Linux Shoots Past The 2% Threshold For The Steam Survey, AMD CPU Use Breaks 75%

When Steam on Linux debuted a decade ago it maintained around a 2% marketshare before receding and then beginning its long climb back up following the debut of Steam Play for running Windows games on Linux and then with the much anticipated Steam Deck handheld game console and the modern Arch-based SteamOS. Valve just published their May 2024 numbers for the Steam Survey and they indicate the Linux marketshare is finally back above 2%.

The Steam Survey results for May 2024 were just published and point to the Linux marketshare seeing a big jump of 0.42% up to 2.32%! Meanwhile macOS rose to 1.47% and Windows dropped down to 96.21%. It's quite a large leap for the Linux gaming marketshare on a month over month basis and typically more in the 0.1~0.2% range.

Pulling up the Linux-specific survey data shows SteamOS Holo continuing to gain marketshare and now accounting for around 45% of the Linux gamers.

In large part due to the custom AMD APU powering the Steam Deck, AMD CPU use among Linux gamers has hit 75%! Linux gamers have tended to prefer AMD due to their open-source support and great Ryzen performance while the use by the Steam Deck and Valve investing a lot in the AMD open-source graphics stack has helped a great deal boosting overall interest. Under the Windows data, Intel CPUs maintain a 66.8% marketshare.

Similarly, AMD GPU use on Linux is quite a big difference compared to the Steam Survey Windows metrics.

Those wanting to go through all the May 2024 results for the Steam Survey can do so at SteamPowered.com.