Linux Gamers on Steam Finally Cross Over the 3% Mark (gamingonlinux.com) 68
"It finally happened," writes the GamingOnLinux site:
Linux gamers on Steam as of the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for October 2025 have crossed over the elusive 3% mark. The trend has been clear for sometime, and with Windows 10 ending support, it was quite likely this was going to be the time for it to happen as more people try out Linux...
Overall, 3% might not seem like much to some, but again — that trend is very clear and equates to millions of people. The last time Valve officially gave a proper monthly active user count was in 2022, and we know Steam has grown a lot since then, but even going by that original number would put monthly active Linux users at well over 4 million.
Additional details from Phoronix: The only time Steam on Linux use was close to the 3% mark was when Steam on Linux initially debuted a decade ago and at that time the overall Steam user-base was much smaller than it is today. Long story short, thanks to the ongoing success of Valve's Steam Deck and other handhelds plus Steam Play (Proton) working out so well, these October numbers are the best yet... a hearty 0.41% increase to Linux... landing its overall marketshare at 3.05%. Windows meanwhile was at 94.84% (falling below 95% for the first time in a while) and macOS at 2.11%. For comparison, in October 2024 Steam on Linux was at 2.00%.
The Linux-specific data shows SteamOS commanding around 27% of all the Linux installs at large. SteamOS most notably being on the Steam Deck hardware.
Overall, 3% might not seem like much to some, but again — that trend is very clear and equates to millions of people. The last time Valve officially gave a proper monthly active user count was in 2022, and we know Steam has grown a lot since then, but even going by that original number would put monthly active Linux users at well over 4 million.
Additional details from Phoronix: The only time Steam on Linux use was close to the 3% mark was when Steam on Linux initially debuted a decade ago and at that time the overall Steam user-base was much smaller than it is today. Long story short, thanks to the ongoing success of Valve's Steam Deck and other handhelds plus Steam Play (Proton) working out so well, these October numbers are the best yet... a hearty 0.41% increase to Linux... landing its overall marketshare at 3.05%. Windows meanwhile was at 94.84% (falling below 95% for the first time in a while) and macOS at 2.11%. For comparison, in October 2024 Steam on Linux was at 2.00%.
The Linux-specific data shows SteamOS commanding around 27% of all the Linux installs at large. SteamOS most notably being on the Steam Deck hardware.
Re:Cue the hate... (Score:5, Interesting)
As a game developer: Even a few percent are, as the article points out, millions of users. Us indie devs cannot compete with AAA studios in marketing. It's not that the playing field isn't level, it's not even the same playing field.
But in a niche, you have a good chance to be noticed and word of mouth spreading. And that means grabbing as much of the niche as you possibly can.
And it matters to you Windos users as well, because it means games are developed without being tied to a specific OS or driver feature. Which means your new game will run even if you're not running it on the latest hardware.
And finally, it matters because Linux gamers are more useful to a game developer. Maybe 3% of the Steam users run Linux, but for my last game, at least 30% of the useful bug reports came from Linux users.
Re: Cue the hate... (Score:2)
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Not 99% but definitely some of the most useful ones. And yes, stack traces are one of the things that only Linux users send you without an explicit request.
And the advantage of debugging a (this specific exception) error in (this specific file) on (that specific line) over a "hey, the game crashed when I jumped out of the car" bug report cannot be overstated.
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The indie industry is best placed to take advantage of this. It used to be DirectX or nothing, but these days the incompatibilities that tie games to Windows are diminishing. The few things that are keeping games tied to windows are kernel level anti-cheat, and Denuvo. I've not seen an indie game with either so in theory following normal game design practices for Indie devs should result in a game that works well on Linux, even without a direct port.
100% of my indie game library runs on the Steamdeck, the o
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Well they modded me down, so that proves I'm right.
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I'm not sure if you were trying to be funny, but what I meant was that the Windows users are emotionally insecure, and they modded me down which is clear enough proof of that. Anyway they modded you down too, so we both look dumb now.
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They're luddites - who gives a shit what they think?
Signed, a guy still running Steam on Windows, but Windows is a VM running on Linux with GPU passthrough to make the best version of Windows yet - one with a ZFS-backed system-wide "undo" button for when Microsoft fucks up the next set of patches.
Lots of games work (Score:4, Informative)
Pick SteamOS if:
* You play mostly on Steam
* You want better battery and fewer headaches
* You like quick suspend/resume and controller-friendly menus
* You don’t need online shooters like Valorant or Fortnite
Pick Windows if:
* You want full compatibility with all games and services
* You need Game Pass, Epic Store, or Riot Games
* You don’t mind tinkering with settings, drivers, and updates
* You’re using your handheld for work or media too
Re:Lots of games work (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny how some of the points were the (claimed) opposite for using Windows or Linux on PC years ago.
