Valve Publishes Steam Survey Numbers For April 2024

[Sonadow]

They don't publish absolute numbers, so we can't really draw conclusions from it beyond "As a developer, what percentage of my effort am I willing to pour into supporting which platforms?"

In other words, not worth more than 1% effort.

As had always been the case with all commercial software. And they are not the ones at fault.

Even Russia talks up a huge game about Linux adoption, yet look at what kind of support VK has for desktop Linux. Zero native apps and software for desktop Linux, native software available for macOS and Windows. Yandex isn't any better: a web browser that conveniently has a Linux version, zero native software for desktop Linux.

[HEL88]

A common hypothesis people have is that there IS plenty of growth, but it's being obscured by much larger growth from China's infamously Windows-centric PC landscape.

Not this time.

Chinese fell significantly by -3.12%, while Windows grew, with Linux and macOS shares falling.

[writequit]

it runs.. on amd (not nvidia at all, which is some 80% of gamers), but the input lag, lack of steamvr support on gnome, and extremely common crashing of the compositor are well established and more than enough reason for most to go straight back to windows - its why linux mint is so popular for steam gamers - it defaults to X11.

when a popular recommended distro like arch or fedora switch to X11, that 1.9% will easily hit double digits.

unfortunately e.g. fedora do everything possible to keep steam gamers away, intentionally hard to install the nvidia drivers, now remove X11 from the default install completely so not even AMD guys and gal gamers will use it.

I use AMD & KDE and have none of those issues. VR is another ballgame to be fair.

[mSparks]

Most gamers dont know what a Wayland or X11 is so I doubt that matters, plus with explicit sync now supported NVIDIA Wayland woes are practically almost over.

It matters because they do not go passed the defaults, all they see is that by default the distributions that were recommended to them are hot garbage for gaming, and that it requires a comp sci degree to change the defaults to something that works better than windows, so they just stay on windows.

Pretty sure its intentional elitism on the part of the distro builders.

[flower]

It matters because they do not go passed the defaults, all they see is that by default the distributions that were recommended to them are hot garbage for gaming, and that it requires a comp sci degree to change the defaults to something that works better than windows, so they just stay on windows.

Pretty sure its intentional elitism on the part of the distro builders.

Well everyone who know the differ between wayland and xorg also knows how to change the default.

But well I just continue playing in wayland as I don't have any problems with it.

[mSparks]

Well everyone who know the differ between wayland and xorg also knows how to change the default.

But well I just continue playing in wayland as I don't have any problems with it.

nope, trying to walk new people through getting up and running on linux looks like this:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/595781-installing-linux-for-x-plane/?

-> They just give up before they get close to something working.

Normally, occams razor, I would put it down to the distro builders being morons, but since I know they are not it has to be intentional. Especially since the recent changes to many distros have made things worse not better (which we see in this months steam stats)

[Tuxee]

it runs.. on amd (not nvidia at all, which is some 80% of gamers),

Not in the Linux world - which you would see if looking at the stats.

but the input lag, lack of steamvr support on gnome, and extremely common crashing of the compositor are well established and more than enough reason for most to go straight back to windows - its why linux mint is so popular for steam gamers - it defaults to X11.

Ok, that's just plain bullshit since I have been playing on Wayland for literally years now.

when a popular recommended distro like arch or fedora switch to X11, that 1.9% will easily hit double digits.

unfortunately e.g. fedora do everything possible to keep steam gamers away, intentionally hard to install the nvidia drivers, now remove X11 from the default install completely so not even AMD guys and gal gamers will use it.

Let me guess: You have been a Linux disciple for the last 6 months? And now you have made out the culprit for "low market share". Right? Let me tell you: We had these "analyses" for the last 15+ years. First it was "lack of ports at all", then "lack of Steam support", then "poor drivers", then "availability of titles", then "cross platform problems". Each of these problems were holding Linux back, each of these problems got fixed. So yeah, I assume your assessment nails it...

[jacob]

Let's see what Linux desktop/laptop looks like this month.

Linux - 1.90%
AMD AMD Custom GPU 0405 - 31.62%
AMD Radeon Graphics (RADV VANGOGH) - 10.85%

So: 1.9 * ( 1 - (0.316 + 0.109)) = 1.092%

Does it look good for 10 years on steam and supposedly a better system for free?

And I remember the bragging of Linux fans how it was going to destroy Windows in the gaming field in no time. It wasn't just windows that was going to collapse. SteamMachine was going to destroy consoles too.

Let's put it differently. For Linux users it's great because they have access to literally hundreds of games without needing to keep a second machine, or the nuisance of a dual boot setup. Once you count proton or other forms if wine, that's a game library of several thousand titles. 10 years ago it would have hardly been conceivable.

OTOH for those who either use Windows as their primary OS or who don't care about OSes and just want to play games, Linux still offers no advantage in that regard. As far as gfx drivers go, the situation is infinitely better than 10 years ago but it's still not as seamless as on Windows especially for nvidia (entirely by nvidia's fault). Games that work run usually equally well as on Windows, but there is still less of them and there are no Linux-exclusive titles. Etc etc etc.

It would be interesting to know what is Steamdeck's share of the console market though.

[Tuxee]

Let's see what Linux desktop/laptop looks like this month.

Linux - 1.90%
AMD AMD Custom GPU 0405 - 31.62%
AMD Radeon Graphics (RADV VANGOGH) - 10.85%

So: 1.9 * ( 1 - (0.316 + 0.109)) = 1.092%

Does it look good for 10 years on steam and supposedly a better system for free?

And I remember the bragging of Linux fans how it was going to destroy Windows in the gaming field in no time. It wasn't just windows that was going to collapse. SteamMachine was going to destroy consoles too.

How surprising...
An article about Steam market share and HEL88 gets riled up again with his usual trolling.
However you should vary it a bit more - it's pretty much the same word-for-word text every month. Put in some effort dude!

[jacob]

it runs.. on amd (not nvidia at all, which is some 80% of gamers), but the input lag, lack of steamvr support on gnome, and extremely common crashing of the compositor are well established and more than enough reason for most to go straight back to windows - its why linux mint is so popular for steam gamers - it defaults to X11.

when a popular recommended distro like arch or fedora switch to X11, that 1.9% will easily hit double digits.

unfortunately e.g. fedora do everything possible to keep steam gamers away, intentionally hard to install the nvidia drivers, now remove X11 from the default install completely so not even AMD guys and gal gamers will use it.

Sure, arch and fedora are going to switch to X11. It will be right after they switch to 32 bit and to Ext2 as their default filesystem.