Valve has just published the Steam Survey results for December 2024 and they reflect a nice upward trend for the Linux gaming statistics and a high point in recent times.
In November the Steam Survey reflected a 2.03% marketshare for Linux… Roughly inline with what we have been seeing for Linux right at around the 2% threshold. With the just-published December survey numbers, there is a 0.29% increase to 2.29%! A very healthy 0.29% bump month-over-month and larger than we are used to seeing for the monthly Linux increases… There is some differences with 2.03% seemingly revised down to 2.00% after the fact or how the +0.29% now means 2.29%, but in any case it’s showing a healthy Linux increase for December.
The Windows percent pulled back by 0.51% to 96.1% while Apple macOS also gained 0.22% going up to a 1.61% marketshare. Some of these numbers may be attributed again to a shift in Steam China usage… The December numbers show Simplified Chinese language use dropping by 3.53% while English usage going up by 9.46%. There are also other language increases but nothing specified for where the other ~6% English increase is coming from with Simplified Chinese at just a 3.53% decrease.
When looking at the Linux numbers, SteamOS Holo accounts for around 36% of all Linux gamers… SteamOS Holo being the operating system of the Steam Deck and beginning to appear on other devices as well. SteamOS / Steam Deck continues to be the primary growth driver for gaming on Linux.
Driven in large part by the Steam Deck relying on a custom AMD SoC/APU and AMD being popular with Linux gamers/enthusiasts for their open-source driver support, AMD CPU use on Linux commands a 73.6% marketshare. But here’s another strange but as the Steam Survey results show Intel CPU marketshare for Linux gamers at 29.6%… So combined 103.2%, which would indicate something isn’t quite right with these results. With Steam OS on Windows, AMD has a 38% CPU marketshare to Intel at 63%.
So there are a few oddities with the December 2024 survey results on the Steam Survey with some numbers not adding up quite right, but in any event they seem to be pointing to a higher marketshare for Linux gaming in closing out the year and the continued popularity of SteamOS / Steam Deck with the AMD numbers. Those wanting to see the Steam Survey results can find them on SteamPowered.com.
