this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
445 points (98.3% liked)

Games

41321 readers
1092 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Dremor@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Dremor@jlai.lu
modfxomt@lemmy.world
445
Steam Survey for July 2025 shows Linux approaching 3% (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by ampersandrew@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world
83 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This is interesting for a couple of reasons. One is that this is about as much market share as Mac ever had at its peak, and almost twice as much as it has currently. Another is that, if you click the link for the site's Steam Linux Data Tracker, you can see that English-only Linux market share (a crude way of filtering out the ebbs and flows of Chinese players on largely-identical hardware and operating systems) is more than 6%, up from under 2% just 5 years ago. A lot of people are unhappy with Windows in general, and especially 11, and Windows 10 is about to force the issue in just a few months as it loses official support. I have a friend whose computer is still in decent shape for gaming but with TPM settings that don't meet the minimum spec for Windows 11; at some point, he'll lose compatibility and have to throw out an otherwise perfectly functional machine, so it's good that some other OS is shaping up to be a good enough option for many people.

This has been an upward trend since slightly before the release of the Steam Deck, as you can see on the graphs, and I've come across YouTube videos from both James Lee Animations and PewDiePie about how they got to be so sick of Windows (and Adobe) they both switched to Linux with middle fingers raised at their old workflows. Folks like them making videos like that can have real effects on the market. Linux has been my daily driver for gaming for about 8 years now, and it's matured so much in that time that I've hardly booted to my Windows partition for any reason. It's not perfect, but if I'm choosing between the quirks that Linux has by accident and the deficiencies that are in Windows on purpose, I'll take LInux every time, and it seems like more people are coming to that same conclusion.

No doubt the biggest remaining frontier is live service gaming with kernel level anti-cheat, but if Linux becomes a larger user base, as it's doing right now, the developers making those games will have to solve that problem to reach that addressable market, and everybody wins.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 46 points 4 days ago (10 children)

I switched to linux because fuck microsoft. So far it's been fine. A minor issue with crackling in the audio in one game, and I can't figure out how to disable the "drag a window to the edge and it wants to tile it" thing (popos with the default gnome desktop environment). But those are minor things- my windows install I couldn't get the bluetooth to connect to one device, and a bunch of other little annoyances were inescapable.

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 19 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

If you have an issue with the way gnome works by default, then you are using it wrong and you should feel ashamed for that.

- the Gnome dev team

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

For anyone in the future, I figured out how to turn off the edge tiling thing (which is what it's called when a window touches the edge and it wants to resize it)

gsettings set org.gnome.mutter edge-tiling false per https://askubuntu.com/questions/1107089/how-to-disable-auto-resizing-of-windows-when-moved-to-the-top

[–] imecth@fedia.io 8 points 3 days ago

Yeah GNOME exposes a bunch of settings for advanced users and extensions, you can look through them with dconf editor. PopOS isn't the best distribution for GNOME though as it's stuck on GNOME 42 so you're missing out on 3 years of updates.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago (3 children)

I have that crackling thing sometimes too, but only on desktop and not on Steam Deck, so the issue lies in something that's different between those two things. On my desktop, my usual use case is to have a bunch of programs open at any given time and put it to sleep at the end of the night rather than close everything and power off. While low spec games like Skullgirls are fine, if I boot up a higher spec game like Kingdom Come: Deliverance II after waking my computer from sleep, I'll get the crackling. If I just rebooted, the crackling is gone. I don't understand the problem, but at least I have a workaround, and it's better than Microsoft determining when I should reboot my computer. It's my computer. I decide that.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
[–] Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The latest Windows update that rolled out a few days ago literally bricked my Surface.

I had the same CPU & RAM load running before and after the update. After, even Task Manager wasn't responding!

Next paycheck, I think I'm buying a Framework

[–] Bazoogle@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Why not just use linux on your current device

[–] Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 days ago (4 children)

I can't replace the battery easily, or any component in a Surface. Microsoft products get the worst repair score from iFixit. I've been wanting a Framework as my daily driver for a while now so I can make repairs as I need them over time (or even make upgrades in the case of the 17" product).

I don't think I'll get rid of the laptop tho. Can probably add Linux to it and use it as a server. Right now though, I don't have the time for that. I want something out of the box that will work play-and-play

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] simple@piefed.social 29 points 4 days ago (5 children)

If anticheats would work properly on Linux I would probably ditch Windows forever. Alas.

[–] exu@feditown.com 56 points 4 days ago

EasyAntiCheat and BattleEye work on Linux thanks to Valve's efforts. Unfortunately many devs explicitly deny Linux or only allow the Steam Deck.

https://areweanticheatyet.com/

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 23 points 4 days ago (1 children)

To be clear:

The anticheat software CAN work on Linux about as well as it does on Windows. Most of the more invasive syscalls don't exist but said tools are also backing away from those on the Windows side as diminishing returns and fear of pulling a Crowdstrike. Alternative calls are used and most of the major anti-cheat solutions actually already do that and already support Wine/Proton in ways that most game devs never will.

The issue is that the devs (so their publishers) actively disable support for that. They have EAC et al check if it is running in Proton and quit if it is. There are reasons for that (much smaller testing surface) but it is also hard to believe that companies like EA actively updating all their old Battlefields to block Proton isn't intentional and political.

Err, and then you have stuff like DBZ Xenoverse 2 which just will never have their EAC updated because it is more effort than adding a few new skins to go with the latest movie.

[–] ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There are also rumors that Microsoft will remove third-party apps like antivirus apps and anticheats from Windows kernel. If that happens, it will pretty much solve the anticheat problem for Linux as well.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 12 points 4 days ago

Yes. That is the aforementioned "pulling a Crowdstrike"

But, as I said, stuff like EA actively going through basically every Battiefield since 3 and actively disabling Proton "support" indicates a political aspect to things. And there will still be the same testing surface issues that make live games hesitant to support "Valve and some company say this is fine" for games that make more money than many small nations.

