Lounds said:

It's a free platform for gamers. It's paid for by that 30% model. Consumers have chosen. It's still the best PC platform.

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Consumers have not chosen. Steam had monopoly and was forced upon gamers to begin with. Steam was hated for years and years when it first came out. It was horrible, slow, bugged. Young people might not know!

That 30% fee is why many developers left the platform!

It is not a coincident that Valve don't really make games anymore. It is easier just to milk other developers. 30% fee is outrageous! Part of why game prices went up too, so it is not a free platform for PC gamers really. Developers raised prices to cover their expenses and you can partly thank Valve for that.

Arch was a very good choice: It's a very barebones base system but that does include pre-compiled kernels and drivers, it's a rolling release which is very convenient instead of reinstallation/upgrade procedures that might introduce additional challenges and unlike something like Fedora or Debian is more user-facing with a lot of options added by AUR.

Now I do not expect most windows users to jump *directly* into Arch, that'd be a daunting task, but both SteamOS as well as other major distros like Manjaro will benefit from supporting the Arch core.

This is the kind of thing that keeps me coming back to the "Steam Monopoly".

That 30% cut is being used to give us Steam Families, Proton, SteamOS (likely built on Arch if this article is anything to go by), Deck, Index, and basic community features that folks have come to take for granted, etc etc etc.

Trash like EGS/EA App/Uplay etc expect me to pay the exact same amount for a game and offer none of the value add above.

EGS has such disdain for PC Gamers that their whole strategy was "Bribe them with free games and then content lock other stuff behind exclusivity and we'll have the dope addicted gamer masses eating out of our hands in no time" instead of putting all that money into a good store front. Glad to see that has blown up in their faces.

And after all that, people always show up to any Steam article and immediately start shitting on Valve and blah blah about monopolies and so on. Always a hoot.

Steam don't have monopoly for PC gaming, more and more games are not present on Steam.

That 30% fee is also why they all try to make their own launchers.

If Valve just lowered fee, we might see Ubisoft Connect, EA launcher and more, die out fast. The sole reason they make them, is to avoid getting milked hard.

They should pour money into Pop_OS. So much better than most popular distros. And the Cosmic DE could use some extra development resource

Gaming on Linux is never going to be truly viable. Only reason Linux marketshare increased ever so slightly in Steam HW Survey is because of Steam Deck which sold in 2-3 million units worldwide, which is low compared to Nintendo's 150+ million units with Switch.

Most Steam games runs like crap on the Steam Deck. Especially in Linux. 720p on lowest possible settings and you might be able to just get by, in demanding games, with "up to 30 fps"

And no, I don't hate Linux. I love Linux, for servers, and used it for 20 years here! I use it every day at home and at my work. Linux is for servers, not gaming.

For gaming, it will always be a mess. I would like to see Valve spend tons of money on making it happen tho. Could not care less. It's a lost battle but feel free to make me eat my words. Most game developers don't want to spend just a few hours optimizing their games for Linux, when 99%+ of PC gamers use Windows.

Remember, Linux is only free if your time has no value. You won't see "casual gamers" change to Linux all of a sudden. Linux lacks ton of native app support as well.

liljom said:

They should pour money into Pop_OS. So much better than most popular distros. And the Cosmic DE could use some extra development resource

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Pop_OS is just an Ubuntu derivative. Obviously you don't choose a fork to work from, you build ground up from scratch and Arch Linux is one of the best for this, along with Debian!

I wonder how much money they spent on their OS since they announced it.
In any case, this is a very smarty move. This is their independence from MS.
And it is worth every million they spent.

toooooot said:

I wonder how much money they spent on their OS since they announced it.
In any case, this is a very smarty move. This is their independence from MS.
And it is worth every million they spent.

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You act like they are even close to leaving Windows! LOL!

Steam is like 99% Windows users and the only reason they look into Linux, is because of their low powered Steam Deck which needs Linux to function somewhat well due to low end hardware because Linux has a smaller footprint than Windows.

What Microsoft should, and could, is to release a Windows 11/12 Edition made for gamers with minimal background processes and services. This is easily doable yourself today.

You will never get all developers that make games for PC (meaning Windows) to bother with Linux optimization and troubleshooting. Linux has a sub 1% marketshare on PC!

