In the survey that we conducted from February to August 2018, we asked our visitors why they use Windows for gaming. A total of 365 respondents answered our survey and here are the results:
About 43% of the respondents use Windows because their favorite games are only available on Windows. It’s not really surprising since more than half of Steam’s Most Played Games and Top Sellers in 2017 are only available on Windows. Wine can be used to play Windows games on Linux but not everyone is willing to manually configure Wine just to play their favorite games. This is probably the primary reason that pushed Valve to implement a new feature of Steam Play which enables Windows games to be played within the Steam Linux client.
Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, said that most consumers do not want to install an OS (operating system). Just look at Origin PC gaming desktops and ASUS gaming laptops, all of them only offer Windows 10 pre-installed. Buyers of those products are guaranteed to use Windows for gaming. About 13% of the respondents use Windows because it came pre-installed with the PC they bought.
The remainder of the respondents use Windows because they are unaware or misinformed about alternatives due to Windows’ extreme popularity on social media and online publications.