Steam survey shows Linux marketshare hitting 1.0%

Not only did Valve

announce Steam Deck

in July but the overall Linux gaming marketshare according to the Steam Survey also hit a multi-year high.

According to the Steam Survey numbers out today for July 2021, Steam on Linux hit a 1.0% marketshare, or a +0.14% increase over the month prior.

This is the highest we have seen the Steam on Linux marketshare in a number of years and well off the lows prior to introducing Steam Play (Proton) since which point there has been the gradual increase in marketshare. Back when Steam on Linux first debuted there was around a 2% marketshare for Linux before gradually declining. Back when Steam first debuted for Linux, the overall Steam customer base was also much smaller than it is today.

While many believe the Steam Survey is inaccurate or biased (or just buggy towards prompting Linux users to participate in the survey), these initial numbers for July are positive in hitting the 1.0% mark after largely floating around the 0.8~0.9% mark for most of the past three years.

The Steam Deck isn't shipping until the end of the year so we'll see how the number fluctuates to that point. It could be that some have decided to re-try Linux gaming following Valve's announcement in July or could also just be a combination fo factors given the summer months, many still hunkering down amid the COVID-19 pandemic, or as is sometimes the case Valve later revises the numbers after determining the initial monthly update was incomplete.

See the Steam Survey results in full via

steampowered.com

.

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/3j6NEom