think having an official third party releasing in Hong Kong is as close as Valve wants to get to an official release in China. They've had to make a Steam For China since Chinese customers were using VPNs and vanilla Steam to get round the restrictions on gaming in China; there are 30-something games released per day on Steam, but around that many are authorised for sale in China per year; if you're too young it's a legal requirement that you're only allowed to spend a specified number of hours per week gaming, and only at specified times. It's just way too many headaches all round to try to sell a vanilla-Steam-based gaming machine whose main attraction is that you can play on it whenever you want.

And yet despite all that the Chinese market is so big that little shifts in the "Simplified Chinese" language percentages swoosh our numbers all over the place.
(Side note: That "legal requirement" I strongly suspect is honoured more in the breach than the observance; at least, it would be the first I ever heard about PC Bangs shutting down and kicking everyone out for half the time)
Put it this way: Imagine the rate of sales among people theoretically in the market for such things was 1/4 what you'd find in Japan or Korea. And imagine the proportion of Chinese able to buy something like that in the first place was half that in Japan or Korea. Expected sales in China would still be something like as much as for both Japan and Korea put together. Quantity has a quality all its own.

After the last update, for me Steam is now totally broken in my computer, fonts are huge and menus do not fit into the space they are given.

Is your computer "older"? I noticed on my older laptop (2015), Steam has gotten very sluggish this year. It takes almost 3-5 min to start (and that's with a new SSD and memory). I tend to game on my laptop, streaming from my desktop, so maybe this is their way of telling me I need to upgrade, lol.

I'll jump in here and say I'm having similar scaling issues on my <4 year old desktop with good hardware on the Steam client. It's just a general lack of quality control from Valve and something they seem unlikely to fix any time soon.

My issues: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/06/steam-overhauled-new-overlay-steam-deck-big-stable-update/page=1/#r245281


Last edited by pleasereadthemanual on 4 July 2023 at 12:40 am UTC