Engadget posted a look at the state of Linux gaming in 2019, and it's not that positive. The writer posits that Valve's Steam is solely keeping Linux gaming alive.
Fast-forward nearly six years. Steam Machines puttered out as an idea, though Valve hasn't dropped its support for Linux. It maintains a Linux Steam client with 5,800 native games, and just last August, Valve unveiled Proton, a compatibility layer designed to make every Steam title run open-source-style. With Proton currently in beta, the number of Steam titles playable on Linux has jumped to 9,500. There are an estimated 30,000 games on Steam overall, so that's roughly one-in-three, and Valve is just getting started.
However, the percentage of PC players that actually use Linux has remained roughly the same since 2013, and it's a tiny fraction of the gaming market -- just about 2 percent. Linux is no closer to claiming the gaming world's crown than it was six years ago, when Newell predicted the open-source, user-generated-content revolution.
[...] The industry's lack of Linux love is just one reason Epic Games felt free to launch its new digital store -- the first true competition to Steam in about a decade -- without support for open-source operating systems. When the company unveiled the Epic Games Store in December, Linux fans immediately had questions: Would the marketplace work on their distros? If not, were there plans to support Linux down the line?
The most concrete answer came from Epic Games director of publishing strategy (and a creator of Steam Spy) Sergey Galyonkin on Twitter in late December: "It really isn't on the roadmap right now. Doesn't mean this won't change in the future, it's just we have so many features to implement." Epic Games didn't provide an update on its plans for this story.
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[...] "The pro of supporting Linux is the community," Super Meat Boy Forever creator Tommy Refenes said. "In my experience, Linux gamers tend to be the most appreciative gamers out there. If you support Linux at all, the chances are they will come out of the woodwork to thank you, offer to help with bugs, talk about your game, and just in general be pretty cool people. The con here unfortunately is the Linux gaming community is a very, very small portion of the PC gaming market."
Refenes breaks it down as follows: "If I were to list how Super Meat Boy has made money since the Linux version dropped, starting with the highest earner, the list would be: Windows, Xbox, Playstation 4, Switch, various licensing agreements, Mac, Playstation Vita, WiiU, merchandise sales, NVidia Shield, interest from bank accounts, Linux."
[...] "My hope is Steam's Proton project really takes off and Linux support is invisible to me," he said. "In an age of three consoles, PCs with millions of different configurations, and a market that is getting increasingly crowded by the day, the last thing I want to do is take time and money to support Linux when historically this has offered no marketing or financial advantage. But if Steam does the heavy lifting, then that's a win for everyone."
I've seen several video game developers outright cancel native Linux ports of their video games since the announcement of Steam's Proton over the past few months. Does this mean that there will be even fewer new native Linux video games in the near future?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday March 07 2019, @06:57PM
I highly recommend GOG.com. They do have a program called Galaxy that is similar to Steam, but you can just as easily download the standalone installer from their website. The games offered are 99.9% DRM-Free with a few instances of 3rd party EULAs for multiplayer. Otherwise, they're what I would call the "perfect" game store. Sure, it can always be better, but they are really, really good. They've worked with publishers/game owners to bring back multiplayer for games that lost it due to GameSpy's demise. They include cool things with the games like original artwork, walkthroughs, wallpapers, etc. Some of those things were even created by/for GOG. As far as gaming platforms go, you really can't get better than GOG. Reasonable pricing, easy Steam like access, DRM-Free, and the ability to backup your collection on physical media. Sure, you're losing out on the resale option, but most people are happy enough to trade that for the ease of use. Otherwise, you're very nearly stuck with only Consoles for modern games. Since, most store bought PC games just give you a steam key.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"