this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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Do I need to start steam at least once a month to show up in the stats?
These are the results of the monthly Steam Hardware Survey which polls just a small percentage of users. You will be notified by the Steam client if you have been chosen for a particular month and you can opt in or out at that time. My account is 20 years old and I've gotten the notification maybe half a dozen times, it doesn't happen often.
Unrelated to their question but I think Linux users would be more likely than windows users to opt out, when presented with such a prompt.
I don't know about that. Sure, Linux users are usually more privacy conscious, but they also know this data is useful to show developers what systems people are using. They're more aware of software development and the decisions that go into it. They're also probably aware it's anonymized so it probably can't easily be tracked back to you.
I don't know what factors win out. It might just be a wash.
We also want Proton to become better, and the survey is anonymous and very transparent. I always participate gladly.
Same. I actually had the prompt recently when I had rebooted into my Windows disk to play a game that doesn't when on Linux (damn kernel level anti cheat), and declined the survey because I didn't want to help the Windows numbers. Only ever gonna take it on the Linux side of my PC from now on.
I see your idea, but i think a lot of linux gamers are propably younger and thus take more pride in linux, so they would show up
Contrary to that, for whatever reason I get a hardware survey 2 times a year or so. (Running Linux for 8 years). I think it might have to do with some algorithm based on play time or something. There is little sense for steam to select a steam account that is completely inactive so it must take that into account somehow