A moment I’ve no doubt many Linux fans have been waiting to see. The Linux user share on Steam has smashed through the 2% barrier.
Not actually for the first time though, it did initially rise up above 2% in March 2013, shortly after the original Steam for Linux release when it left Beta. Part of the reason it had higher numbers at the start, was that Valve added a special Tux item into Team Fortress 2 only on Linux but it quickly dropped in the following months.
Linux gaming is still an “early adopter” thing. Many popular games don’t work, so the people who are willing to give those up care more about running Linux than playing those games, which means tinkerers and stubborn people.
The more Linux is compatible day 1 for popular games, the more attractive Linux gaming will be. At a certain point, mainstream users will move to Linux and they’ll probably use Ubuntu and Mint more than other distros.
But that’s not where we are. Ubuntu is probably the most popular distro for regular users, and those users seem to not play games much on Linux. That means they’re either dual booting Windows, or just not playing games.
Maybe, but none of those are showing up on top of lists.
I think most mainstream users will use Ubuntu because that’s what they already associate with Linux. People are aware of it by word of mouth, so it seems “safer” than using a gaming-specific distro. They’ll likely naïvely think that gaming-specific distros are “gaming only” and want something “general purpose” if they’re going to bail on Windows.
But these new users aren’t going to be using Arch most likely, so seeing that at the top tells me that Linux gaming is at the “early adopter” phase.
That being said, I’ve been a Linux gamer since before Steam came to Linux and I remember signing up for an account back in 2013 or whatever when they did come (I think I was on Arch at the time, go figure). Before that point, I mostly played Factorio, Minecraft, and a handful of games I got from Humble Bundle back when they were new and indie-focused (Humble games mostly worked on Linux back then).
Anyway, that’s my 2¢. I’m on openSUSE now, so I’m not really contributing to any of the top distro stats.
Fedora recently hit top three for most installed gaming distros, and that’s likely because of Bazzite (which just a Fedora Atomics Spin).
But I appreciate your explanation, and I think it’s well thought. Only time will really tell what happens, but having the Steam Deck out there only helps adoption in the long term.
Oh absolutely. People can easily see what’s officially supported on Linux and try games on their Steam Deck before committing to a desktop install.
I have a Steam Deck and three of my coworkers either have one or want one, and only one of them is interested in Linux itself. Every time they complain about something on Windows, I casually ask if Steam Deck does that. :)