Steam Deck using Linux can run many games yet most of them, performs worse than on Windows and simply crashes more. The success criteria is "they work" not they "work better than Windows"

Hom3r said:

Steam don't have monopoly for PC gaming, more and more games are not present on Steam.

That 30% fee is also why they all try to make their own launchers.

If Valve just lowered fee, we might see Ubisoft Connect, EA launcher and more, die out fast. The sole reason they make them, is to avoid getting milked hard.

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- So what you're saying is, somewhat ironically, if Valve dropped their 30% take they could be held liable for anti-competitive practices?
Lucky for everyone else Valve sticks with 30% then...

Dimitriid said:

Arch was a very good choice: It's a very barebones base system but that does include pre-compiled kernels and drivers, it's a rolling release which is very convenient instead of reinstallation/upgrade procedures that might introduce additional challenges and unlike something like Fedora or Debian is more user-facing with a lot of options added by AUR.

Now I do not expect most windows users to jump *directly* into Arch, that'd be a daunting task, but both SteamOS as well as other major distros like Manjaro will benefit from supporting the Arch core.

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Indeed, I use Manjaro on my (admittedly non-gaming) laptop (though it does have an Nvidia GPU, it only has 8 Gigs of Ram (actually 7, but whatever, I didn't buy it for gaming)).

Even Linux doubters have to admit that Linux has come a long freaking way, whereas Microsoft seems to be obsessed with dumbing down Windows and continuing to turn it into spyware…

opckieran said:

Even Linux doubters have to admit that Linux has come a long freaking way, whereas Microsoft seems to be obsessed with dumbing down Windows and continuing to turn it into spyware…

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I can get behind how people don't like the spyware complaint but as for the dumbing down part, don't blame Microsoft here, blame the stupid users out there that make up nearly 99% of the market. You know the kind, the kind that barely knows how to turn the computer on and would probably do better with an iPad.

Microsoft is chasing that segment of the market because that's the part of the market that will generate the most revenue. Face it, people like us here on TechSpot and other such enthusiast web forums are in the 1% category.

Do I like it? No, not by a long shot. However, everything I stated above is the truth whether we like it or not.

Hom3r said:

Consumers have not chosen. Steam had monopoly and was forced upon gamers to begin with. Steam was hated for years and years when it first came out. It was horrible, slow, bugged. Young people might not know!

That 30% fee is why many developers left the platform!

It is not a coincident that Valve don't really make games anymore. It is easier just to milk other developers. 30% fee is outrageous! Part of why game prices went up too, so it is not a free platform for PC gamers really. Developers raised prices to cover their expenses and you can partly thank Valve for that.

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Nobody quits Steam. Look at Ubisoft, they've returned. Ask the developers. And nobody is forced to use Steam. You can publish your game on your platform or you can use Epic Games Store, GOG, etc...

I bought many games on Epic Games because they are almost always cheaper, and got hundreds for free, top rated games included.

I like Steam but if a game is cheaper on Epic I will buy it on Epic.

Doubt I will ever be running Linux on my desktop gaming PC at home.

Hom3r said:

Gaming on Linux is never going to be truly viable.

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I'm not aware of any technical reason that it can't. Can you elaborate on why you think it can't?

Hom3r said:

Linux is for servers, not gaming.

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The beauty of Linux is that it can be used for any purpose you choose to build it for. You should know this as a 20+ year Linux user.

Hom3r said:

For gaming, it will always be a mess.

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I game on Linux regularly. The main thing holding some games back is the anti-cheat some developers use. The framework to make the anti-cheat software run on Linux is generally available to the developers, so it simply comes down to their choice to not code for Linux, not Linux itself.

TooQik said:

I'm not aware of any technical reason that it can't. Can you elaborate on why you think it can't?


The beauty of Linux is that it can be used for any purpose you choose to build it for. You should know this as a 20+ year Linux user.


I game on Linux regularly. The main thing holding some games back is the anti-cheat some developers use. The framework to make the anti-cheat software run on Linux is generally available to the developers, so it simply comes down to their choice to not code for Linux, not Linux itself.

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Linux can play some games, but is hardly optimal, considering that Linux gets no focus at all from AMD/Nvidia in terms of drivers and game developers in terms of optimization.

Just because you can build a Linux distro from scratch for gaming, does not mean that games are optimized for it at all, or will even start. 99.9% of PC games are made with Windows in mind and nothing else.

If Linux was truly viable for PC gaming, many PC gamers would use Linux, they are not.

