As a Steam game developer I don’t think I can ever forgive Linux for being 1% of our players but 50% of our support tickets. I probably shouldn’t hold a grudge, but I do!

I suppose it’s probably better in 2025 now that the best API for Linux gaming is Win32. Proton is genuinely spectacular.

I love my Steamdeck. SteamOS is great. Supporting one distro is easy. It’s supporting a million unique permutations that is pure nightmare fuel.

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lokeg 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

There is a somewhat famous post about this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/qeqn3b/despite_hav...

Essentially stating that Linux users disproportionately care to actually report bugs they encounter rather than ignoring them. I find that very plausible.

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forrestthewoods 4 days ago | parent [-]

> Essentially stating that Linux users disproportionately care to actually report bugs they encounter rather than ignoring them. I find that very plausible.

In my lived experience, this 100% pure unadultered copium. It’s the wishful thinking lie that Linux people tell themselves to support their preferred choice of OS software which is, for some reason, part of their identity.

Supporting “Linux” isn’t too bad in 2025 if all you care about is SteamOS and Ubuntu. But distributing pre-compiled binaries and getting them to run on an unbounded range of system configurations is a nightmare.

Linux users do at least expect to run into problems. So they’re willing to fight through errors for several hours before asking for help. And the Linux gamer community is willing to help each other out to jump through all these hoops.

But none of that changes the fact that supporting Linux is an additional mountain of work. Although in 2025 you should definitely support SteamDeck via either Proton or native.

	▲	int_19h 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		At this point I think it's reasonable for game devs to just target SteamOS. Other distros can adapt as needed.

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zamalek 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I like the idea of Linux-native games but I've honestly never gotten it to work. Not on Ubuntu, not on Fedora, not on NixOS. The Steam Runtime is supposed to remove the distro from the equation - but, again, I've never seen it work. Proton is the sane target.