this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
74 points (91.1% liked)
Linux
63711 readers
1152 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Because nobody would do that. Valve is not PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo. Every publisher would rather release games elsewhere than spend resources on Linux builds.
Plus, most Linux builds are terrible and Proton works much better. To make this happen, first of all you'd need Unreal to die and for most bottom game developers to either lose their jobs or to learn actual game development.
Coming from the indie dev scene a while back, as an indie dev, you are typically burning every single hour in your day making a game, begging for money to get the game to market, pitching your game to publishers, or screaming into the void that is social media in hopes anyone will click your link. You simply do not have time or effort to spare. It's a hugely saturated market and the currency is public attention.
So, you tend to cast the widest net possible in hopes you get some kind of traction, which means marketing to Windows users. I'm sure plenty of devs would vastly prefer to be on and build for Linux, but the fact of the matter is the marketshare is smaller and Proton exists.
wrong.
4/5 Linux builds I've used on steam run significantly worse than the windows build through proton or just crash.
ok buddy sure native applications are harder to run than ones through a shim.
And yet for games they are.
It’s not harder to run, but the devs ime give it less attention and testing before release. Also undeclared required libraries are super common so the game just doesn’t start until you check the logs to find out what it’s missing.
I’d love to see more Linux builds, but only if they’re actually something the dev cares about rather than just ticking all the checkboxes in their game engine’s export menu and saying “fuck it we ball”