I waited a bit longer than usual on this, since last time Valve adjusted their numbers from positive to negative for the Linux market share. It seems as of last month, the Linux market share on Steam went up a bit. You can see them on Steam here.

When I say "went up", I don't mean we actually increased. Well, we did, but we're still not at the levels we were before PUBG's (PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS) release on Steam. Anyway…the January 2018 market share on Steam for Linux was 0.41% (+ 0.15%).

That's certainly better than a continual downward trend that we had been seeing, but as I said in a previous article on this, I fully expect it to bounce around until the incredible interest around games like PUBG subsides.

I've gone and updated my previous charts to highlight what's been happening for those interested. First up, the Linux market share on Steam just by itself to see what's been happening recently.

Now, to get some perspective on why the sudden drop, take a look at the choice of languages on Steam, the battle for the most used language.

Finally, here's a look at what would happen if we took out Simplified Chinese as a language and when we look at just English as a language in relation to the Linux market share on Steam.

You might have questions as to what's going on for January to bounce back a little, well, it could be a simple case of "1,044,000" PUBG players being banned by BattlEye.

I know many of you question the validity of the numbers from the Steam Hardware Survey, but as far as Valve are concerned they're accurate. Here's what a Valve developer said about them about a year ago:

Actually, the real login numbers are usually a bit lower than the reported survey numbers due to the noise of random distribution. The system works as intended.

Just something to think about, for all the people who think it's unfair in some way.