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Thank Valve for that. The Steam Deck completely changed the Linux gaming playing field. Proton + Steam was a quantum leap over using Wine to try and get Windows game binaries to execute.
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if your PC meets the Windows 11 Hardware Spec.
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I bet most of it comes down to if you own a Steam Deck or not.
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I'm not sure "full compatibility with all games and services" applies to windows either, there are all kinds of problems especially with older games.
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This is why virtualization is the answer.
My "gaming PC" runs Proxmox VE, and I pass the GPU into whatever VM is appropriate for what I'm doing. It can be Linux, it can be Windows 11, it can be Windows 7. It doesn't matter.
Why play games with compatibility layers when you can just provide the ultimate compatibility of the native environment the app expects? Especially for gaming where you can have the hypervisor pass through the real SMI values that anti-cheat bullshit looks for to see if it's a VM or not
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Epic store works fine on Linux with Lutris.
I had to do at least as much tinkering with Windows to get it to do what I wanted.
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Just use Heroic Games Launcher to run games from Epic and GOG.
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Just use Heroic Games Launcher to run games from Epic and GOG.
What's so great about Heroic over Lutris, which does both of those things, and a lot of other things also?
All right! (Score:2)
It's finally the Year of the Linux Steamtop!
In the long-term (Score:5, Insightful)
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For a big shift to happen, Linux needs to reach critical mass where developers start supporting it for major titles and online play.
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There's no basis for making that claim. Linux Gaming is a question of hurdles, not of continued technical endeavor. A major hurdle was surpassed with Steam + Proton making gaming possible with a click of a mouse, rather than an endless exercise of bashing you head against the desk with Wine. What Steam + Proton have done made a huge change in support, but hits an immediate brick wall. The next hurdle is kernel level anticheat, followed by Denuvo, followed by support for alternate stores. And that's all befo
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Or maaaybe Torvalds says fuck you to kernel DRM, users keep fleeing from Win11 to Linux, and companies need to stop using (non-GPL) rootkits
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If Linux can achieve sufficient critical mass to get native ports, I'll start gaming on it (I already use it for day to day usage). Even if a game works on Wine though, I don't want to have that nagging question in the back of my mind that if there's a glitch or a crash, is it truly a bug in the game, or is it a Wine incompatibility issue?
Everything runs (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently installed Steam to my Linux machine. I literally can't find a game that doesn't work on Linux. I assume they exist, but I guess I don't play those sorts of games.
Re:Everything runs (Score:5, Informative)
Everything I've tried works perfectly well - and I was very surprised that a game as complex as Elite Dangerous works flawlessly.
Re:Everything runs (Score:4, Insightful)
Some older games still don't work well due to nobody putting a lot of effort in porting all the APIs and frameworks from the DirectX 9 era.
I can't run, for example, Syberia 1&2 and Myst 4&5 have issues too.
But yes, they're becoming the exception, not the rule.
Re:Everything runs (Score:5, Insightful)
Older games often don't work on current versions of windows either.
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I swear I have dues ex working on my rig..... I'll have to go double check but I recall doing it somewhat recent...
(sometimes i have to use older wine installs, and or lutris for some games)
What really bothers me, is trying to get older games ported to say ubuntu 10.x or 16.x(from gog), that don't work anymore, or at least wont without a lot of work.
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Look those games up on protondb.com, they're all listed as working you might just need to switch to an older proton version or add a couple command-line arguments. Some of these are actually listed as working perfectly in proton 9 but if you have a fresh install you'll have to select proton 9 manually now since it's not the latest version.
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There are quite a bit that don't run, unfortunately.
When I bought Hogwarts Legacy it was marked in Steam that it runs on Linux, which was the only reason I bought it, but a dozen updates later it is impossible to get to run, and it is now marked windows only in the shop :-(
Don't get me wrong, Steam is doing a great job, but some game studios are just plain retarded or get money from Microsoft under the table...
-H
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Working fine for me on the Steam Deck, maybe look it up on protondb.com and see if any of the command-line tweaks listed there are necessary for you.
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Been there, tried all :-(
-H
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Re: Everything runs (Score:2)
I was surprised how easy it was to get Nvidia drivers working on Debian*. Just enabled non-free and installed nvidia-driver. Wonder how Ubuntu got this wrong...
