Recently, Engadget wrote an article about Linux gaming and apart from a bit of a silly title and information regular GOL readers will be aware of, they did have some interesting info from Valve.

I don't put too much thought into the title they decided to give it, "Linux gaming is on a life-support system called Steam", since when you think about it that's actually quite close to the truth. Valve are the biggest pushers of Linux gaming and one of the only major forces doing so.

While I've long said that the amount of Linux gamers using Steam will be increasing all the time, the actual market share of Linux on Steam hasn't really gone anywhere. At times, it has certainly looked like the amount of Linux gamers has decreased if you take the percentage at face value.

The key thing to remember, is that Windows and Mac obviously grow too (which I've previously mentioned multiple times) and if they grow more it would bring down the Linux market share percentage. The Engadget article touched on this, with a quote from Valve directly to make it clear:

"The overall percentage still has a lot of ground to make up, but the number of Linux gamers on Steam continues to grow at a similar rate as those playing on Windows," Steam developer Pierre-Loup Griffais told Engadget. "It looks like there might actually be an increase trend in Linux gamers starting from October when we released the new Steam Play [Proton] beta, but it's too early to tell if it's had a real lasting impact."

Nice to hear that direct from Valve, who also said they do plan to continue their Linux investments and they believe open gaming platforms will result in a better experience for us all. Heck, Valve even have a job opening for a SteamOS Software Engineer.

The wider media tend to ignore Linux (for obvious reasons right now), so I think it's actually quite nice that Engadget put some real thought into this and got some good info there.