UPDATE: Actually, it didn't go up.
The Linux market share on Steam has bounced backed a little in the latest Steam Hardware Survey for December 2017.
Note: Valve do sometimes adjust these numbers a few days later, so keep an eye on it.
As I noted in a recent article, one of the biggest causes of the Linux market share dropping on Steam was an influx of users from Asia. It seems the latest data has gone the opposite way. Here's a look at where Linux is at currently: 0.43%. That's quite an increase, considering the month before it was at 0.27%.
Why has this happened? Well, going by the same way I looked at it before, the use of "Simplified Chinese" as a language on Steam dropped by 15.31%. Also worth noting Windows 7 use dropped by 15.10%, with Windows 10 going up by 13.15%. The overall Windows share dropped by a total of 0.51%.
Here's some updated charts from the previous article (do read it for more info), first here's the Linux market share just by itself as a reference:
Here's what happens again when we look at languages and what happened with them over that same period:
And finally, here's what happens when we look at the market share when we take out Simplified Chinese and we look at just English as languages on Steam:
I did say it would bounce back. However, I expect it to be all over the place this year, up and down constantly due to games like PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS not being on Linux, which is currently the most popular game on Steam. It's also still growing, since it hit 3.1 million players online only three days ago, which is why I still expect the numbers to change both ways over the year. Also somewhat interesting, is that BattlEye tweeted out about 1.5 million bans being handed out for PUBG.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Koopacabras Jan 2, 2018
Can't remember who mentioned this before but I think the numbers of English Steam Linux users is that big, hence even the combined number of English Steam users is so big because lots of people use Steam in English without being it's native language. Some games are so poorly translated (at least in Spanish) and some descriptions and reviews are so badly written that I prefer to switch all together Steam to English, which is not the case with my KDE desktop which I like to have in Spanish. Open/Libre source translators really make a wonderful job wish more developers took that approach, for example sometimes I like to translate videos on youtube so more people get to watch them, and youtube makes it really hard to just add the captions, open source is the way to go.
Besides I dislike lots of games being translated to Spanish for Spain, they sound akward (sorry if you r from Spain I like spanish from spain music but not in games). It's similar to Americans saying that British speak incorrectly.
Besides I dislike lots of games being translated to Spanish for Spain, they sound akward (sorry if you r from Spain I like spanish from spain music but not in games). It's similar to Americans saying that British speak incorrectly.
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Not a fan of Steam's "Hardware Survey". Examining the last couple of years of NetMarketShare operating system statistics indicates Linux Desktop OS share has been hovering around 2.2% of the market. Of course not all Linux users are gamers, but then not all Linux gamers are keen on Steam (and stick to itch, gog or other). I am very dubious about the statistical accuracy of Steam's survey.
Personally, I'd like to see multiple Software Publishers publishing their Operating System market share per game (assuming the game is across Win/Mac/Linux). Also, Humble's Bundles do demonstrate quite decent stats for Linux Bundle purchasers (I did a calc some time ago, and seem to remember greater than 4% of Humble Bundle purchases were made by Linux users.)
StatCounter shows about 1.6% Linux share of Desktop Market (and about 0.7% ChromeOS) for the past year.
Statista shows about 1.7% Linux share of Desktop Market over past 9 months.
w3counter website now needs a sign-up to view their stats (well s***w that!)
clicky.com shows about 2.1% Linux share of Desktop Market over the past year.
Personally, I'd like to see multiple Software Publishers publishing their Operating System market share per game (assuming the game is across Win/Mac/Linux). Also, Humble's Bundles do demonstrate quite decent stats for Linux Bundle purchasers (I did a calc some time ago, and seem to remember greater than 4% of Humble Bundle purchases were made by Linux users.)
StatCounter shows about 1.6% Linux share of Desktop Market (and about 0.7% ChromeOS) for the past year.
Statista shows about 1.7% Linux share of Desktop Market over past 9 months.
w3counter website now needs a sign-up to view their stats (well s***w that!)
clicky.com shows about 2.1% Linux share of Desktop Market over the past year.
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GustyGhost Jan 2, 2018
Quoting: LeopardI didn't get a single survey in 2017 , got one on 2016.
In my experience, you get them often if you constantly build and change computers, test hardware configurations, reinstall OSes. Something about big sweeping changes probably, but I could be wrong.
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Quoting: GustyGhostQuoting: LeopardI didn't get a single survey in 2017 , got one on 2016.
In my experience, you get them often if you constantly build and change computers, test hardware configurations, reinstall OSes. Something about big sweeping changes probably, but I could be wrong.
I don't think so because i bought this laptop 4 months ago. I wanted to install Windows 10 on it because of Nvidia Geforce Experience Rocket League gift.
I installed Win on it , then installed Geforce Experience. When i installed and opened Steam i got a survey. I closed it of course.
