14 DAY TRIAL // Steam for Linux arrived a year and a half ago, but the user uptake hasn't been as big as expected. Despite the huge number of titles, the percentage of Linux gamers is not budging and it's hard to understand why.
In order to properly see the difference between what it's like to have Steam for Linux and not having Steam for Linux, we need to go back in time, but just by a few years, let’s say in 2010. Back then, there were only a handful of multiplayer games, mostly FPS, a few arcade titles, and that was about it. And yes, let's not forget about Unreal Tournament 2004, which is still one of the best multiplayer games ever made, regardless of the platform.
There were no talks about porting games to Linux and the actual Linux support was laughable, to say the least. The Humble Bundles were just making an appearance and Linux players started to feel that there might be something about gaming on Linux after all.
The catalyst for gamers wasn't Valve and Steam, but Humble Bundle. These guys managed to promote more games in a year of sales than the entire history of Linux gaming. Then, a time came when developers ported their games to the open source platform just to get a spot into a Humble Bundle sale.
If we fast forward a few years, Steam for Linux is already an established platform and most of the smaller studios and publishers are realizing the Linux potential and are making great efforts to have simultaneous releases on all the platforms.
Despite the fact that a few bigger publishers, like 2K for example, are starting to move towards Linux, the open source has remained basically the same, just unrealized potential.
I've been watching the Steam Hardware Survey for quite some time and the Linux usage percentage has been hovering around 1.20% for a very long time. It's not budging. It doesn't matter that there are now more than 600 games for Linux and that all the Humble Bundle games can be redeemed on Steam.
No matter how big the games are and despite the fact that some of the new titles, like Rust for example, have more than a million players on Windows, the Linux user base remains the same. You might argue that it might not be a representative portion and that we can't know just how many Linux users received that survey.
The fact that the variations in the percentage are rather small from one month to another suggests that roughly the same number of users are questioned on Linux each month.
So, the question remains. Why are so few gamers on Steam for Linux? It might have something to do with the large number of distros, the fact that people are just starting to migrate to Linux in greater numbers, and the fact that many Linux users are not actually gamers.
Sure enough, there are a lot of young Linux users, but the bulk of the community is still composed of people who don't see Linux as an entertainment platform.
I think that Steam for Linux will only become successful after more people adopt it, running away from Mac OS and Windows. It will only become successful after the main pool of Linux users is young enough to see the open source as an entertainment platform as well.