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.

  • nasi_goreng@lemmy.zipEnglish
    331·
    15 hours ago

    What makes the chart “only” on 3% is Chinese users. English Linux user alone has more than 6% percentage of Linux users.

    We need Chinese government for their independent tech stack to include Linux further. At the moment, there are already several Chinese distro with big companies porting their basic apps to Linux (like chat app, office app, etc).

    If Chinese gov force gaming company to support Linux as well, we will see a huge surge evenmore. There are a huge number of Chinese game that never made out of China, and exclusive to PC only.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      25·
      15 hours ago

      Here’s a graphic showing that from this page:

      I wish there was a graphic that showed English users with SteamOS separated from non-SteamOS users, because I think if we get 5% of non-SteamOS users, we should start to see devs pay a lot more attention. We’re starting to see devs make SteamOS-specific versions (e.g. THPS 1&2 offline mode), so the next step is getting Linux-specific adjustments for more games.

      • nialv7@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        9 hours ago

        So 93% of the Linux users use English steam. I wonder how much of that is because Linux users just don’t bother to set system language (I am one of them), or maybe the language was not detected correctly.

      • edgemaster72@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        9 hours ago

        So uh, what happened between March and September 2021 that caused the current upward trend? Was the Windows 11 announcement that poorly received?

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          4·
          9 hours ago

          Yes, and 2021 was a perfect storm of a bunch of stuff:

          • Windows 11 would break compatibility with older processors
          • Steam Deck announced preorders in July - wouldn’t release until 2022, but there was a lot of excitement about Linux gaming
          • LTT made a video series (part 1 was Nov. 2021) where Linus used Linux exclusively for a month

          So yeah, a lot of people were curious at the time, and while not all of it was directly related to Windows 11, that certainly was a factor.

      • ampersandrew@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        3·
        15 hours ago

        THPS offline mode is the same version as elsewhere, but it magically allows itself to operate offline when it thinks it’s running on a Steam Deck, which you can do with a launch parameter. Baldur’s Gate 3 actually has a native Linux version that is only officially supported for Steam Deck, and that might be closer to what you’re referring to.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          15 hours ago

          which you can do with a launch parameter

          My point is they built functionality specifically for a Linux-based system. In THPS, that meant offline mode, but for other games it could be anti-cheat, where to store game saves, or default settings (I think Cyberpunk some?).

          My point is that Linux is getting on the radar of game devs, and that’ll increase a lot at some level of adoption. I think that level is 5% on desktop Linux.

          Baldur’s Gate 3 is a unicorn in a lot of ways, so that’s not exactly what I’m talking about, but it’s related. I’m not going to expect BG3-level of support from devs, THPS 1&2 would be so much more than we’re currently getting.

          • ampersandrew@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
            2·
            15 hours ago

            It’s possible, but it’s also possible that they already had that offline segregation built into the code to support the Switch version, and that it was trivial to enable.

        • cmhe@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          15 hours ago

          On a separate note, the BG3 native Linux version is so strange. Larian is threating the SteamDeck like a console. As if it is a bundled OS+HW system with only one available game store and only one useable OS. So they are only releasing it in steam, not on any other store. As if that means it can only be installed on SteamDeck and not on other Linux systems on different Hardware. They forget that anyone can install other Linux distributions or even windows in SteamDecks or use other game stores.

          This decision is so strange, because it disadvantages people that bought the game for PC elsewhere and own a SteamDeck.

          Like will they make performance patches to their games gated behind which which store the game was bought from?