Quoting: EhvisAll Linux users will be thrown into icy waters? :tongue:

That's where the freshest fish are!

Seriously though, many gamers views on gaming align with Linux principles. DRM free and libre lincenses (modding) to mention two. So Windows gamers can be considered penguins that have never sought out the bountiful sea (Linux). It's contradicting how we want EAC and other anti cheat to work on Linux, but this is a necessary evil.

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I reckon this will be accurate depiction of how gamers on Windows will react once EAC support is solidified:


Such good news. Especially the part about not wanting to circumvent EAC, so likely hood of it being blocked is low.

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I hope their anti cheating solutions succeed to a good degree so that other developers deploy it. Then Valve should not have a hard time making the suite of anti cheat software working with WINE. Assuming they are delaying doing it until they have gotten things figured out on Windows first. Even with EAC/BattleEye support for WINE there is no guarantee that developers will continue to use them in future.

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Quoting: compholioIt definitely looks like we leveled off our decline, and maybe even have a bit of an uptick (percentage-wise) now. Note that the more recent data has that fuzz because there's a bunch of missing data there for /r/pcgaming/ (not sure why that's the case, but I'm not going to go to the trouble to try and clean it).

If not uptick I am confident Proton helps retain users. No point in people switching to Linux if they switch back to Windows the next week after.

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Quoting: compholioThat's a very interesting plot, I would be very curious to see how this data compares percentage-wise to some of the major gaming subreddits. Any chance you would enlighten us?

I downloaded the graph from https://subredditstats.com [External Link].

This [External Link] is how it compares to /r/pcgaming/ (blue). The only thing I can derive from it is that interest for gaming on Linux is growing. If people didn't care about gaming on Linux surely the graph for /r/linux_gaming/ would have been more flat than it is. T growing interest for should translate to some if not many switching.

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Quoting: vipor29if the marketshare keeps going up we may see alot of ports.it has been a very interesting year so far.the marketshare is the biggest its been ever.its currently sitting at over 3% almost hitting 4%.

If? I am very confident marketshare will go up. More pressing questions will be how fast and what are the threats to this growth. One way to stifle Linux adoption would be introducing a tech that will be either impossible to make work through WINE or very difficult (DXR). In other words baking more proprietary software into games to hinder them from running.

Below is a graph that displays suscribers to /r/Linux_Gaming. Notice how ever since 2018 (Proton announcement) there has been a sharp uptick?
I would guess 2016-2017 is Steam machine hype dying totally down.

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Quoting: GuestVulkan is not a prerequisite for native development. It helps cross-platform dev, but is not required. 3D acceleration is not required for "gaming" either, because not all games are 3D. For games that do use it - OpenGL was around for a long time.

I was thinking of major games not indie. It's not indie games that stops adoption it's AAA games. And for such games Vulkan is best choice not OpenGL.

Quoting: GuestThere's a lot to your argument that's missing. Like support. We should be encouraging people to buy supported games. If they don't want to, fine, but at least people should be properly informed about where they're sending their money.
Also, I would argue that while yes, one of the largest factors in any game purchase is if someone wants to play the game, there are many other considerations that should not be sidelined. Increasingly we're hearing of large "AAAaaaaaa" companies and how they treat workers - perhaps the end user doesn't care. I would argue that they _should_ care, that they game they want to play may have hidden human costs.
Now that's a bit of a heavy addition, but it excellently highlights the point of there being more to it than you've mentioned.

Just because I've not mentioned the things you have it does not mean I don't consider them. I'm just saying you shouldn't buy a native game over a non native one that you like to play.

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Quoting: tuubiAre you saying it's not worth having any fun at all if you can't have all the fun?

Actually no. I just think it's not a good thing to encourage people to buy native games simply because they are native. If I had to make choice between Skyrim or a Skyrim alternative that's native, which I don't like nearly as much, and I was told to buy the alternative for good of Linux I would not. Because I don't believe buying capacity of Linux is large enough to change the core issue of native support. Which is caused by marketshare. So why would I limit myself to lesser choices when it will have little impact?

The argument to buy alternative native games would have a better one if Proton games did nothing for the platform. Except it does. Proton encourages Vulkan, a prerequisite for native development, and the purchase counts as a Linux one. Biggest factor for you buying a game should be that you want to play it.

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Quoting: Alm888"AAA" or "indie" developers do not need any sort of "justification" (they are not criminals). It is a simple matter of business decision (called ROI: "Return on Investement"). And if the so called "Linux players" are happy to purchase a Windows® game, well, the more the merrier! Even less incentive to waste money on unnecessary work. Better work on a DLC, higher ROI. :)

I didn't say they were criminals, that's you understanding my point poorly. Whatever word you like to use, what developers assert is more or less in line with how things actually are. Linux isn't profitable or not enough. You're leaving out something when you mention Linux players being happy to purchase a Windows game, and that is marketshare. Linux gaming marketshare isn't even above 1%, so I as a Linux user do not have anything bad to say about developers who use marketshare as their reasoning for not providing native support. But when circumstance changes and Linux has 3%+ share, I would less likely to accept playing games through Proton.

Quoting: Alm888It counts as another copy of a Windows® game sold. :D Thanks for the money; enjoy your Windows game!

Cyberpunk is crossplatform. Just because I may playing the Windows version it does not mean anything for Windows. Steam has info for developers that highlights that their game is being played on Linux through Proton. So that sends the message to developers that the player is interested in playing the game on Linux. It does mean that the player is endorsing Windows platform.

Quoting: Alm888[offtopic]Then grab yourself a copy of recent Shadowrun. If you want to play GTA with cyborgs and punks…[/offtopic]
Then do so! Last time I've checked using Windows® was not considered to be a sin.

