this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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Does the existence of Wine compatibility layer discourages the creation of native Linux games?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

On Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/, all Linux operating systems combined have around ~2% users, compared to the MacOSX ~1.4%. This is only a recent trend, as for the longest run Mac had more Steam users than before. And building a native Mac game was more straight forward than on Linux.

Nowadays its completely different than before, thanks to Proton integrated into Steam. This means even though there is a higher percentage of Linux players on Steam, there is less reason to make native Linux games. That has some advantages: Windows binary through Proton has feature parity without the devs needing to understand the underlying Linux system and libraries, less work for the developers means higher probability of supporting Linux for longer time, thanks to Proton and the auto selection of Proton version for each game its also less worry for the end user. It does not matter what system libraries you have installed or what operating system you are using.

It would be nice to have, but in reality there is no real need for native Linux games from developers or for the end user / player.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago

Market share and yes, Proton/WINE ultimately lessens the need for a native Linux port.

In a fair number of cases, even when there is a native Linux port, Proton/WINE has worked better than the native game.

If Linux gets to 5-10% of the market, we'll probably see them come back for platform specific optimization reasons. However, without a larger market share and with the translation being so good these days, there's not a lot of need.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

market share. youre going to create a game, do you build it for the smallest market or the biggest one?

its nice that many devs keep linux in mind, but they gotta pay the bills

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 months ago (5 children)

If the least used operating system. Why limit your audience to such a small niche to begin with? Game development isn't cheap. You tend to not want to lock out your chances of recouping that by blocking 90% of potential players

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)

On Steam Linux user base surpassed MacOSX user base, so that's no longer an argument: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's still an argument, given that this historically wasn't the case. And Mac used to have a bigger share of the pie. Do they even make Mac only games anymore?

But those numbers pretty much prove my point. Unless you're already set up to be making games specific to a system, there's no point in starting from scratch to only name something for 1-2% of the market.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (8 children)

I was referring to

If the least used operating system. Why limit your audience to such a small niche to begin with?

... which is no longer true. Also supporting Linux does not mean its limited to Linux only. This is in addition to Windows. And supporting Steam Deck comes with some extra goodies for the publisher, as they get some extra marketing in Steam itself and by videogame outlets, fans and YouTubers speaking about it. Do not make the mistake and look at numbers without taking context into account.

Your argumentation only explains why devs didn't create Linux native applications in the past. I said its no longer the case. So don't misunderstand me. What you said is true for the past, not today.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

The short answer is in many cases it's just not worth it. Maintaining a Linux build is not free and the possible market share gain is fairly minimal. Add to that the possibility you get it for free through proton and your reasons for investing the dev effort shrink.

I've heard an argument for maintaining Linux builds because Linux users will provide better bug reports but that mindset is unlikely to ever survive in a big studio

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