I’d like native builds really, but this kinda discourages that. Then again though, with tiny market share Linux has, it’s understandable devs don’t support it natively. It’s also good to not have to manually enable Proton everytime too.
Oh and I suppose this helps with adoption, one less hurdle for someone to jump through to just play games from their library.
While I agree, I think that getting more games on Linux is far more useful. When Linux is almost 3% very few studios will care much. If they can do a small bit of testing on Proton and maybe work around a bug or two they are far more likely to do that then make and test a native build. If this then gets Linux usage to 5, 10 or 20% that will drive more native builds.
So I agree that it somewhat reduces the incentive to release a native build. But I think that is outweighed by the benefits of making the Linux gaming experience better today which will have a greater impact on availability of native builds in the future.
Absolutely. You are right, the initial uptake is more important right now. Most of the Linux market share on Steam is the Steam Deck right now.
The native builds override the proton comparability layer from running.
A third party ported a game to Linux then stopped keeping it up to date with the Windows version. Your versions have to match for online play, so to play with your Windows buddies, you have to force it to use the latest version on proton. But guess what, the save data is separated between platforms, so you have to create your character again and lose your story progress.
The game is Borderlands 2 BTW.
Civ VI has a Linux build, but one of the DLCs does not. If you install the “complete” pack on Linux without forcing proton, it will just silently skip it and you’ll be left scratching your head about where that content is.
Is this still the case? I’ve been playing without noticing anything missing. But I’m not a veteran player that would notice either. Steam discussions seem to suggest it’s all in sync?
It has admittedly been a while since I checked, but the Leader Pass is still listed as Win/Mac only in Steam, and there are recent reviews saying it doesn’t work in Linux.
Are you able to start a game as Sejong? Wanting to do a Korea science run is what tipped me off that something was wrong.
Yeah, but I mean when making a decision to natively support Linux, it becomes more likely to skip it as “proton can just handle it”.
So it’s likely we won’t see more native development until Linux desktop adoption is much much higher.
We will be at 10% very soon and yes that’s a valid concern.
First all games will work on linux and then onward the future games will be made for linux from the ground up.
Where’s the source for that? Every statistic I can find puts Linux at about 4% (never above 5 in history) and specifically for Steam, it’s at 2.69%.
It’s at 5.1% according to Pornhub. I know people on the internet like to downplay progress lol.
Real talk, “Linux is the only way you can be sure your porn viewing habits aren’t getting logged by some corpo in San Francisco” may be a good way to convert some people
Fantastic ahaha
You know, as a full-time Linux user, I think I rather have game developers continue to create Windows executables.
Unlike most software, games have a tendency to be released, then supported for one or two years, and then abandoned. But meanwhile, operating systems and libraries move on.
If you have a native Linux build of a game from 10 years ago, good luck trying to run it on your modern system. With Windows builds, using Wine or Proton, you actually have better chances running games from 10 or even 20 years ago.
Meanwhile, thanks to Valve’s efforts, Windows builds have incentive to target Vulkan, they’re getting tested on Linux. That’s what we should focus on IMO, because those things make games better supported on Linux. Which platform the binary is compiled for is an implementation detail… and Win32 is actually the more stable target.
Linux is not getting exclusive builds anytime soon, in our lifetime I’d wager. So Windows builds would still exist anyway, so it would make no difference having native Linux builds, it would only be a bonus. Besides, if Linux somehow eclipses Windows to a point developers don’t support Windows anymore, then I’m sure there would be compatibility layers or whatever built to run old Linux games on newer hardware too.
Steam has always had a Linux Runtime for that exact reason.
Linux gamers receive significant attention as Proton is now enabled by default
Significant attention = A 0 became a 1, saving you a few clicks after installing Steam.
