this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
748 points (99.5% liked)

Linux Gaming

25100 readers
963 users here now

Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.

This page can be subscribed to via RSS.

Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.

No memes/shitposts/low-effort posts, please.

Resources

Help:

Launchers/Game Library Managers:

General:

Discord:

IRC:

Matrix:

Telegram:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

If devs never target Linux they won’t build with Linux in mind.

Won't they?

I posit this:

  • Windows gaming will die. Slowly.

  • Devs will target Proton more and more explicitly.

  • ...Until development is basically exclusively targing Wine/Proton, on Linux.

It's easy to laugh at that as a meme, but does Windows seem sustainable now? Is there any sane "single target" for game devs other than Proton? Is it not the path of least resistance, by an order of magnitude? Hence I think that's legitimately what will happen.

[–] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

It's easy to laugh at that as a meme

No, you definitely have a point. An increasingly valid one, I might add.

And I do wonder what the "point" of Wine will be overall if we ever get to the point where the majority of users are on Linux.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

And I do wonder what the “point” of Wine will be overall if we ever get to the point where the majority of users are on Linux.

Nothing! If Windows parity isn't a concern, they don't have to develop anything. They can leave Wine how it is, and everything just works! In fact, keeping it as a stable API would be less of a headache for apps that target it.

WINE becomes a "universally compatible linux API" that happens to be backwards-compatible with Windows executables.

What's more, they could add whatever features and fixes they want, unbound by Microsoft. Game studios could even PR the project, I suppose.


I'm not sure that would ever happen, though. Business users will be stuck with Windows forever, hence parity with Windows desktop apps will remain a goal.