*except HDMI audio which I had to setup myself
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There are plenty. I don't play those either, but unfortunately in many cases they are also highly popular games usually requiring alternate launchers, Denuvo, kernel level anticheat, etc. Stuff that you get from AAA gaming studios who make rubbish games.
Next year the most anticipated game of the decade (for many people, maybe not for you in particular) will be released: GTA VI, I will eat my hat if that runs on Linux even 6 months after release.
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What?
SteamOS plays the actual games. It's not streaming from another source.
Re:BS claim (Score:5, Informative)
You don't know what you're talking about. The games are rendered locally.
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Yes, that's a different device. https://www.elgato.com/stream-... [elgato.com]
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Are you sure you are no confusing the Steam Deck and the Steam Link ?
The Deck is a handheld computer running usually Linux. The steam link was a short lived device to stream your windows based games to another device. Running Linux too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The elusive 3% mark? (Score:2)
Anyhow, the main driver for Linux gaming is obviously Steam Deck and Valve's efforts to make it as painless as possible for developers & gamers to run on it. As a side effect Steam also runs on desktop Linux and existing Linux users enjoy some gaming support.
I doubt many people using Windows 10 for gaming would see the attraction of switching to Linux when it would be easier to stay put, or switch to Windows 11 and continue to play every
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Many users would need to buy new hardware in order to run windows 11, and 11 breaks compatibility with some things that worked in 10.
Also newer games will probably not be compatible with 10 in the future.
SteamOS will run on their current hardware, and continue to do so in the future. Compatibility with existing games varies and could go either way, compatibility in the future is likely to be better as new games drop support for 10 and proton is under active development.
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> But anything outside of Steam, probably won't run at all, or only by screwing around with WINE or some variant, trying to circumvent DRM and the like.
Everything I tried running using Lutris worked just fine...
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The only major stumbling block for Linux gaming is kernel level anti-cheat, which some people equate to behaving like malware anyway. Several anti-cheat systems (e.g. BattlEye, Easy Anti Cheat, XIGNCODE3) have Linux support, but some game developers refuse to enable them on Linux for...reasons. Some feel that it forces them to fully support Linux when they don't see an economic reason to or other claims it's ineffective because it's not kernel level on Linux.
As far non-Steam gaming stores go, I use Heroic G
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Next year there will be a story they cross the elusive 4% mark.
Anyhow, the main driver for Linux gaming is obviously Steam Deck and Valve's efforts to make it as painless as possible for developers & gamers to run on it.
An actual game changer (literally) would be native Steam and GOG clients for Linux and BSD. Windows would still be, percentage-wise, the king of desktop gaming, but you'd see a mighty river of players move over to Unix systems if those two things came to fruition.
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In less than 100 years ...
Re:Wrong statement (Score:4, Informative)
I think you are vastly overestimating how popular the steam deck is and how many people use SteamOS. The couple of gamers I know who are using Linux since the past year, at least even part time, are actually using Ubuntu since its 'what is easiest'. I'm a linux gamer using CachyOS.
I highly doubt a million people have purchased the steam deck in the last quarter.
Not the same? (Score:2)
Bu isn't this the same as when Apple had a 4%, 5% of the desktop market, and so many people here called them a dead company? Here, I'll start your comment to this for you ..."But it's not the same!" Just follow that up with whatever double speak you need to do. Yes, I love hashing up 20 years old frustration.
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Bu isn't this the same as when Apple had a 4%, 5% of the desktop market, and so many people here called them a dead company?
No.
At the time, Apple was on the way down from 11%, but Linux is on the way up. You are also comparing the gaming market to the entire desktop market. Linux wasn't expected to provide gaming initially. MacOS was. There were games on classic MacOS. At the time, MacOS was approximately as friendly to gaming as Windows was. Now MacOS is unfriendly to gaming due to Apple's refusal to support the dominant graphics API natively.
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Now MacOS is unfriendly to gaming due to Apple's refusal to support the dominant graphics API natively.
Kind of weird.
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Anyway, the Linux market is not the desktop. It thrives elsewhere.
It's All Winders Fault (Score:2)
I've only had 1 windows PC I built for playing Cyberpunk 2077, 5 years ago.
Tried to upgrade to Win11 2 years ago and *BZZZZ!*, not gonna happen.
So switched to Nobara Linux.
Now running 3 Linux machines at home, 1 Mac iTunes server and getting ready to ditch my Macs at work, when they are no longer update-worthy.
Linux usage will increase with a 64 bit client (Score:2)
I stopped using Steam in Linux when my distro made it more difficult to use multilib.
About time! (Score:2)
I've been a Linux gamer on Steam for over 10 years.