Valve have released the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for March 2025, and as expected with the Simplified Chinese language dropping the Linux stats have shot back up.
There was a sudden unexplained jump in the number of simplified Chinese users counted in the previous survey, few of whom run linux apparently. It was probably some kind of error because their number has now gone back down. People expected it because that’s not the first time it happened.
Could it be correlated to Chinese New Year? I could see a ton of people in China suddenly playing and then not playing if most people get time off at the same time.
Does it happen every year around this time?
Alternative perspective, it could be related to the Great Firewall of a China, perhaps they made some rule adjustments and data came through that doesn’t normally come through.
There was a sudden unexplained jump in the number of simplified Chinese users counted in the previous survey, few of whom run linux apparently. It was probably some kind of error because their number has now gone back down. People expected it because that’s not the first time it happened.
Could it be correlated to Chinese New Year? I could see a ton of people in China suddenly playing and then not playing if most people get time off at the same time.
Does it happen every year around this time?
Alternative perspective, it could be related to the Great Firewall of a China, perhaps they made some rule adjustments and data came through that doesn’t normally come through.