Steam On Linux Percentage Dips Further In September, AMD Powers 70% Of Linux Gamers

[theriddick]

All that said, I am using ChimeraOS since this is strictly a gaming pc, but since I have a LG c9, i am missing HDR, VRR and proper 120 fps at 4k because of Linux and might have to install winblows again if that continues. The saving grace is that ChimeraOS really turns this into a super console and I am happy with that.

Yeah well those features are being worked on and will eventually get ironed out under Linux.
Open-source software development often takes 10x as long to happen vs Proprietary software, just the way it is. Less man power at the helm, people don't generally put endless hours in without being paid a huge amount, thus a lot of the code is being developed in peoples spare time or as a part time thing, and usually not with massive teams of similarly skilled people.

As for Intel, they are not too bad, they contribute to Open-source and are doing their best with the Arc GPU's which are certainly a encoding power house and have made massive gains under Windows (unsure about Linux).

[stormcrow]

I mean the trend show a correlation of assumptions. For example:

• During summer, people have vacation and pops into Stream to play.
• Games Linux users actually enjoy is being marketed (visible).
• Being at home with less to do makes people scroll Steam games.
• People during summer have more time to read Linux Gaming news (because some of it is actually exciting)

Regardless, Linux has come a long way now that gaming is a choice on the ecosystem.

And regarding the Mac quip in the article... people don't buy Macs to play games. People buy Macs to do work and might play games on them if they're so inclined, but certainly not games requiring discrete GPUs. I have a Mac (writing this reply on it), but I really don't game on it. I have a PC with a decent graphics card with dedicated VRAM for that.

Glad to see Linux gaming is improving, but there's still too many hoops to deal with, along with some missing graphics features (don't ask me what they are, I don't know, I just notice certain kinds of visual features are missing in the Linux version of a game versus the Windows version) that more demanding games expose that end up being one of those thousand paper cuts, so I still tend to game on Windows. Also, the Steam Deck's screen is too small. I might as well just use my PC if the only way I can see to play it is to connect it to an external monitor to begin with. (I know, obviously I'm not the target demographic :P )

[Spacefish]

It's no surprise that among Linux users AMD seems to be preferred platform.

All one has to do is read through the comments in this forum, there is a sort of counterculture, root for the underdog mentality among Linux users that makes them gravitate towards AMD.

Maybe it's because for many people Microsoft and Intel have been "married" in a "Wintel" collaboration for decades, but these people also show the same hostility against Nvidia.

It probably has more to do with espousing a contrarian opinion that they think makes them look cool.

I guess it has more todo with linux users typically being more technically proficient / looking into things instead of trusting the marketing / what someone else said.. As AMD gave you more cores, more memory channels, more I/O and a better IPC for less money essentially since the Zen 1 release, people choose their CPUs.

For the GPU Nvidia vs AMD: The AMD driver experience is much more seamless on most Linux environments. Like you don´t get a black screen with a blinking cursor everytime you set a new resolution or the kernel module is Open Source / just works.
Furthermore my 3090 draws 45W when just sitting at the desktop, where my 5700XT draws 6W.. So that´s at least for me personally another reason why i am using the 5700XT and the 3090 just sits in a drawer.

[Citan]

The conclusion is an entirely different one. It is not like only Linux users go on vacation....

It is more of a problem of huge a huge error caused not only the assessment but also in overall irregular usage of gamers.
This also means it is completely nonsensical and utterly futile to make news articles about these random fluctuations.
The Linux gamer base is tiny, and has not increased significantly over the past years if you make a trend observation. That's all you can learn from this....
1.5, 1.9, or 2.1 doesn't mean anything whatsoever.

Seems you're missing basic math comprehension here. xd
Do you realize that 2% of 1 million is far less than 2% of 5 millions?

I mean, I don't remember the exact growth rate of Steam's whole userbase, but it has certainly been multiplied by at least 2 in 10 years, if not more.
Here found at least one source, even if not really accurate at least gives a decent idea: https://www.demandsage.com/steam-statistics/

Even only taking "peak use" stats, there has been a ~300% increase in less than 10 years (from 8.5 millions to 33). 2 percent of (33-8.5) = 2/100*21 500 000 = 215000*2 = 430000.

[HEL88]

Even only taking "peak use" stats, there has been a ~300% increase in less than 10 years (from 8.5 millions to 33). 2 percent of (33-8.5) = 2/100*21 500 000 = 215000*2 = 430000.

Very low growth as 10 years.

And the same time Steam Windows user growth:

96/100*21 500 000 = 215000*2 = 20 640 000.

20 640 000

[Citan]

Very low growth as 10 years.

And the same time Steam Windows user growth:

96/100*21 500 000 = 215000*2 = 20 640 000.

20 640 000

Let's remind you that I only picked the "active peak users".
Subcribed Steam users are about 165 millions nowadaways.
Active (daily login) ones are 70 millions (yea, rounding up because lazy on maths).

2% of 70 Millions is 1.4 million users.
ONE MILLION FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND USERS.

You know? Users? Like, *actual people behind numbers*?
How many were there in 2017, 33 million * 2/100 = 660 000.

More than 100% growth in less than 10 years. That's not what someone in marketing / economics calls "very slow", or even just slow. Not for a "market" which existence or growth benefits from absolutely zero advertising while also heavily suffering of hardware AND software fragmentation.

