I am a strong linux supporter and I too do not like what proton is doing to games. A few years ago there were many significant games coming out with native linux capacity (MineCraft, KSP, Factorio). Then proton dropped. Now, rather than support linux natively, even the most pro-linux developers are just expecting that their windows version will run under proton. And those who are running games under proton are essentially cut-off from customer support. I've had a few games where a patch suddenly stopped them working under proton. I have no recourse in such situations. That is not a good trend.
Genuinely what is the practical difference in this for 99% of users? They just want to play x game. Proton performance is pretty great, what else would be a problem for those people?
Also when it comes to breaking proton support (Which does happen) Valve + GloriousEggroll give you access to plenty of older and special versions. Surely that's better than rolling back entire software?
My game doesn't work ->
I go to protonDB ->
Users saying use X Proton Version or Y ProtonGE version ->
I switch the layer used in steam
Linux is not a stable runtime in the first place. Unless you are isolating, redistributing and sandboxing most of the libraries used to run your game, it's almost guaranteed to break when the dependencies are updated. Windows apps don't have that problem, natively or when run through emulation.
Just ignore the guy, it's essentially the reverse of "I run Arch BTW". Not just about Valve or Proton, but about pretty much every FOSS technology that's celebrated here.
It doesn't have to do anything for GNU/Linux games, that's been an option for years and it's a ghost town a-la Metal-native games. Valve (and the community) are doing the right thing by ignoring the Apple strategy of enforcing distribution terms they will abandon within the decade. Developers that want to program for Linux still can. It's just as stupid as it was when the first Steam Machine rolled out.
By supporting Proton, they are guaranteeing that modern and retro Windows games will be playable on Linux far into the future. Trying to get the next Call of Duty to support Linux natively is, quite literally, a waste of everyone's time that could possibly be involved in the process. I cannot see a single salient reason why Linux users would want developers to release a proprietary, undersupported and easily broken native build when translation can be updated and modified to support practically any runtime.
Yea. You either have to pump a ton of money into it like Apple tries to do to get devs to target your OS, or you can take matters into your own hands and do the unthinkable with Wine and Proton. Its unironically a silver bullet solution. Otherwise we'd all be waiting for years to make 1/1000th the progress
We don't have to imagine what Linux gaming would be like without Proton.
- CD Projekt Red: released Witcher 2 on Linux, didn't for Witcher 3.
- iD Software: released Doom 3 on Linux, didn't for Doom (2016) or Doom Eternal.
- Epic Games: released Unreal Tournament 2004 on Linux, but didn't for Unreal Tournament 3 or Fortnite. (A Linux port was being worked on for UT3, but it ended up getting cancelled.)
- Larian Studios: released Linux version of Divinity: Original Sin, didn't for Divinity: Original Sin 2 or Baldur's Gate 3
Many studios over the years have made native Linux versions, and many studios stopped because the cost of porting exceeded the revenue it generated. Proton didn't exist when Unreal Tournament 3, Witcher 3, Doom (2016), or Divinity: Original Sin 2 released, so Proton wasn't the reason those studios stopped developing Linux titles -- they stopped because it made no financial sense to continue to make them.
Now, with Proton, 79% of the top 1000 games on Steam are gold or platinum rated on ProtonDB. If you're fine with minor issues, 88% are silver rated or better. For the Steam Deck in particular, there are 5,500 verified games, and 16,526 verified or playable games. So I'd argue Proton is doing quite a lot for people gaming on GNU/Linux machines, since they now have access to a solid majority of the top 1000 games on Steam, both on a Linux desktop and on a handheld.
The practical implication is that one can click one button and buy install and play thousands of games on Linux. Only MS stockholders are liable to care about the implications for Windows.
OS/2's Windows compatibility was borne in the midst of Windows' rapid ascension, of rapid progress and change in the home PC industry.
We aren't in the 90s anymore. Win32 has stalled, Microsoft has a regulatory gun to their head and Wine's compatibility (at least in the ___domain of games) is extremely good, good enough to allow for a commercial product to be a success while being entirely reliant on it. In what way is any of this comparable to what happened with OS/2 outside of "it runs Windows applications"?
