Steam Linux Use Tips Up In October Thanks To The Steam Deck

With the start of the new month comes updated Steam Survey numbers from Valve for the preceding month. Thanks to the continued growth of the Steam Deck and Valve continuing to ramp up their production, Steam on Linux enjoyed another tick up for October.

After Steam on Linux hit 1.27% in August, it fell to a 1.23% marketshare in September. The August high at 1.27% was healthy considering it was 1.02% in August of 2021. Now for October the overall Steam on Linux usage ticked up to a new recent high of 1.28%. For the October 2022 stats, Steam on Linux was at 1.28% to macOS at 2.23% and Windows at 96.5%.

This 1.28% marketshare for Linux gaming is a high of recent years and certainly in absolute numbers for the lifetime of Steam on Linux considering Valve's continuously growing userbase. Unrelated but worth mentioning: we are also hitting the mark next week of ten years since Steam's Linux client beta went public.

When driving down into the Steam Linux statistics specifically, month-over-month is a 7.94% increase to the "SteamOS Holo" usage and putting that SteamOS used by the Steam Deck now at 24.98% marketshare overall. Or a quarter of Steam on Linux gamers running it likely from the Steam Deck or those opting to load SteamOS on their own hardware.

Confirming though that most of the new SteamOS installs were indeed from Steam Deck usage is that "AMD AMD Custom GPU 0405" as the GPU used by Steam Deck's Van Gogh APU also saw a 7.94% uptick for the month. That AMD GPU custom to the Steam Deck shows the overall Steam Deck marketshare among Linux users at 25.01%.

The growth of Steam Deck adoption also now bumps AMD's CPU marketshare among Steam on Linux gamers to 56% against Intel, an increase in October alone of +4.37%.

So from the latest Steam Survey results, Steam on Linux for gaming continues to be on an upward trajectory thanks to the Steam Deck.