But Linux is too niche. We live in capitalism, what makes money is king, few are going to target a platform that's at 1% out of sentiment. Some, but not that many.

And all your "for all intents and purposes" and what Valve "intends" and talk of Android seem to almost intentionally miss the point. SteamOS is Linux--there's no discussion about this, there's no "well in this way it is and in this way it isn't"--SteamOS is Gnu/Linux, software that runs on SteamOS runs on Linux (which is not true of Android). What's running on the metal is Linux. And at the rate things are going, Linux will not be too niche. When Linux is no longer too niche, native Linux titles will increase--I've never seen a credible counterargument. And this is happening because Proton dropped the barriers to adoption. That's just the way it is.

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I think you're mistaking what is the battle and what is the war, here.
Linux user share is the war. Linux native game share is a battle, which will ultimately be won automatically if the wider war is won. And lost automatically if the wider war is lost.

The Linux user share war is won by people switching to Linux and buying devices, say to play games on, which happen to have Linux on them. And one big question people will ask when considering whether to switch, or to buy such a device, is "Can I play my games?"

If the answer is entirely or mostly "No", they will not switch or buy. We saw this with the Steam Machine, which admittedly had other problems, but that was key among them. Even "sorta half and half" is not good enough.

If the answer is entirely or mostly "Yes", they may switch or buy. We see this now with the Steam Deck, which is selling very well. Since the introduction of the Steam Deck, the Linux share on Steam has gone from less than 1% to approaching 2.5%. Some of that is from the Deck itself, some is from increases in desktop Linux. Both of these increases are certainly dependent on the effectiveness of Proton.

If this increase continues for a few more years, Linux will be hitting numbers that make it worth money to pay attention to. Then native Linux games will certainly increase. I think that since Proton became a big thing, native Linux titles have decreased some, but it hasn't been nearly as much as I was expecting. The ease of using Proton seems to have been offset somewhat by increased buzz around the Steam Deck and SteamOS. But, if Linux user share had kept stagnating, native Linux game share would also, and probably in fact have continued to decline.

So, if someone wanting native Linux games were given a magic wand, which they could wave to kill Proton so developers wanting to target Linux would have to go native, this would be tactically a bare win in the very short term, but strategically disastrous. They would be fools to wave that wand.

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Heh. You could totally combine this with the power washing game:
Step 1. Clean the thing
so you can then
Step 2. Paint the thing

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Lester?
"Here lies Lester More
Four slugs from a .44
No Les, no more."

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So is the DRM just a blind spot, or is there some technical reason that stuff can't, or is very hard to make, run in Wine?

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In any case, the number of games marked playable and supported has little to do with the number of cames you can actually play effectively. Most games just haven't been tested. And, these days most of the games that don't pass have more to do with the Steam Deck as a physical device, like not working well with small screens or controllers or whatever, than with Linux. Those wouldn't work on the Deck even if you for some bizarre reason installed Windows.

The gap is not that big. The important issue at this point is not so much actual incompatibility, it's more the anti-cheat situation.

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Nice music. Sounds a bit like The Arcade Fire.

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Well now. That's a nice big round number. You could put that on an ad.

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The devs sound nice.

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@Tevur Hey, I'll have you know some of the stuff I pull out of my ass is absolutely amazing!
. . . Hang on, that didn't end up sounding quite the way I'd hoped . . .

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