Valve Publishes Steam Survey Numbers For April 2024

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Valve Publishes Steam Survey Numbers For April 2024

For those that were hoping Steam on Linux numbers would crack the 2% marketshare for April, unfortunately, that didn't happen...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Steam-Survey-April-2024

[mSparks]

I'm looking forward to when at least one popular distribution finally drops the wayland default so people find you can actually use Linux to play steam games.

Having to disable and uninstall wayland to get steam and steamvr working is a step most people probably dont take, leaving them thinking it just doesnt work, its a testament to how bad windows is now that so many have already got that far.

[vextium]

I'm looking forward to when at least one popular distribution finally drops the wayland default so people find you can actually use Linux to play steam games.

Having to disable and uninstall wayland to get steam and steamvr working is a step most people probably dont take, leaving them thinking it just doesnt work, its a testament to how bad windows is now that so many have already got that far.

What, Wayland works perfectly fine with Steam, what are you yapping about.

[HEL88]

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.

[mSparks]

What, Wayland works perfectly fine with Steam, what are you yapping about.

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.

[LinuxNoob]

I am on an all AMD system and I also use Steam on Ubuntu 24.04, previously 22.04. I am one of the few.

[vextium]

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.

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.

[creoflux]

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 am not a big gamer but tried Nobara (based on Fedora) maybe a year ago and it worked well for me.

[ssokolow]

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.

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?"

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.

[mrg666]

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?"

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.

I agree. Unless more PCs are sold with Linux already installed, I don't see Linux gaming share improving.

If Steam releases a console/PC with Linux installed, there can be some growth. I think this might happen though since Steam games work great on Linux for me.