6 ms·

The problem with Proton is it is leading many game developers to actually drop Linux support. They basically say players seem to be able to get the game to work

• Zhyl 6y ago
  Could you cite some examples? I know of games that have dropped Linux support (RUST, Rocket League) but those are all to do with Anti-cheat rather than citing Proton as a feasible alternative to a native port.
  • cf 6y ago
    Sure thing. Supergiant has previously released all their games (Bastion, Transistor, Pyre) with Linux support. With Hades they explicitly said would not come to Linux, and in fact cite the presence of Proton as a reason [1] Nicalis games has released games like Cave Story, VVVVVV and Binding of Isaac with Linux support. But the latest DLC of BoI will not have Linux support. 1. https://steamcommunity.com/app/1145360/discussions/0/1639794468039645851/?ctp=5#c2915472677709226926 https://steamcommunity.com/app/1145360/discussions/0/1639794...
    • Zhyl 6y ago
      Thanks, I will read up on these. I was feeling fairly secure that this was a concern that hadn't materialised, but it seems I have since been proved wrong :)
      • cf 6y ago
        Thanks! And believe me I want to be proved wrong on this. If you find any developers that were motivated to create a native Linux port of their game due to strong numbers on Proton I want to know!
    • kevingadd 6y ago
      Is it a bad thing that Hades doesn't have an official Linux client if it runs perfectly under Proton? They seem to be willing to invest heavily to get the game onto more platforms considering that (AFAIK) they rewrote the entire game in C++ to be able to port it to Switch, so it would surprise me if this is a "we don't care about you" situation and not a "Proton is good enough and doing a from-scratch Linux port would be expensive" situation. For their games before Hades they were using a portable middleware layer (FNA or MonoGame) and the C++-based engine they licensed for Hades is not the same. I definitely do not believe that Supergiant's choice here was motivated in any way by Proton. I think the costs simply didn't justify a custom port for them this time if making it a better experience would be difficult. P.S. Hades has an official Vulkan client, not just Direct3D, so the gap between native and emulated on Proton is much smaller than it would be for many games.
• bryanlarsen 6y ago
  Market share is king. With Linux at 1% Linux gamers are screwed, Proton or not.
  • Barrin92 6y ago
    also from several game devs I've talked to, not only is the market share negligible, the bug reports aren't. Common sentiment was that Linux was ~1% of their sales but a third of complaints.
    • lukeschlather 6y ago
      This probably reflects the character of Linux users more than Linux. To really unpack that you need to properly categorize the complaints: (Linux platform bug, Cross-platform bug, User error.) If 50% of the bugs are real cross-platform issues, then ditching Linux saves a lot less than you think (and you're potentially losing some high-quality free QA.)
      • chmod775 6y ago
        This. Most of the Windows users in my circles wouldn't even think of writing bug reports, whereas many Linux users are developers, often immediately think of writing a bug report, and are also technical enough to do it[1]. [1] It takes some technical experience to make an educated guess of where the problem lies. Drivers? OS? Game? Hardware? And if you're on Windows: Some gaming overlay? AV?
      • fuu_dev 6y ago
        you should read this: https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760 https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760
        • mjevans 6y ago
          Possible solutions: Have a demo so users can tell how well supported their platform is. Be clear about the target platform (E.G. Tested on Debian 10.8 + NonFree, Ubuntu 2020.04 etc; also include the minimum supported OpenGL / Vulcan / whatever version etc.) Document the product execution lifecycle, and how to manually skip steps. (E.G. steam calls X to start the launcher, the launcher calls Y to start the game. These are the arguments each take to modify behavior.) Have developer level debug checks in the logs. Print to standard error where you're trying to open a log file ("Opening log file: %s\n"), have an example of what a healthy log file should look like. If a native command is missing say so, and if there's a test-platform link to the package page for that platform, as well as the source website. (Eventually historical gamers might need to visit Archive.org to grab the last published version.) Have debug levels to increase verbosity (even if it's just "production" vs "collect crash report") validate every assumption and requirement in the crash report log level. You shouldn't need to ask the user for any additional information other than the log file, because it should all be right there in the log file.
• reader_mode 6y ago
  > Imagine spending 20, 30, or 60 dollars on a game that can break at any moment and know there will be zero support waiting for you. So spending < than people make in an hour here for a potential inconvenience that comes from updating to a new release - I can hardly imagine it. Multiplayer games that need to be up-to-date and competitive games would probably be annoying to hardcore gamers - but frankly if you're into that you'll be sensitive to performance as well and you should just get on a supported platform.
  • lukeschlather 6y ago
    I am sensitive to performance, but part of that is being able to alt-tab over to my Linux desktop rather than having to switch machines to do things other than play this one Windows exclusive. Actually the main part is that. "Gaming device" is a secondary function of my computer.
    • reader_mode 6y ago
      Meh, the author is making it sound like Proton will deter native linux ports. Reality is there would never be native Linux ports and you should be thrilled Proton/WINE/whatever gives you any options at all. The market isn't there - I see Valve linux efforts as a hedge against Windows screwing them over.
      • cf 6y ago
        There were Linux ports before Proton and I'm making the case that Proton does not create the right incentives to grow a market for Linux games. Like imagine a restaurant that served food to people in suits and people in tshirts but the people in tshirts tended to get food poisoning significantly more often. Would you consider the response to this concern "If you don't want food poisoning maybe wear a suit next time" a reasonable response?
