Steam's Linux Marketshare Ticks Up Ever So Slightly For May

With the start of a new month, Valve has published their software/hardware survey numbers for the month prior. For May 2019, the Steam Linux usage did tick-up slightly on a percentage basis.

For last month, the percentage of Steam users running Linux (according to the controversial Steam Survey) rose to 0.84%, or a 0.02% increase over April. The number is largely in line with expectations of around 0.8% that it's been in that area recently and an increase over last year.

On a percentage basis, the Linux gaming marketshare has tended to grow bit-by-bit since Valve introduced Steam Play last year for allowing many prominent Windows games to run on Linux thanks to their Wine-based Proton and DXVK for translating Direct3D to Vulkan. But there hasn't been any Linux exclusives, the return of Steam Machines, or any landmark reasons to cause a sudden shift of Windows gamers to switch over to Linux. As a result, it's just been either flat or tiny increases each month.

Windows comes in at 95.9% for May's usage on Steam while macOS is at 3.26%.

The monthly Steam survey data can be viewed at SteamPowered.com.