The creator of game store itch.io has been tweeting out about Linux gaming and Linux games seem to be quite popular in terms of downloads on the store. I'm not surprised, considering they're pretty awesome at what they do. They even have an open source client you can use to keep your games up to date.

Here's what they said (quoted/pics taken with permission):

Do you play games on Linux? A lot of people on @itchio do. Daily Linux and macOS downloads are about tied. Maybe something to consider when you export your games! #indiedev pic.twitter.com/3pEu3puuaO — leaf @ itch.io 🙌 (@moonscript) May 10, 2018



They included this picture to show it in some more detail:

To give you an idea of what that picture represents, they also put some numbers to the amount of games available for Linux and Mac.

There are 15k games for Linux, and 21k games for macOS. So it looks like Linux users generate more downloads per game on average.https://t.co/c2zpbt8ysrhttps://t.co/rDROY5zulC — leaf @ itch.io 🙌 (@moonscript) May 10, 2018



For even more detail, here's a look at downloads between just Linux and Mac over the past 6 months:

One of the good things about itch, is that it's easy for developers to get their games on there. Steam requires you to pay a fee for Steam Direct, GOG specifically pick and accept titles themselves and Humble Store likely has their own requirements too. Naturally though, this does mean itch gets a large amount of experimental games, tech demos and weird junk, but they do also have a slowly increasing library of great indie games too. If you're developing a game, itch is a store you should certainly be looking at.

I've been quite surprised by the itch team, as any time I've spoken to a developer after having trouble getting their game running through the itch client, the itch people have been quick to jump in and try to help get it fixed.

Personally, I think it's great to see the folks behind itch.io give a shout out for Linux gamers. I have to admit, it put a bit of a smile on my face after a long day.