It finally happened. Linux gamers on Steam as of the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for October 2025 have crossed over the elusive 3% mark.

Free Windows 10 support ended for most people this past month, and the trend line of Linux usage has been quite clear leading up to this, as people prepared for the inevitable. An increase in Linux usage is also correlated to a drop in Chinese players, which did happen this month a little bit, but Linux usage is also trending up when filtering for English only. It’s worth noting that for all the official support Macs ever saw in gaming, they never represented anything better than about 5% of the market.

  • ipkpjersi@lemmy.mlEnglish
    38·
    19 hours ago

    According to statcounter, Linux desktop was over 4% marketshare in April 2025, damn that’s impressive.

    We really are getting there.

      • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        15 hours ago

        I’m not so sure Valve is the right maintainer for the core desktop. The Deck works well, but mainly what Valve is maintaining is the Game Mode feature and Proton. Everything else is largely better handed off to a bigger group.

        • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          1·
          10 hours ago

          Tbf, I think people are hoping for mainstream SteamOS as the “safe supported option”, because they are afraid of an “unintuitive experience” (This is basically a Linus Sebastian demographic problem).

          Personally, I think that’s a bad judgement call (as platforms like Bazzite have already proven that an official SteamOS environment isn’t required to have a good time gaming and using your machine), but I guess that means there’ll be even more excitement once that releases.