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.

  • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.worldEnglish
    28·
    5 days ago

    I think it will continue to rise. People are updating their rigs all the time. Whenever they update their rig they’ll have to ask themselves whether they want to continue with Windows on their new rig, or try with something new.

    The vast majority of this increase is from people playing on Steam Decks, which run on Linux, not from people switching to Linux on their PCs.

    If it continues to rise, this is the reason. The general public is less and less into using a desktop at all as time goes on, much less running, and much less changing to, an extremely niche operating system on one.

    EDIT: The previous sentence is actually more of the reason, upon further reflection. The total number of people playing on desktops period is falling, and the vast majority of desktops are Windows, so non-Windows OSes will comparatively gain ‘market share’ as that happens, even if their numbers don’t change at all.

    • BigPotato@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      5 days ago

      Actually, the raw number percentage shows that the increase is due to Mint, Ubuntu, and Bazzite. Maybe people are installing Bazzite on their Deck but likely not the other two.

      • atmorous@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        5 days ago

        I want to say that I’ve been helping people get onto Mint and Bazzite. Going to pat myself on the back for contributing what little I can to grow this awesome community

      • TJDetweiler@lemmy.caEnglish
        7·
        5 days ago

        I switched from Windows to Bazzite on my main rig 2 weeks ago. Likely won’t go back to Windows for gaming as I’ve had pretty much no issues with Bazzite.

        I did also get a Steam deck recently, so anecdotally, both above answers are right.

        Insert “I’m doing my part” meme

    • magic_lobster_party@fedia.io
      24·
      5 days ago

      The portion of people playing on SteamOS is steadily decreasing, which means new Linux users are on Steam Deck to a lesser extent.

    • CountVon@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      23·
      5 days ago

      The vast majority of this increase is from people playing on Steam Decks

      I believe this is incorrect. The Steam survey break down GPUs by description and the Deck’s GPU appears in the results as “AMD Vangogh”, which only accounts for 0.39% of respondents. That implies that the vast majority of survey respondents using Linux are actually on PC, not the Deck.