Linux gaming has witnessed an impressive rise in popularity among Steam gamers, according to the latest hardware research from Valve’s gaming platform.
Hardware survey April 2022 Shows that the number of gamers using Linux has increased to 1.14%. This is still a modest percentage, but it’s a significant increase over the previous month when Linux was exactly 1.0%.
The 0.14% increase makes little sense for Windows, but it’s actually a big leap for Linux, and in fact, Valve figures represent the second highest level of adoption recently witnessed by alternative platforms. increase.
What was the best month ever for Linux? The Steam hardware survey reported a 1.16% adoption level in November 2021. Games on LinuxReported on this, pointed out. Interestingly, its adoption rate peaked fairly rapidly after Steam Deck was first announced in July 2021, but has reached that height until March 2022, up to 1%. It slowly declined.
Therefore, what is very noteworthy here is the relatively large spikes seen, which surged from 1% to 1.14%. This is the biggest leap in recent years in just one month.
Analysis: Deck Driven Adoption – In Some Way
As mentioned earlier, these are a relatively small percentage of the overall Steam gaming environment, but this looks like a promising big leap for Linux in April 2022. This reflects the popularity of Steam decks and helps gamers to test. Linux water?
We believe so, but that doesn’t mean that the load on Steam Deck owners is suddenly appearing in Valve’s investigations. Of course, there are a lot of Steam Decks right now. The actual number is unknown, but the number that Valve can create and ship is probably the same.
As you may not notice, Steam Deck users are invited to participate in the Steam Hardware Survey only in desktop mode (where the Steam client is running), and most people spend almost all their time in game mode. .. Therefore, this could mean that many SteamDeck owners haven’t even had the opportunity to participate in the survey.
This current surge in adoption last month probably shows additional interest in Linux games being drummed up around Steam Deck, especially Valve’s improved Proton behaviour, with more Windows. It is to promote the work to improve the compatibility of. game.
In fact, if the owner of Steam Deck is fully included in the monthly hardware report, the percentage of Linux games can be even higher. And when Valve responds to how Steam Deck implements the survey and surveys everyone (not just those who are hanging in desktop mode at the right time), we see a much bigger rise (not just those who are hanging in desktop mode at the right time). From a relative perspective-let’s moderate expectations properly, of course).
Last year’s high hiring rate was defeated and could be left behind by a considerable margin in the near future. Not only will more deck owners be included in the survey, but more handheld units will be. The ship, and Proton, are continually refined to drive additional interest (outside the deck) that is already causing uptics as seen in April. Linux rarely challenges Windows, but it’s probably trying to overtake macOS (now 2.55%) faster than you might think …