This is a great effort, but in my opinion, uphill battle.
If you have Linux, you are likely a casual gamer, and your best option is to stick to a gaming service like Stadia.
And if you are pro, Linux is not an option for you anyways.
If you have Linux, you are likely a casual gamer, and your best option is to stick to a gaming service like Stadia.
And if you are pro, Linux is not an option for you anyways.
And when Google shuts it down in a couple of years, you will lose your entire library you spent money on. You can see by the selection of launch games how Stadia was another Google toy project. Or the fact that the new Chromecast won't have Stadia support until 2021.
At least with Steam, you know that the games will remain in your library and you can buy and install Windows and play them in the future if, for any reason, Linux support gets dropped.
Tomorrow Steam shutdowns you lose every games, period.
So, you really won't lose any game.
Or you mean Valve shutting down Steam? Then yes, it could be a problem for some games that use Steam servers for online multiplayer. But, Steam is Valve's core business with proven track record and many loyal customers. It's much more likely that Stadia would shut down then Steam going away.
As a casual gamer I don't really care. I play games once, twice at most, and forget about them forever. I guess that's true for vast majority of casual gamers.
Same way I have thrown away all my PlayStation 2/3 disks, and never looked back.
If you're a casual gamer you don't care about high end 3d graphics which completely eliminates the need for Stadia.
Stadia has a worse selection of games than even just native Linux and Proton lets you play most Windows games which has an even bigger selection.
Having games working flawlessly, and not having to purchase the hardware, and do long downloads and installs is quite useful, especially for casual gamers.
> Stadia has a worse selection of games
Give it (or some alternative gaming service) more time.
So far Valve is doing good. But in the long term, it is dead end.
If you have two computers in your home, one Windows, one Linux and you, for example, share your Steam libraries with other gamers in your family, then it's great. If something doesn't work on Linux, you always have Windows around.
But, if you only have Linux, then you need to do some research before every purchase.
Wishful/Crazy thinking?
I count myself in that group, and Proton has been a godsend. It finally allows me to completely avoid my Windows partition (Windows 7, which isn't supported anymore), while keeping my large Steam library almost entirely functional.
Not professionals, let's say, people who play at least 20 titles per year. People who play all major new games. Or people who play at least 5 hours a week. People who care what the mouse model is. People who really care about screen refresh rate. People who are into gaming.
My 1440p 120hz ultrawide works perfectly with my 1080ti (which will be upgraded to a 3080 once there is some stock). Xorg and libinput both support disabling mouse acceleration so no issues there.
Thanks to Proton Glorious Eggroll I've been playing Doom Eternal, RdR2, H:ZD and many other non native titles for a lot more than 5 hours a week. I've also got my seperate VR box running on Linux with my Index which has provided hours of fun in HL: Alyx, Boneworks, and other admittedly more casual games like Beat Saber, Superhot, and Pistol Whip.
I do eshew all RGB though, maybe that makes me a filthy casual by some arbitrary standard, maybe you could add that to your gatekeeping list?
I’d say what makes you a “casual” is that you didn’t list a multiplayer game. If you’re not sweating against other players, then you probably prefer to keep it casual. That’s fine!
But if I can’t play Overwatch, the latest Call of Duty, Escape from Tarkov, etc on Linux, then I wouldn’t bother. I think it’s more about multiplayer when talking about casual vs more serious.
Of course your mileage may vary depending on the type of GPU. (My RX 5700 XT worked well, though you have to wait a few minutes after opening the game for the shader compilations to finish.)
With that said Titanfall 2 works and I can get pretty sweaty in that, csgo also works natively though I've not played for years. I used to play R6: Seige a lot before ditching my dual boot which I miss but dualbooting gets old when you have to shut down everything just to switch OS.
There is work to get anticheat working in Linux but it's kinda a pipedream as Linux is still seen as a haven for cheaters by anticheat developers so it feels like a never ending arms race rather than something that seems likely to happen any time soon.
Maybe it actually is worthwhile to support it as a vehicle to get anticheat on Linux?
With that said there are anticheats which work on linux like Battleye but only with linux native versions of games which negates all the proton work unfortunately. IIRC Valve are working with AC developers to get it working via wine/proton but I'm not holding my breath.
I can't imagine more than a significant of users will only purchase a game with Linux compatibility. Which the Epic store not supporting Linux your increasingly missing out on more and more games if your Linux only .
I will say I did have tons of fun in my desktop Linux days. Recently I've found it more a pain in the butt though. I feel like an old man. Windows npm and Python are now good enough I don't feel a need to run Linux locally. WSL for anything that doesn't work right
As for games sold by the EGS, they work fine via Proton (baring those with anticheat) and you can even get the EGS working via wine trivially.
I can't speak to your experiences with the Linux desktop but it's certainly my platform of choice both professionally and for personal use. Each to their own as they say.
I'm very happy that Valve (and all the other contributors) putting all this effort into getting as many games as possible to run on my platform of choice.