• thrwyoilarticle 6y ago
  >Imagine spending 20, 30, or 60 dollars on a game that can break at any moment and know there will be zero support waiting for you. I don't have to imagine: I play Steam games on Windows.
  • bogwog 6y ago
    At least on Windows you can try troubleshooting and various workarounds to problems to a certain extent, or ask for a refund. I bought Pillars of Eternity on the Nintendo Switch for $60, which was broken on day 1, still broken today, and officially abandoned by the publisher (Versus Evil) This isn't related to the OP in any way, I'm just still angry about it.
    • godshatter 6y ago
      Linux players, in my experience, are more used to having their problems be ignored and have stronger feelings that they are part of a community and thus are more forthcoming with potential fixes and/or testing of things for other users that are also running linux, so they too help with troubleshooting and workarounds. I feel your pain about the situation you ran into with the Switch.
• mewse 6y ago
  I have a game on Steam, developed primarily on Linux, and providing a Linux build (in addition to Windows and Mac). Linux makes up approximately 0.5% of my sales. (Mac is about 2%, and Windows is the other ~97%) And from conversations with other developers, these are pretty standard percentages. I make and offer a native Linux build because I wanted to do it, but the financials really aren’t there to justify it from a hard business perspective. Proton really isn’t the thing that makes game developers choose not to make and support Linux builds of their games; it’s the lack of an audience (and often developers not knowing enough Linux to be able to provide support for it). My hope is that Proton can build up the audience, so that it starts making more financial sense for studios to serve that audience.
  • cf 6y ago
    Basic question, if someone buys a game to run it through Proton do they look like a Windows or Linux user on your end? How would you feel about games being made available for free to Linux users if it uses Proton. If the game contributes basically nothing to your bottom line and you don't plan to support them anyways, why not? It will only grow the audience more quickly.
    • galgalesh 6y ago
      Users running a game in proton show up as Linux users, not windows users. Because of this, many games already show a bunch of Linux players even though the game doesn't have a native port.
    • t0astbread 6y ago
      Couldn't Windows users boot into Linux then to get games for free? Like, it would probably increase the share of Linux users but Windows users would decrease. And when you start charging for the Linux port, a large amount of those users would flock back to Windows.
      • cf 6y ago
        dual booting is a kinda a lot of work just for some free games. You also could charge a dollar since you are often offering a strictly worse product for Linux users. That's what happens in many other markets when you are trying to expand a userbase. There is clearly a dollar value to providing support. Why shouldn't the price reflect that?
• bogwog 6y ago
  Linux will always be a second-class citizen to game devs until it gets a lot more users. But the new people that come in, those that likely migrated from Windows or Mac, are not going to care whether or not the game is a native Linux port or if its running on Proton. They'll only care that the game works, and works well. If we ever get to the point where Linux gamers become a significant percentage of the market, then developers will be forced to pay attention to Linux support. If Proton can't deliver competitive performance and stability, then that means they will be forced to do proper Linux ports. So the only thing needed to encourage developers to provide real Linux ports is to increase the size of the Linux gaming community by any means necessary. Whether that's through Proton, or even virtualization, the goal stays the same.
• Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  I think it's absolutely fine. How many people test their web applications on Linux? Few, because there's a virtualization layer between the application and the underlying operating system, so webapps are a write once, run anywhere application. Games can be the same, they just need an abstraction layer - be it a VM, an emulator, or whatever Proton is. And sure, you may not get perfect performance, but that is becoming less and less of a problem.
  • bogwog 6y ago
    > or whatever Proton is. IIRC, it's a fork of WINE
• spijdar 6y ago
  > There is all this talk that Proton will make people want to develop native Linux ports but I don't see any data or logic to back that up. I haven't heard of this, honestly. I'd fully expect it to damper Linux port development, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing. It's entirely possible for a game developer to treat bug reports from Proton users as legitimate, just as much as they may for a native Linux port. Wine is effectively just another Win32 runtime that happens to run on the Linux kernel instead of WinNT. I've had instances where the native Linux port of a game failed to launch entirely, but the Windows version through Proton worked flawlessly. I've also heard that some games perform better on Proton than native, because of the DirectX -> Vulkan translator outperforming straight OpenGL on Mesa. Other commenters have mentioned this, but it boils down to market share. Linux's market share is downright trivial. If I was a game dev being raked over the coals for a release date, I wouldn't frankly give a damn over Linux, and I say this as someone who mainly uses Linux. That's why I don't think this is a problem. If Proton becomes big enough then it becomes another "target", just another runtime to replace the old glibc/mesa one that devs can test if they want to.
• npteljes 6y ago
  I say whatever. I think it makes no difference that a game supports Linux directly, or via proton. Either way you get a tested product, and neither of them is more friendly to the spirit of free software. Or, if I could have a preference, I'd go with proton based solutions - because over time, that makes proton better, which means even more Linux compatible software.
• jokethrowaway 6y ago
  > There is all this talk that Proton will make people want to develop native Linux ports but I don't see any data or logic to back that up. Never heard this and I agree it doesn't make any sense (the opposite is likely to be true actually). Wine exists because people wanted to run windows software, Proton exists because Valve wanted to compete with Windows and mainstream consoles and needed to run most Windows games to do that. That's it. TBH, I think they were successful, ProtonDB is good enough and I can game on Linux pretty well and I could definitely game on a hypothetical Steam console, especially if it were open. Maybe I will, once I settle down and buy a dedicated gaming rig / have more time to play.