Steam On Linux Ends Q1'2021 Still Below 1% Marketshare

[Mike Frett]

Does anyone care about this anymore, really? A majority of desktop Linux users don't even use Steam.

[Aisyk]

1% of 25 000 000 users...

[kpedersen]

A majority of desktop Linux users don't even use Steam.

It is true. I wouldn't touch that DRM crapware with a barge pole. However companies are generally a little blinded when it comes to industry brands (they are just as in love with Valve as 12 year old kids are).

More importantly, they will take one look at the Steam figures and ascertain whether Linux is a worthwhile platform to support from a monetisation point of view. So if we can get a good "Steam Score", it will temp the rest of the industry to follow in terms of tools and software.

[liamdawe]

The GOL trends page was updated to show it over time: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/

[Nocifer]

Still no surprise sadly. most multiplayer games still wont play nice, and as such most people wont bother switching

This. People (especially former gamers of the 90s/00s who've grown older) don't seem to understand that nowadays gaming isn't single player adventure games and RPGs, gaming is either casual gaming on the smartphone or multiplayer competitive FPS/action games. The former case has nothing to do with Linux, and the latter has everything to do with anti-cheat. So as long as the various anti-cheat "solutions" don't work on Linux, people won't even consider switching to Linux (not that there are many people that would consider switching to Linux anyway), even if everything else was absolutely 100% perfect in the Linux world (which of course it isn't).

Who says that? Linux is not all things open source, and open source is not just about Linux. DRM is fine for Linux if it helps bringing more content here. Not everyone can make money on open source and "free stuff".

Indeed. The issue at hand is to have a competitive open source platform. What third-party developers do after that is their choice, and if they choose to develop closed source stuff then it is the choice of the users to use that stuff or not. But Linux as a platform has nothing to do with it.

...

Oh dear God, not this again...

Exactly. I only buy Linux compatible games though, to reward editors for taking Linux into account in the initial development. Not those who expect Proton to do their job.

Now, onto numbers.
When Valve made Steam available for Linux, it's because they saw a financial interest. Might have been Steam machines and Steam OS, sure, but not only.
If you keep in mind the steady Linux market share (if we can trust surveys) and the growing Steam market penetration in general, it means the Linux user base has increased and I suppose it brings more revenues than 6-7 years ago. It was already interesting enough financially when they started or they would have pulled the plug, so it can only be more interesting these days.

It's long been theorized that what Valve are looking for is to eventually utilize Linux as an underlying platform for a completely separate cloud or console solution. If and when that happens, the market share of Linux on the desktop won't have absolutely nothing to do with whether the proposed product will see success or not. All that matters will be how robust the product is and how well it's marketed, nothing else. Just as the market share of Linux had absolutely nothing to do with the success of Android or the Playstation 4 (that was BSD but the exact same thing applies).

TL;DR and also that's why Valve are not pushing Linux aggressively: 1, because they won't do so until the product is absolutely ready for mass consumption (i.e. works in 99% of situations while requiring zero manual configuration by the user), and 2, because what they're eventually looking to push to the masses isn't Linux itself but a new, as of now undisclosed product that will be based on the Linux stack/OS. So from Valve's perspective, Linux absolutely makes financial sense.

[Vistaus]

I don't mean to discount people overseas in Asia, but one thing to note is Steam's hardware results also include Asia. Linux isn't really "big" in Asia.]

So you mean that Huawei is selling tons of laptops (in terms of sales figures) with Deepin but it's secretly not Linux?

[sn99]

I think most users who install linux do not usually game. I hope they would.

[extremesquared]

In the first page of "Top Sellers" on steam, there are a dozen or so with native linux versions. That's still a pretty big deal.

[TemplarGR]

This. People (especially former gamers of the 90s/00s who've grown older) don't seem to understand that nowadays gaming isn't single player adventure games and RPGs, gaming is either casual gaming on the smartphone or multiplayer competitive FPS/action games. The former case has nothing to do with Linux, and the latter has everything to do with anti-cheat. So as long as the various anti-cheat "solutions" don't work on Linux, people won't even consider switching to Linux (not that there are many people that would consider switching to Linux anyway), even if everything else was absolutely 100% perfect in the Linux world (which of course it isn't).

This is not true. While multiplayer games do have large numbers of users, single player games are still important and many people play them. And it is not like Linux does not have some multiplayer games available anyway.

[BesiegedAce]

Just a FYI, i have never, ever, gotten a Steam survey on Linux, since the native port launched.

I've gotten some when in Linux and some when in Windows. It's really random.