In the majority of games that even work on Linux, in most of them you will see reduced performance, crashes and other issues.

Windows have 100% of all PC games. Linux don't even have 1% working flawlessly.

What are you gaming on Linux? Some old games? Hardly the newest AAA games while using the newest hardware.

Hom3r said:

You act like they are even close to leaving Windows! LOL!

Steam is like 99% Windows users and the only reason they look into Linux, is because of their low powered Steam Deck which needs Linux to function somewhat well due to low end hardware because Linux has a smaller footprint than Windows.

What Microsoft should, and could, is to release a Windows 11/12 Edition made for gamers with minimal background processes and services. This is easily doable yourself today.

You will never get all developers that make games for PC (meaning Windows) to bother with Linux optimization and troubleshooting. Linux has a sub 1% marketshare on PC!

Steam Deck using Linux can run many games yet most of them, performs worse than on Windows and simply crashes more. The success criteria is "they work" not they "work better than Windows"

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You act like MS would stop spying you with user telemetry LOL.

Now, with AI it will be way more invasive.

Windows 11 spying?

I use my own custom install and track packets on/off. Zero spying here.

Instead of praising Linux as a gaming OS - which it is not and never will be - then you should probably become a Windows poweruser instead of running stock iso.

Rapob said:

Linux can play some games, but is hardly optimal, considering that Linux gets no focus at all from AMD/Nvidia in terms of drivers and game developers in terms of optimization.

Just because you can build a Linux distro from scratch for gaming, does not mean that games are optimized for it at all, or will even start. 99.9% of PC games are made with Windows in mind and nothing else.

If Linux was truly viable for PC gaming, many PC gamers would use Linux, they are not.

In the majority of games that even work on Linux, in most of them you will see reduced performance, crashes and other issues.

Windows have 100% of all PC games. Linux don't even have 1% working flawlessly.

What are you gaming on Linux? Some old games? Hardly the newest AAA games while using the newest hardware.

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Currently I'm mostly playing PUBG and Hunt Showdown 1896.

PUBG doesn't run on Linux, purely because of the anti-cheats used and lack of support from the developers to allow it. Hunt Showdown 1896 does run on Linux though, and it runs noticeably smoother on Linux than on Windows on the same hardware (Ryzen 5800X and RX 6800 XT) - I know this because I run a dual boot system.

In the past I played a lot of Arma 3, another game which ran smoother on the same hardware on Linux than Windows.

Game developer optimisation is a mixed bag, even in Windows.

My point is there is really no technical reason game developers can't get games working properly on Linux, so I don't understand why people make generic "Linux sucks for gaming" comments.

If a company decides to spend money to support Linux gaming, instead of negativity, why not acknowledge they are willing to try and improve something that in your own words "don't even have 1% working flawlessly".

TooQik said:

Currently I'm mostly playing PUBG and Hunt Showdown 1896.

PUBG doesn't run on Linux, purely because of the anti-cheats used and lack of support from the developers to allow it. Hunt Showdown 1896 does run on Linux though, and it runs noticeably smoother on Linux than on Windows on the same hardware (Ryzen 5800X and RX 6800 XT) - I know this because I run a dual boot system.

In the past I played a lot of Arma 3, another game which ran smoother on the same hardware on Linux than Windows.

Game developer optimisation is a mixed bag, even in Windows.

My point is there is really no technical reason game developers can't get games working properly on Linux, so I don't understand why people make generic "Linux sucks for gaming" comments.

If a company decides to spend money to support Linux gaming, instead of negativity, why not acknowledge they are willing to try and improve something that in your own words "don't even have 1% working flawlessly".

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Cool story. I run all games without an issue on Windows.

You will never see pc game developers prioritize Linux, because literally no-one is using it.

As a Linux gamer, this is great news. Despite many claims in this thread, performance in many games is comparable to, and sometimes better than Windows. Linux has much less overhead.

The biggest hurdle holding Linux back is rootkit anti-cheats, since Linux prioritizes security. We recently saw this with GTA Online dropping Proton support when they added BattlEye. While BattlEye supports Linux, it only runs at kernel level on Windows.

Eventually, AI-based anti-cheats will advance enough that detecting actual cheats running on the PC won't be necessary, as AI learns to accurately identify play patterns of cheaters. At that point, compromising your security with root-level anti-cheats will no longer be needed.