When i get gift and added it to Steam , i installed Mint on it and deleted Windows. I installed Steam and i didn't get a survey.
Then i had this problem and Feral suggested me to install Ubuntu , to see if that makes a difference.
https://github.com/FeralInteractive/ferallinuxscripts/issues/6
With Ubuntu , i didn't get a survey too , my problem appeared on Ubuntu too and because of i don't like Ubuntu ( although i'm using Mint ) i wiped Ubuntu and installed Mint again.
I didn't get a survey again. So i installed two Linux distro and didn't get a survey , i installed Windows only once and got a survey.
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stretch611 Jan 3, 2018
Quoting: loggeIt's me playing Sky Force reloadedJust got that yesterday... addictive little shoot'em up.
EDIT: Just got Sky Force Anniversary yesterday... figured I would try the original before buying the sequel
Last edited by stretch611 on 3 January 2018 at 5:13 am UTC
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The lurking downer here is just that clearly Linux numbers in China are really amazingly low. China is huge, and probably will continue to gain influence over time; there being zip-all Linux there is a Bad Thing. We know some of the reasons behind it, I knew there wasn't a lot of Linux use in China, but I never realized we were wiped out this completely there.
As to the survey results themselves, I really have no more faith in this uptick than in previous more gloomy results.
As to the survey results themselves, I really have no more faith in this uptick than in previous more gloomy results.
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burningserenity Jan 7, 2018
So weird that so many have never gotten the survey. I distro hopped and reinstalled 4 times last year and got the survey each time I ran Steam for the first time post install. Perhaps I inflated the statistics :P
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burningserenity Jan 7, 2018
Quoting: Purple Library GuyThe lurking downer here is just that clearly Linux numbers in China are really amazingly low. China is huge, and probably will continue to gain influence over time; there being zip-all Linux there is a Bad Thing. We know some of the reasons behind it, I knew there wasn't a lot of Linux use in China, but I never realized we were wiped out this completely there.
As to the survey results themselves, I really have no more faith in this uptick than in previous more gloomy results.
Yeah, it's a shame more Chinese people don't realize that a company in their home country develops one of the best OSs, Linux or not. I use Solus now, but I'll always have a soft spot for Deepin and its charming Engrish.
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Quoting: GuestJust a thought to increase Linux market-share...
If the big boys supplying pre-installed and custom built PC's and Laptops such as the likes of System 76 were to get in touch with some of the Developers to bundle a key or 2 for popular Linux game titles and have Steam, ItchIO etc pre-installed with the system.
There was a time here locally where I reside that ZorinOS was pre-installed on some hardware of a local PC supplier, unfortunatley never really took off because those very same customers would then purchase MS Office and couldn't get it installed.
Find it strange that people will buy into the latest smart-phones and it never seems to be a hurdle to get their biggest needs sorted ie WhatsApp etc. People seem to want to adapt to the latest smart-phones to show their one-up-man ship it would seem but yet put them infront of a Desktop to use and change the look and they get this dumb look on their face and say right out they can't use it??? In my experience changing friends and family over to using Linux is easy when they're very young or rather old in excess of 40 years. A few minutes showing them around to do their e-mail and search the net and use Libre Office for their simple office needs is generally all good. The youngsters are another story once they figure their mates are playing PUBG for example. On the whole most will say "Wow, what you using there?" until they hear Linux and all of a sudden you become alienated.
It's rather sad that here locally that particular supplier never actually trained their staff properly so that they could give good and sound advise to their customers, their systems were very well priced against the other players with M$ Win pre-installed. Obviously don't go sell a customer MS Office when they've just purchased a Linux powered machine from you?
Anyway, would be nice to see the likes of System 76 doing something as suggested with bundled Steam keys etc, with their high end workstations they could tailor their Pop OS! for specialized CAD use etc...
The next thing is for the big names like Red-Hat, Open Suse and Canonical to target big businesses the likes of banks, insurance companies etc to migrate over to Linux. Once you have more people exposed to using it in the workplace, I think the easier for them to adopt it at home. For example, I know so many people that use MS Office, Outlook and Adobe Reader at work that they don't even want to use the open source alternatives on M$ Win at home... yet they'll quiet happily use Google Chrome and stay signed in for their web based email??? Sheeple for ya - right?
In terms of exposure to Linux, this old neighbour had an old laptop with a broken Windows install on it (Windows 95 or XP, I can't remember). I offered to fix it for him, by installing Linux. He happily engaged with Linux - browsing, emailing, OpenOffice for working on documents and spreadsheets, making Skype calls and messages. He wasn't really used to Windows, and took up Linux with very limited computer skills - and managed okay with it.
On top of that, by running Linux he never had any malware or viruses take over his machine, and all his software kept up to date with minimal effort. He ended up having more IT issues with his ISP than with Linux.
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