I meant Cyberpunk 2077. And no playing on Window isn't a sin but I like Linux. I prefer to send a message to developers that I am interested in playing games on Linux than on Windows with more performance (assuming It's a DX11-12 game).

Quoting: Alm888And the freedom you have. No one is forcing you to use Linux. Again, last time I've checked, Windows® worked all right. And if Proton™ works better, no complaints from me! But the money still goes to a Windows developer for a Windows game, that is undeniable.

I've not argued against that. I've even made the point that Valve should reward native releases. Or if possible lower price for "Proton purchases".

Quoting: Alm888So far nothing has changed. The "Linux users" number has been artificially inflated with Proton users, but they do not act as Linux buyers. The Linux market capacity stays the same.

No, but one day if platform has enough users it can and should be enough to persuade developers to support the platform natively.

Quoting: Alm888Now, this I do not get. Are you suggesting we should dissuade AAA developers from releasing Linux games as it would hurt indie ones? Or are you admitting that despite the inflated numbers of "Linux users" the Linux gaming market capacity did not grow to accommodate more native Linux releases?

Whatever platform, all developers are competing against eachother for gamers money. Disregard indie or AAA context. Assume there are 100 users on Linux platform and each year three games (no other game whatsoever) are released. The 100 users will have to decide which of the three games they want to purchase with money they have. They all can't buy all three games and must make a choice. 50% users bought game A, 20% bought game B and 30% bought game C. Developers of the three games all got significant piece of the Linux moneypool. Now imagine 150 games were released each year on Linux and the 100 users had to make a choice to purchase one of the 150. Money is spread across all games and developers will get low ROI. More native games on Linux makes profitability of the platform less, especially for complex games where costs are very high.

I don't believe the amount of Linux users is adequate for "No Tux No Bux" strategy.

Quoting: Alm888Or, better yet, skip it entirely and move on.

If you are going to do that for games you really want to play then you might as well skip gaming as a whole.

Quoting: Alm888Then again, do so! But do not lull yourself into thinking this will somehow "help Linux community".

I haven't. But I could argue that if there are enough gamers on Linux (3-7% marketshare) it would bring about good things for gaming on Linux even if all of the users played games through Proton. Developers would be hardpressed to ignore that many users playing on Linux, regardless of native or not. They would consider native release or at very least use Vulkan to eliminate performance penalty.

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Quoting: Alm888Regardless of the cost, if "Linux Gamers" are buying your Windows game you as a developer shall not waste your time and manpower on an unnecessary port. All those who purchase Windows games have all the rights to consider themselves "Linux Gamers", but for all intents and purposes they are Windows® gamers (even better, actually: they are unsupported Windows gamers :) ). And writing "+1 for Linux" in the forum threads means nothing.

Cost is important. Do you think developers are evil people who neglect Linux because they dislike the platform? No, they get less money making games for Linux. In some cases they are most likely even losing money. You can't argue that Indie devs will have more reasons to do as other devs (Rockstar), relying on Proton to get money from Linux users, when there is clear difference between a indie game and a major one. As I pointed out with Hollow Knight and Cyberpunk, the latter is far more difficult to port than former. And that to a degree justifies why AAA games aren't ported by developers.

Can they develop the game for Linux? Of course they can, but at what price? And will they profit or have loss? If profit how much? If the profit they get from porting a major game to Linux is 1/10 of profit they get from making a DLC for Windows, then it's more understandable why they don't bother with Linux. Afterall it is a business too. Another obvious reason why so many indie games are on Linux is because there is less cluster of software involved. I'd argue if most if not all indie games became more complex (3D models for example) and deployed tech like RTX they would decide to not port their games to Linux. More complex a game gets more difficult and costly it becomes to develop for Linux as well.

I am a Linux gamer. Buying Windows games and playing them through Proton counts as purchase on Linux. Furthermore there has been enough cases where developers have helped out or shown interest to resolve issues that Proton has had.

Quoting: Alm888As I see it, this is "Red Dead" and "Cyborg & Punk" problems, not mine. No one has an unlimited amount of funds (and more importantly, time), so money and time invested in a Windows® game (that "will never come to Linux") is a money and time wasted. All of this money and time could be invested into Linux games instead. So, if some "AAA game" is not gonna be ported to Linux, just ignore it and play Linux games.

To you it does not matter but for me it does matter. I want to play Cyberpunk. Others want to play Red Dead. So should they ditch Linux and go use Windows? Or stay on Linux and play through Proton? Playing games through Proton may be somewhat detrimental (as we would want all money to go to native quality games), but at least the user is on a Linux OS which will help the ecosystem. If there was only 100 Linux users total (across all distros), almost noone would be compelled to make any kind of software for Linux.

Quoting: Alm888At the end of the day, all games, even the "AAA masterpieces" are just entertainment and not necessary to live.
Even the "But all of my friends are playing this game!" argument is rather weak. Surely, a friendship will not be broken if one to skip some games (and if it will… Well, is it really a friendship, or just a "pub acquaintance"?).

If you view the games as simply entertainment and there to be enjoyed, then it shouldn't matter if you play them through Proton or not. You should then have the freedom to play games you want to play regardless of it's native or not, as long as it works well.

I find most of your arguments weak. If the notion that spending money only on native games would have led to Linux getting foothold, then it would have happened years ago. Money from Linux is little and the more native games available to spend it on the worse the profitability gets. People should spend their money accordingly. If there is a game that has a quality release for Linux, pay alot to play it. If there is a Proton game, wait for sale and buy it. Trying to always find alternative games to games you want to play is wrong. I want to play Cyberpunk 2077 not a equivalent indie game with Cyberpunk theme just because it has native support.

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