Steam Survey is never very reliable. They often have weird OS/Hardware stats, like GPU model etc.<p>This specific issue, "the dramatic change of Chinese user" also has happened multiple times in recent years.<p>I just had a glance at this newest report, <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam" rel="nofollow">https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...</a><p>In the very first item, it shows "Windows 11 64 bit 22.41% (change: -9.65%)"<p>This obviously doesn't make any sense. It either suffers from small sample size, or a skewed one.<p>My guess is Valve probably failed to deliver the surveys to players in an uniform, representative fashion.<p>Either way, don't take it seriously.
I reckon this analysis would benefit from absolute figures. A drop in market <i>share</i> doesn't necessarily mean less users if said market is experiencing a massive growth.
Just wanted to give kudos to the community and Valve for just how great the gaming experience is on Linux right now.<p>Over the weekend I tried a game that had a native Linux build. Loads of bugs.<p>Switched to the windows one running under proton, no bugs.
Anecdotally, my peak Linux gaming was during the pandemic. I played Warframe and Overwatch in Proton at least a few times a week. Now I mostly play Call of Duty DMZ, which does not run on Proton thanks to anti-cheat, so I play in Windows.<p>I don't have a Steam Deck though. I don't know how much that drove the player numbers. I'll bet Linux gaming gets a bump when CS2 comes out.
I haven't run Arch Linux, but what I've heard is that you have to know what you're doing in order to run it. So I'm surprised it's the most popular Linux OS after SteamOS. Is it actually less difficult than I heard?
After reading the article I don't see how the numbers are questionable at all.<p>This seems more like a case of numbers that don't fit the narrative that the author wants to push rather than numbers that are not believable.
Perhaps that's the reality hitting the Linux folks such as Phoronix when as long as 'number go up' is it 'believable' but when it goes down it is 'questionable'. It can't be both at the same time from the same source.<p>Choose one.