And what's important is sales potential, which you can evaluate by sales percentages per OS for cross platform games. Steam doesn't publish such numbers. Humble Bundle does though.
I wouldn't be surprised if a survey actually overestimated the number of Linux users. Using Linux for gaming is a choice and usually a more difficult path than gaming on Windows. So, Linux users are likely move vocal about their use of Linux, for various reasons: (1) it's often a principled choice; (2) by showing that a significant chunk uses Linux, more gaming studios will target Linux.
tl;dr: it would be nice if Valve released actual stats, but I think the survey is a good ballpark figure. In other words, the market is pretty much non-existent.
Just to speak against this notion (which absolutely used to be true, no contest there): anecdotally, I don't find that to be true anymore, at least using Steam.
It works really smoothly for me, just as on Windows. In fact I'm just about ready to drop Windows as a gaming plaform. Maybe some titles aren't available for Linux, but I still have enough to fall back on.
If you choose to game on Linux, you are intentionally restricting the number of games you can play. And for some people that's obviously ok, but for most (as stats show), it's not ok.
> by showing that a significant chunk uses Linux, more gaming studios will target Linux.
That's already happening, if you paid attention.
No matter which way you slice it, the Linux gaming community is tiny when compared to Windows and consoles. Sure, it's growing, and there are more and more games coming to the OS, and more choices = better of course.
But we are a long way from Linux being a platform that matters in the overall computer gaming world.
Linux gaming is obviously a subject that you hold dear - you've jumped in multiple times on almost every single top thread in this discussion - and that's ok, but ease off a bit..
Let your points stand on their own merit, you don't need to call people out because they're not as deeply informed on the subject matter as you are, or because they don't agree with your perspective.
Because they need permission from the user to collect the data.
Even if the data is undercounting Linux (maybe Linux games are less likely to take the survey) the trend is consistently down for ~4 years now. So you might make a case that the size is bigger than the survey shows, but not that it is growing.
From DRM-free stores, GOG unfortunately don't publish any stats, and stats from HB show pretty good Linux percentage.
I can also play on my Windows box/console/Mac etc.
Unlikely, as the PC market is basically stable or even shrinking slowly.
People who use their Android phones to purchase and pay Humble Bundle, get classified under "Linux". You can see big Linux platform numbers even for bundles that don't have a single Linux game.
I tried using Linux on several occassions over the last 10-15 years. It was never easy or fun. All the GUIs felt like they were from the 90s and nothing worked out of the box. I tried Ubunutu, Mint, Arch, and a few others. My last attempt at it was ~2014. Maybe I'll hate myself enough to try Linux again in a year or two...