this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2025
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It's 3.2%
I mean, sure, big headline is cool. But it's 3.2%
Closing in on 8% if you filter it by "English language only". Chinese speakers overwhelmingly (almost exclusively) use Windows and make up about 30% of all Steam users, which skews the rest-of-world results. And I wouldn't consider 8% of all prospective sales to be a joke, especially since that number only keeps on rising and by the time you've spent a few years writing a game it's likely to be quite a bit more.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/
Why stop there? If you filter it by “users not using windows” we can get that number over 90%!
Massaging the data to meet your desired stats. Like a politician.
Why not exclude even more countries that mostly use windows and then say "99% of steam users are using Linux*"
~*based on users in Afghanistan only~
Hey! I'll have you know that 100% of steam users * are using linux.
* sample size : me
We should survey the linux_gaming community. That will give us a larger sample size that's definitely representative of the broader trends
If you exclude non English language, you have to exclude their sales too.. unless you're suggesting the Chinese users that make up 30% of steam users don't buy anything...
I mean...they considered piracy, and cheating, valid for a long time.
True. Was thinking of indie games, of the kind I might develop myself., which would be limited to the languages I speak myself.
If you're developing something where you'd expect enough international sales to hire a translation team, then Chinese would be a sensible first choice, followed by Spanish.
no it's followed by Japanese. Japan is the third largest market by videogame revenue. Sure Spanish is spoken by a large portion of the world population, but the video game revenue the Spanish speaking countries generate isn't as large as that of Japan. Latin-American countries are middle income countries and if you sell games there you have to sell them at localized pricing. In Japan you can sell your game at around the same price as you'd sell the game in the US and the EU.
Japan generates about $26 billion in video game revenue while Latam around $13 billion and Spain €2.4 billion according to these sources
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/horizon/outlook/video-game-market/japan
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/horizon/outlook/video-game-market/latin-america
https://aevi.org.es/el-sector-del-videojuego-crecio-en-2024-con-una-facturacion-record-de-mas-de-2-408-millones-de-euros-y-22-millones-de-jugadores/ (FYI they use dots as a thousand separator in the 2.408 millones de euros)
Don't put words in my mouth. I never said it's a joke.
It kinda just irrelevant, if you target mass market. But not a joke.
8% is irrelevant?
Of course not, your opinion is very important to us!
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3.2% on a gaming hardware survey is fucking insane stats for Linux though. Three years ago that wouldn't have been believable.
It's 3.2% of Steam Linux installs. The actual number is higher.
3,2% out of what amount?
100%