Except that the availability of emulation may cause developers to stop native linux support. I dont want to hear "talk to valve about your linux issue" every time i report a bug.
There's the big ones like Unreal, Unity, etc. The same is true of smaller in-house engines I've seen and worked on. Even open source hobbyist-driven engines like Godot have multiple renderer backends.
It is true that there is a fair amount of translation going on (browsers and ANGLE is a big example, along with the recent MoltenVK) but it's by no means the only way people do things.
KSP, factorio, prison architect, they all put considerable efforts into native linux support. I'd hate to see that be outsourced to valve's compatability layer(s).
Nothing prevents developers from making specific Linux clients. Valve just provides the option for when clients are not available. Nothing to lose, really.
The way I see it, devs aren't obligated to support any system they don't want to. I really appreciate the ones that take the time to support Linux natively, or even by using an emulation layer because I realize they don't have to. If this makes more developers realize Linux is a viable ecosystem for them to make games for. Even if it's just through an emulation layer to begin with at least they're making some efforts which is more than can be said less than a decade ago.
1) The ease of quality emulation leads to developers ceasing native linux support, resulting in lower quality linux gaming overall.
2) The ease of quality emulation leads more gamers to be willing to migrate to linux as their primary OS, thus helping linux come closer to being a first class deployment target, resulting in higher quality linux gaming overall.
Of course this isn't a dichotomy, but rather I think it's often unwise to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when you're looking at hypotheticals.
Though I would consider this unlikely.
Prison Architect ran into this. It shows gang violence, drug use and executions, all of which are red flags for those who rate media. Funny story: Prison Architect actually received a notice that it was in violation of the Geneva convention. Papers Please, an indi great, might also have been shunned had Valve/MS adopted MPAA-like content moderation.
This already happening with frameworks like Unity.
As the plethora of capable devices increases, especially in the non-traditional gaming platforms like mobile and VR, the ability to support any device is going to be demanded by developers and will continue to improve.
The line between compiling for native and compiling for an emulation layer will shrink until there isn't really a difference. That's the only way for game developers to be able to keep up with new devices being released every other week.
The other benefit is keeping old catalogues around and playable into the far future, as long as we can keep beating DRM or always online mechanisms!
Maybe with this new tool, teams that wouldn't have considered putting any effort into porting their game will now change their mind.
Regardless, no one who cares about porting their game will ignore issues because it's not their problem.
[1] "Without expanding upon ever tiny definition, take "native" to mean a linux release developed, beta-tested, and supported by the original developer. Not something developed for windows and then expected to just run on linux boxes thanks to a compatability layer."
I wonder how much Vulkan will help here. I presume many devs will target Direct3D 12 instead, simply because of the Xbox One.
Somewhat related: slides from Valve about porting their Source engine from Windows to Linux [1].
[0] https://www.eveonline.com/article/an-update-on-linux-support [1] https://developer.nvidia.com/sites/default/files/akamai/game...