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Depending on how it is measured, the market share for gaming on GNU/Linux is less than 1%. Jason Evangelho writes at Forbes about what is holding back gaming on GNU/Linux. He outlines three problem areas. First, there is inconsistency across the distros in how hardware — especially the graphics card — is dealt with. Second, major titles continue to ban the accounts of those who join from GNU/Linux hosts. Lastly, he figures that the gamers need to pull behind a single distro and get support for just that one distro because vendors are using the existence of multiple distros as an excuse to support none of them.
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Linux Gaming Won't Find A Mainstream Audience Until Three Things Happen
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In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without
the supervision of a licensed engineer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @09:08PM
I wonder why that is.
There are so many games available from very small groups, and Linux support is exploding. And that is just an observation from visiting GOG frequently. I can't imagine how much more there is if I started browsing Steam, too.
But I will branch out beyond this. The development and build chain is certainly improving. Open source tools, libraries, engines, etc. It's only getting easier to make something cross-platform entirely. Explain why the small guys can publish releases for all three major operating systems but the so-called "AAA" producers, charging 300% or more for their games, bitch and cry about why they won't support Linux and throw common excuses like distribution fragmentation to avoid the subject.
I'll borrow some other Soylentil's comment: I've got tons of games to choose from, more than I could ever play. If your product is incompatible or otherwise hostile (DRM, privacy issues, etc.) then fuck it. I'll stick to those small groups working hard for just $15 per sale who actually publish cross-platform and DRM-free.
Distro fragmentation is just a bullshit excuse. Look how much OSS we've got shared among them all -- including the BSDs -- and the community gets the job done. The answer is just money. Some suit decided the increase in time/labour cost doesn't justify the potential increase in revenue.