I have bought many native Linux games that simply don’t launch, but run perfectly in Proton. Companies also stop updating their Linux ports often. There is so little market pressure to support Linux in the first place that Proton’s effect is basically irrelevant. Most Linux ports sucked anyway and often Proton performs better including with things like Unity games, so no big loss.

> I have bought many native Linux games that simply don’t launch, but run perfectly in Proton. Companies also stop updating their Linux ports often

They also stop updating their Windows versions, the main difference is that Microsoft cares a bit more about backwards compatibility than the vast majority of Linux desktop developers.

That's true but I was referring to games that continue to add new features and improvements to their Windows client, but leave the Linux client on an old version, which is a separate issue. With online games this sometimes even means that Linux users will no longer be able to play with Windows users.

On the other hand Wine probably has better backwards compatibility with old Windows games that Windows does in many cases.

It does. I've got older games from the Windows XP days that had issues with Windows 7 even with the compatibility mode. My Linux box with proton was able to run it, ironically enough.

>> Most Linux ports sucked anyway

Port /= native client.

Try the KSP linux client. It is far more stable than the windows client. Heck, I've found it more stable than my outlook on my work machine, more stable than MS office on MS windows.

Port, native client, whatever. Most native Linux versions do not work well at all, and many that do have very low performance OpenGL renderer rewrites that cannot compete with DXVK.

There are obviously exceptions, but IME they are quite rare.

Conversely, if proton is creating a much larger linux gamer market (its on of the big reasons I switched to linux as my daily driver), might this new market not soon be able to exert pressure on developers for first-class linux ports?

Bit of a potential chicken and egg problem with developers supporting linux natively that proton might help solve.

>> for first-class linux ports?

I don't want ports. I want proper linux clients developed alongside the other clients, which is relatively easy under tools like unity. Every developer gives lip service to "maybe linux later" but they never do it. If they aren't doing cross-platform development from day one there is next to zero chance of them doing it later in the dev cycle when such things are far more expensive.

What would really light a fire under developers would be for people to run away from windows for other reasons. A few more privacy fiascos. Yet another attempt at "versionless" windows. Another Vista. Only when users actually dump windows for other reasons will major game developers truly care about linux.

It's been 30 years. This was nothing but a pipedream before Proton came along. It's probably still a pipedream, but at least we'll be able to play more games on Linux now. Don't let perfect get in the way of good.

There's never going to be a mass exodus to Linux. People have been promising the year of the Linux desktop for as long as Linux has been a thing. It's time to find a way to coexist, and Proton is so far one of the best solutions for gaming.

It was more than a pipe dream. The mobile game revolution happened long before proton. Windows penetration in mobile gaming is <1%. Now we have some interesting Mac chips that will require cross-platform development too. And many of the best linux games (KSP) were popular before proton. WINE/Proton is a force, but is not the only player in the cross-platform gaming space.

Relatively easy to build perhaps, but you still need to have a QA team for it, support it after release etc...

That's also assuming they're using an off the shelf engine that is also bug free on those platforms. Both unreal and unity aren't at the same level on Linux as their windows counterparts, and Lord knows I've tried . There's always one more thing that doesn't work and requires workarounds.

I don't think anyone wants ports. I use linux as my home machine now and the desktop application delivery on linux is pretty fractured (flatpak or snaps or debs..). You kinda wish in the small desktop linux market there would be one distribution method to rule them all.

we can't even get MS office or Adobe to port to linux. Open Source coders have done well to get us somewhat working alternatives. (LibreOffice, Krita and Blender come to mind)

I've had good luck with Proton. It makes me not have to use a second machine for games.

I think people are vastly underestimating how much gaming sucks even on Windows. Nier: Automata still hasn't received a single PC patch to my knowledge. Many of the games on Windows are ports as well, such as Nier.

The PC has largely taken a backseat to consoles. It's a bit much asking for Linux native, let alone, Linux ports.

Since you mentioned Nier: Automata, I'll just add that I've been playing it with proton for the past 2 weeks. I'm at ~20 hours of playtime and it's been flawless so far (without resorting to any 3rd party patch like FAR).

steam has it as mostly positive, so I'm not surprised. But who knows how many are using the fan patch and how many are not. But many many of these reviews are complaining about the port and it all seems YMMV.

I'm just using this as an example. If Windows isn't getting a port or getting shit ports, Linux is not getting native. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble here.

I have never viewd it that way, but you are absolutely right about the danger.

On the other hand I have now seen multiple games where the developers were implementing wine specific bugfixes.

I think it goes both ways: Showing willingness to support at least proton/wine will also net you some additional sold copies.

And being unfriendly towards linux users is probably more bad PR nowadays than it used to be.

Showing support for linux is great, but what about DRM? What happens when the desire to prevent piracy of the windows client means attaching software that will never in a million years run on linux? DRM is why linux users have basically given up on ever getting access to games from the largest developers.

I have personal experience with that problem. Recently I had to install a secondary windows boot just to play W40K Battlefleet Gothic Armada in drm-protected COOP!

But DRM is a problem in and of itself. Something which linux gamers can't even change by refraining from buying, with their mighty ~1% market share.

Also, the companies who rely that heavily on drm are not really in the business of providing native linux clients either. So proton can hardly be a hindrance for adoption here...

I'd rank anti-cheating as a problem with a similar effect but without the ethical concerns of DRM. Few customers want DRM, but nearly all customers want fair games, yet anti-cheat is just as hostile to "non-intended" environments as DRM.