Those are people who are, on top of that, much more enclined to actually pay for their games as one study had stressed years ago already. ANd monitoring for new games to try since those are the "most active portion" of all users.

Those are people which are also of far more "value" for developers since more susceptible of understanding the worth of communicating upon bugs and being more tolerant about it at the same time, since even today the prejudgement that most desktop Linux users gravitate around IT ecosystem holds true.

Once you remember that one user is an actual human with all that it implies, getting several hundred thousand more has a new signification.

And the fun fact is: I'm actually seeing a trend since last year. Not the classic "it's Linux desktop year". An actual, factual, authentic trend of people migrating from Windows to Linux as "mainly standard end-users with occasional gaming" or "mainly gaming".
People who do that because they are fed up with Windows's invasiveness and unreliability, and may end up installing Steam just to try.
But more visible are people for whom gaming is a main activity and didn't dare to leap so far because "gaming on Linux" had such a bad reputation of being a hassle to set up and unreliable to live.

But since a few months, all the combined effort of gaming community (GamingOnLinux website, Lutris and Heroic managers, bloggers), low-level system developers (Codeweavers, AMD engineers, Valve developers, PulseAudio and its heir I never remember the name devs), porting studios (the ones behind excellent ports of Civilization, don't remember their name sadly), game engines and game development frameworks (providing multiplatform code even though I'm sure it's far from being perfect or as easy as advertised xd)...

Gaming on Linux has become even simpler than on Windows for 90% games.
Step one: install Linux. All drivers included.
Step two: install Steam, and just make two clicks to make it use Proton everywhere.
Step three: install Heroic Game for everything not covered by steam.
And it *just works*.

Just did exactly that last week after I finally received my GTR7 mini-computer, and honestly expected some trouble to resolve or command lines to push since I chose plain Manjaro. Everything worked without a hiccup. So far at least.

Of course if I were to try a game from EA or a game with some anticheat overlay I would probably have trouble getting them going (or not getting banned), but that amounts to about 0,001% of all great games I may ever want to play in my life. So I can live with that personally.

[HEL88]

2% of 70 Millions is 1.4 million users.
ONE MILLION FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND USERS.

You know? Users? Like, *actual people behind numbers*?
How many were there in 2017, 33 million * 2/100 = 660 000.

96% of 70 Millions is 67.2 Milion users
SIXTYSEVEN MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND USERS.



1.4 milion is very low number. If a AAA game sells this much, it's a failure. And the title was deleted. Therefore, the only salvation for Linux is to translate Windows libraries and play games intended for Windows. Linux is not a market for games. Eg. only for PC Cyberpunk 2077 8 mln copies (all sales more than 20 mln).

Look the numer:
Xbox One - 58 mln
PS4 - 117 mln
Xbox X|S - 22 mln
PS5 - 35 mln
Windows Steam Users = 67 mln

Linux with 1+ mln is failure. Only translation form Windows rescue this system for gaming.

[Nth_man]

We can see the upward trend (the red line):

"Okay, how many Linux users are there on Steam?

For 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 (Sep-2023 - 1.63%): 2,151,600 estimated "monthly active users" for Linux+Steam.

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

There is more information on https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/

[NeoMorpheus]

Gaming on Linux has become even simpler than on Windows for 90% games.
Step one: install Linux. All drivers included.
Step two: install Steam, and just make two clicks to make it use Proton everywhere.
Step three: install Heroic Game for everything not covered by steam.
And it *just works*.

Just did exactly that last week after I finally received my GTR7 mini-computer, and honestly expected some trouble to resolve or command lines to push since I chose plain Manjaro. Everything worked without a hiccup. So far at least.

Thanks to AMD support of open source.

All Hail Our Holy Lady Dr. Lisa Su and Lord GabeN!

Kidding on that last part, but yes, that was my experience with my all AMD system.

The parts that are not working (VRR, HDR, HDMI 2.1, etc) are due to Linux nature, not AMD or Valve, but they are working on it. I just hope its resolved soon, because I wont live forever and as a matter of time, I am closer to expiration date than not, so hope to see that soon.

[Citan]

96% of 70 Millions is 67.2 Milion users
SIXTYSEVEN MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND USERS.



1.4 milion is very low number. If a AAA game sells this much, it's a failure. And the title was deleted. Therefore, the only salvation for Linux is to translate Windows libraries and play games intended for Windows. Linux is not a market for games. Eg. only for PC Cyberpunk 2077 8 mln copies (all sales more than 20 mln).

Look the numer:
Xbox One - 58 mln
PS4 - 117 mln
Xbox X|S - 22 mln
PS5 - 35 mln
Windows Steam Users = 67 mln

Linux with 1+ mln is failure. Only translation form Windows rescue this system for gaming.

Could you please learn how to write proper English? Your comment is so low-level on grammar it's hardly understandable.

Putting that aside, AAA publishers won't care about native Linux games unless marketshare grows up to 50% which will probably never happen.
However, if getting 2 million potential more sales on a 70$ game only requires 1-2% more effort in design and development by favoring cross-platform libraries and good practices, they will definitely do it.

As for the indie developers, they have never been successful enough to put aside a potential market of several million users especially when those have a fat better chance to look for their game and appreciate the effort poured in.