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Steam On Linux Use Skyrocketed In March - More Than Double The macOS Gaming Marketshare
(www.phoronix.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2026
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Ah, but no-one would question Mac support when you're developing new software. If you can support Mac, which is certified UNIX, then the jump to supporting Linux isn't all that much extra, and we can prove there's a growing install base.
Started the ball rolling, and it just keeps going faster.
Games rely on more than just the OS API and even variation between Linux flavours or installed libraries on the same flavours can make compatibility difficult. My success rate at running games with a Linux native version is maybe 50% before I fall back to proton and the windows version. The consistency helps, though kudos to the developers who put in the effort to get their games working on Linux in general rather than just their particular systems.
The gpu library is a big one. There's OpenGL, DirectX, and Vulkan (which is the successor to OpenGL) that I know of. Linux and windows support all three, in some form or manner, but afaik mac only supports OpenGL, which really holds back game development, especially with DX being the most popularly targeted one.
Though my info might be a bit dated because I dgaf about macs generally, just wanted to point out that the shared roots between mac and Linux don't necessarily mean targeting one would make targeting the other easier in a meaningful way.
Maybe one day they'll sell a dongle to play games (which is really just a live boot linux install).
Oh definitely. Linux should definitely be targeted before macs because people who are on it I'm sure play more games. But again not a high bar as a lot of games never get Mac versions either.