Steam's Linux Gaming Marketshare For April Comes In At Just Above 0.5%

Written by Michael Larabel in Valve on 1 May 2018 at 08:15 PM EDT. 50 Comments
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With the start of a new month comes the usual updated usage statistics for Valve's Steam gaming service, which for the past month represents an increase in Linux gamers.

The April 2018 statistics for the Steam Hardware/Software Survey show the Linux gaming market-share at now 0.55%, an increase of 0.22% from the month prior when the Linux users came in at just one-third of a percent. This is quite an increase month-over-month but still tiny compared to the nearly 3% for macOS gamers or 96% for Windows.

The April 2018 numbers show an 11% increase in English users while a sharp 22% decrease in simplified Chinese users, likely due to recent bans and waning interest in games like PUBG that months ago yielded a sharp increase in Windows users. But even with the Steam gaming figures normalizing more, the just over a half-percent Linux gaming marketshare is still much lower than the around 2% figures when Steam on Linux initially took off and there was the home around SteamOS and Steam Machines.

Those wanting to go through all of the Steam Survey numbers can find the updated figures via SteamPowered.com.

Meanwhile, other surveys like NetMarketShare are currently reporting the overall Linux desktop marketshare at about 2.2% relative to Windows at 88%, macOS at almost 9%, and a mix of other platforms taking up the rest.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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