[–] somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Just avoid the games that use them. Games and the software they install should NEVER EVER run kernel-level. Also the games that use those ac's are bad anyways.

If you must play those games, passthrough your GPU and hide the fact that the VM is a VM.

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Just avoid the games that use them.

Agreed. I have no desire to give EA root access to my system, full access to everything I do on it ... just to play a game.

I'm amazed Microsoft even allows such on their platform, given how large of a vulnerability it creates; as CrowdStrike demonstrated.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There's definitely some selection bias for me that made it easy to not even be interested in buying the types of games that won't work on Linux, and that made my switch easier. I hope the solution that we eventually arrive at isn't, "Here's a custom kernel compatible with our anti-cheat," but instead, "Here's a way to play our game without kernel level anti-cheat."

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 14 points 4 days ago (3 children)

The only way to do that is to use Linux anyway, ditch Windows, and give them the middle finger until they make their game available. No amount of asking politely or screaming obnoxiously will make them care if people just continue using Windows because they feel like they "have to" play this game and keep paying them money, because all they care about is money. Only when they can clearly see their position is losing them money (3% is probably not clear enough for many of them but time will tell) are they going to change their behavior. There's nothing else that motivates them more than seeing money slipping through their fingers.

Depending on white knights like Valve and CDPR to ride to our rescue is good but they can't do this on their own either, and in fact they've already done very close to as much as they reasonably can. They need our help, we consumers are the ones who are statistically not doing our part. We need to recognize that we have the bulk of the agency here and we need to start to use it.

We have to choose what matters more to us, the future of playing video games on our own terms or letting the developer dictate how much we need to spend and what rights we need to give up to able to play a popular video game right now. We're not talking about something we need to live. This is a choice we can make. Will enough people choose the future instead of immediate gratification? I don't know, available evidence doesn't paint a particularly reassuring picture, but I never am willing to give up on hope.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] TheFANUM@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think Windows is kicking anti cheat out of their kernel (thanks, crowd strike) so it may become a non issue.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

What I had heard was that they were looking for other hooks into the operating system that weren't as deep, not that they were removing the deeper hooks.

[–] seralth@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (5 children)

That is still kicking it out of the kernel. For all functional purposes anyways.

The short of it to what I understand is they want to provide an official standardized way for anti virus and anti cheats and other software that would normally live in the kernel to do what it needs to.

Basically making everything live in user space unless it's made by microsoft. It should result in basically there being an entire layer between the kernel and the user and their software.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago

Which is perfect for Linux. If it lives in userspace, it can be made compatible.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago

The Windows team has been looking for ways to remove the deeper hooks ever since the CrowdStrike outage last year.

[–] CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 days ago

Installed Nobara a few weeks back, I've barely touched Windows since. It's been a great.

[–] fin@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

They are using Arch instead of ubuntu crap so I guess that's good

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

An interesting fact: English-language adoption of Linux on Steam is over 2x the overall, all-language adoption. This mostly cuts out Chinese (25% of users), Russian (8% of users), and Spanish (5% of users). Seems America and Europe is adopting at record pace while China isn't.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/

[–] ms_lane@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

I wonder what it'd look like with English+German only.

[–] ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 6 points 4 days ago

Looks like Linux adoption has been skyrocketing since early this year in English speaking areas.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] MudMan@fedia.io 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I don't think it's particularly controversial these days to say that Linux gaming is way ahead of Mac gaming, so I'm not sure that part is suprising, beyond the notion that in other metrics the OS split for those is more like 15% to 5%.

I mean, the Mac side was celebrating this month that Cyberpunk finally runs natively on it, and it is borderline unplayable on most of the hardware out there, gets comparable to what? A 5060? on the very top end.

I read in that two missed opportunities: One, Mac gaming should get so much better. Two, somebody on the Linux side should really start taking non-gaming compatibility seriously.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 17 points 4 days ago (4 children)

The Mac thing is two-fold. Apple moved to new architecture before it was primed and ready for gaming, and Valve has been slow to adapt Steam to it. Apple's solution, which will not work, because Valve tried the same thing a decade ago, is to juice the market by funding ports. Apple's putting far more money into it, because it's such small potatoes on their balance sheet, but the result will be much the same. This isn't a situation where getting a few heavy hitters will solve their library problem and get everyone else to fall in line. The problem is Apple and its platform are hostile to getting this sort of game on it.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I am figuring on switching once Arch Desktop SteamOS is officially released. I want Linux's privacy, without technical irritations and official support from an 800-lb gorilla.

[–] Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Some distros like fedora and ubuntu have support from ~500-lb gorillas, if that's heavy enough for you

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 2 points 2 days ago

Not quite enough for me, personally. I am somewhere between casual and power user, so a "normie" distribution like SteamOS is probably where I want to be. Tried out Mint, but there was teething issues when I tried to customize my game install locations and whatnot. Lutris, Heroic, and so forth all had issues at that time, several months ago.

I play lots of indie and Japanese games, so having stuff reliably work without diving into a terminal is important for me.

[–] Nico_198X@europe.pub 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

there are lots of communities ready to help you dive into Linux.

  • Bazzite
  • EndeavourOS

just to start. the nice thing about Linux is that you're not alone!

[–] AstralPath@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago

Add Nobara to the list too!

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 9 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The avalanche will only grow

[–] ms_lane@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

IS IT THE YEAR!?

IT'S FINALLY THE YEAR!

[–] somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Tux shall rule all desktops.

all hail tux

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

I'm there as soon as I get a hard drive to dedicate to it.

load more comments
view more: next ›