Latest Steam Survey Notes Linux Gaming Market Share Has Hit 1%

Linux wasn’t really popular for its gaming capabilities until Proton stepped in and revolutionized one of the weakest areas of the OS. A recent steam survey shows that Linux gaming has hit a 1% market share, which is the all-time high for the OS.

Steam released a survey today, which shows that the market share has hit 1%, a 0.14% increase since last year. Of course, this isn’t a huge feat in itself, but we understand from these numbers that gaming on Linux is getting better with each year.

According to Phoronix, when Steam first debuted on Linux, the market share was around 2%, but it gradually decreased, and the Steam customer base was tiny compared to what it is today.

If you’re new to Linux gaming and don’t know where or how to get started, checkout out the gaming on Linux article. If you’re familiar with the same, we also have a list of best gaming distros, so check that out as well. For those who don’t know what Proton is, it’s a compatibility layer that translates Direct-X games to Vulkan.

What’s the most popular gaming distro?

The survey shows that Ubuntu 20.04.2 is the most popular distro with a market share of 19.61%, followed by Manjaro Linux (11.64%), Arch Linux (10.44%), Pop!_OS 21.04 (6.42%), Ubuntu 21.04 (6.42%), and Linux Mint 20.1 (5.35%).

Over 40.12% of users use other distros for gaming, which was expected as there are many Linux distros out there.

Thanks to Valve’s recent Steam Deck announcement, the gaming scene on Linux is expected to get even better. For starters, it’s a handheld gaming console that will run Arch Linux at its heart. The major drawback of Proton is, games with built-in anti-cheat mechanisms don’t work as of now.

Valve says that it’s working with game developers to bring anti-cheat support for Proton, and by the time the console is launched, Proton “will be able to” run any game in the Steam library. If this happens, the overall Linux market will grow more than it is now. What’s more exciting is that, since the console’s running Linux, PC gamers with Linux will also play games with anti-cheats.

Either way, what do you think of gaming on Linux? Do you think it’s destined to get better due to Steam Deck’s launch? Let us know your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below.