The difference between DRM and anti-cheat is just semantics. The license says "do not cheat" and the software enforces that license = DRM. But lots of players really don't care about "fair". Any game with a large mod community, mostly single player games like KSP or minecraft, generally stays far away from any form of DRM. The entire concept of "cheating" doesn't really exist in such games.

> Any game with a large mod community, mostly single player games like KSP or minecraft, generally stays far away from any form of DRM.

Many major first person shooters stand as counterpoints to your claim. Most Valve games for example are incredibly mod friendly, at the same time Steam was a pioneer in online DRM and Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) is generally reasonably effective.

Even games where the anti-cheat isn't as mod-friendly as Valve's often offer modes where the game can be launched with anti-cheat disabled but you lose access to public matchmaking and ranked play, only being able to play on private games and/or servers that have turned off anti-cheat themselves. The PC port of Halo does this well.

> The entire concept of "cheating" doesn't really exist in such games.

For the record Minecraft does in fact have anti-cheat, but it's mostly just about illegal movements versus anything else, flight without creative privileges in particular. Anything beyond that is up to the server operator and their chosen plugins. Cheating is still definitely a thing, at least when playing survival with other people, but what defines cheating is up to each group to decide for themselves.

---

DRM and anti-cheat do have the same big picture goal in the end, prevent the user from tampering with the application, but I do agree with the above poster that it is very different ethically. We all want our ranked play to be free of cheaters.

> The difference between DRM and anti-cheat is just semantics

Not really - DRM = anti-copying/anti-piracy, anti-cheat is self-explanatory. Both sometimes employ similar strategies (anti-tampering/poking around with executables, linked libraries or memory), but they are not the same thing

That's one view, but I'd argue that they are both variations on the general problem of "how to run software on a computer without letting the owner of that computer actually control the software". When it's against piracy, the goal is to make sure that the software can refuse to run if it's not correctly licensed or to make sure that the user can't send its output to a recording, and when it's against cheating the goal is to make sure that the user can't modify or view the game state except through the standard game UI, but both revolve around denying the user power over software executing on their hardware.

The big difference is that anti-cheat usually applies on company property, i.e. on their servers. The most common punishment for tripping anticheat is a ban from online services of some kind.

That's true but I was referring to games that continue to add new features and improvements to their Windows client, but leave the Linux client on an old version, which is a separate issue. With online games this sometimes even means that Linux users will no longer be able to play with Windows users https://www.lustvollerjonas.com/ .

On the other hand Wine probably has better backwards compatibility with old Windows games that Windows does in many cases.

Alternative outcome: At least some developers who are passionate about helping users who ask for help may look into issues with games crashing on proton.

I get your concern but I think it's a form of "perfect being the enemy of good". Your stance boils down to "don't enable effective workarounds to play non-linux programs on linux" because there is a chance it will reduce the already rare motivation for devs to make native builds on Linux.

I think the opposite might end up being true. With a critical mass of users on Proton, developers end up being pressured to make sure their games work properly in it. When a substantial number of their users have a problem running a new version of their game, even on an unsupported platform, they tend to do something about it. There have been a few instances of this happening already for some high profile games.

Frankly, if you don't care about your customers, you can ignore all their bug reports. Whether they're on a supported platform or not doesn't seem like it would matter much. The real question is whether there are enough Proton-using customers to warrant paying attention to their woes.

This is 100% true. So far i have not even received a answer to 5+ reports about issues running with proton. Even thought most are simple fixed unity quirks

If game developers provide official support for proton I would be more than happy. If the engine they are using doesn't support an automatic Lnux build I cannot insist that they should do a native Linux build. It's too much work for little gain. However, if they support proton officially I can live with that because the expected amount of work should be insignificant. 99% of the problems I have encountered were because of anticheat, broken launchers and a video game franchise using some weird proprietary microsoft video codec that literally no other platform supports. Fixing a launcher is not much work. Fixing video codecs is not much work. Anticheat software should support proton. It's not too much to ask.

It does create a dangerous market pressure, but entirely by accident. Valve has developed an amazing piece of software in Proton and made it freely available, but offered no support for developers. Proton is an enormous library papering over an equally enormous API gap between Windows and Linux. Normally when game developers use such components (like engines) they pay a licensing fee, so that when something breaks, if it’s the licensed component’s fault, they can expect support in fixing issues. Since Valve doesn’t offer a paid support option to devs, they are in a difficult position - Proton is by far the easiest way to get games running on Linux, but can’t be officially supported without incurring the cost and overhead of bringing on a team of Proton specialists to ensure compatibility.

I’m not in this area professionally so maybe I have a few things wrong here.

Proton is not a ground-up valve product. It is an implementation of WINE, a project that has been around for a long while. Valve made it pretty and easy to use, integrating wine into their launchers, but it isn't entirely their project.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton

Valve has been contracting https://www.codeweavers.com/, the main people behind Wine, a good deal, so they do deserve more credit than at might first appear.

Native Linux games break too, especially older ones. I have had to switch to Proton for several games I used to run native because their native version has stopped working after some library change.

At this point I have more faith that a game with solid Proton/Wine support will work on the long term than a native one.

There are many exceptions in both directions of course, this is just my personal experience with the games I happen to be playing.

It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if Proton/Wine became the standard supported runtime for games.

The solution here is unbinding native support from native compilation. It seems to me that the ideal world is someone who (or someone's contractor who) provides a proton wrapper for a game that works with zero bugs compared to running on Windows, and then either patches the bugs clientside or provides patches for wine/proton.