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Steam hits a new all-time high for users online, Linux share rises

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Two quick bits of Steam news to cover this wonderful Monday morning. As expected, Steam does still appear to be growing.

SteamDB made a Twitter post yesterday to note that the previous historic concurrent user count on Steam set back in January 2018 of 18,537,490 was smashed to a new record of 18,801,944 online. A huge number of people of course but plenty are likely to be bots. What's interesting, is that against the same previous record, this year there were less people actually in-game. In January 2018 there were around 7 million in-game while this year with the new concurrent record only about 6 million were in-game.

While we're on the subject of Steam, their monthly Hardware Survey went out again and it showed Linux had risen to 0.9%. Going by our dedicated Steam Tracker, that's the highest it's been for at least 16 months now.

All good news as Valve continue putting resources into improving Linux gaming through funding graphics driver improvements for AMD, the new Container system, funding DXVK+Wine development for Proton, this new Gamescope and likely more to come still. We still need to find out what Steam Cloud Gaming is (#1, #2) which could see a reveal later this year perhaps.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial, Steam
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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23 comments
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Eike Feb 3, 2020
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After changing my hardware, I got a survey on Saturday.
As people keep reporting this behaviour, I wonder if they're just using older survey data from people who didn't change their system...


Last edited by Eike on 3 February 2020 at 9:46 am UTC
Geppeto35 Feb 3, 2020
Playing 90% of my time on linux, 10% on win10, I was touched by steam for a survey 11 times in my life, 1 time on linux (and it was when I installed steam on my son's computer, not even on my own computer). So steam survey = faceplam, again few touches and it will be statistically significant as a biased process!
Eike Feb 3, 2020
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BTW...

QuoteLinux had risen to 0.9%

... is this our Windows 7 harvest? ;)
(No, probably just China coughing. (*) )

(*) Erm, no pun intended. Really.


Last edited by Eike on 3 February 2020 at 10:56 am UTC
rustybroomhandle Feb 3, 2020
For Steam to have cloud gaming, their games have to run on their servers, and I'm going to go on the assumption that these servers will/are running Linux. Unlike Stadia though, this means that any game that is ported, or at least developer-supported to work on Proton, will also be available to us.
logge Feb 3, 2020
I had got two months off and I played all day - so it's all me :-D

--edit--
Just for the public interest: I had no survey in this time - not on my TV nor on my Desktop


Last edited by logge on 4 February 2020 at 4:47 am UTC
Botonoski Feb 3, 2020
I just got the hardware survey yesterday, and I finally submitted my hardware info. I tend to avoid them as my privacy obsessed mind tend to read the word "survey" and immediately freak out.
sketch Feb 3, 2020
never asked the survey
SystemShock Feb 3, 2020
I got the Survey yesterday too.
sub Feb 3, 2020
I have two Linux systems at home.
Got the survey on both.
Eike Feb 3, 2020
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We will win next month! :-D
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