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Steam’s June Client Update Brings Proton Default on Linux
(linuxiac.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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I'd like native builds really, but this kinda discourages that. Then again though, with tiny market share Linux has, it's understandable devs don't support it natively. It's also good to not have to manually enable Proton everytime too.
Oh and I suppose this helps with adoption, one less hurdle for someone to jump through to just play games from their library.
You know, as a full-time Linux user, I think I rather have game developers continue to create Windows executables.
Unlike most software, games have a tendency to be released, then supported for one or two years, and then abandoned. But meanwhile, operating systems and libraries move on.
If you have a native Linux build of a game from 10 years ago, good luck trying to run it on your modern system. With Windows builds, using Wine or Proton, you actually have better chances running games from 10 or even 20 years ago.
Meanwhile, thanks to Valve’s efforts, Windows builds have incentive to target Vulkan, they’re getting tested on Linux. That’s what we should focus on IMO, because those things make games better supported on Linux. Which platform the binary is compiled for is an implementation detail… and Win32 is actually the more stable target.
Linux is not getting exclusive builds anytime soon, in our lifetime I'd wager. So Windows builds would still exist anyway, so it would make no difference having native Linux builds, it would only be a bonus. Besides, if Linux somehow eclipses Windows to a point developers don't support Windows anymore, then I'm sure there would be compatibility layers or whatever built to run old Linux games on newer hardware too.