8 ms·

SteamOS has way more appeal to gamers in 2025 than it could have had in, say, 2004. On the surface the lack of popular multiplayer titles that require a kernel

SteamOS has way more appeal to gamers in 2025 than it could have had in, say, 2004. On the surface the lack of popular multiplayer titles that require a kernel-level anti-cheat is a heavy downside, but gaming is extremely fragmented these days. In 2004 everyone, save for the casual players, at least tried DOOM3 and Half-Life 2. In 2025 Fortnight has an all-time peak of 12M players, but at the same time there are many millions of Minecraft players who never even launched Fortnight. And DOTA2/LOL players who've never launched either of those 2. And then you see a bunch of indie titles selling tens of millions of copies, and their player base is completely unrelated to those above. The days of the gaming mono-culture are long gone, and inability to play a limited number of Game As A Service titles is not as severe of a handicap anymore, especially since people who play those kinds of games aren't typically as interested in any other titles. For better or worse, peer pressure doesn't work as heavy these days, as it used to

lazyfanatic42 11mo ago
What made you go with comparing things to 2004? Seems random, there is so much that is different in the Linux ecosystem generally, Valve just put the situation on a rocket and shot it into space. Point taken, it really is marvelous! When I was running Gentoo Linux, and Windows 2000 back then I never thought things would be so portable and simple!
- NooneAtAll3 11mo ago
  > What made you go with comparing things to 2004? I guess HL2 release? Steam launch was late 2003 and first non-valve Steam games appeared in 2005, so "thereabouts" can be a reason as well for "Valve era"
surajrmal 11mo ago
I was a heavy gamer in 2004 and never played HL2 or DOOM3. I know many such people. I think games like Mario party, smash, and Mario kart were far more ubiquitous.
- shawn-butler 11mo ago
  Your definition of heavy gamer I think differs from the norm if your main plays were Mario kart, et al.
  - rkozik1989 11mo ago
    Yeah, I am pretty sure most heavy gamers in 2004 were knee deep into MMOs and FPSes.
    - TheTon 11mo ago
      There isn’t a single one way to be a dedicated gamer. Inevitably everyone has finite time and access to games and has to make choices about what to play. As a Mac guy, I always found the game platform wars weird because even on the weakest gaming platform there are still more good games than anyone can individually play. And even on Windows, probably the strongest gaming platform, you’re still missing out on many significant games. I totally understand buying a system because it has some game that you absolutely must play. I bought an OG Xbox back in the day because I thought I desperately needed to play Deus Ex: Invisible War when it didn’t come to Mac. Got burned on that one, but at least I had Halo before it came to Mac (and was in the end much better there than on Xbox due to expanded online multiplayer). What I actually don’t get is folks who have to play the hot game of the week every week. Just seems expensive in terms of money, time, and space for different systems, and you only scratch the surface of the games.
- SmallDeadGuy 11mo ago
  That just sounds like all you had access to was a Nintendo console, not necessarily due to your own choice. I missed out on all the early zelda, metroid, and mario home console games because we were a playstation family until the wii.
  - nwsm 11mo ago
    Saying “everyone” played those two titles is still incorrect. Personally I think the landscape was more fragmented then.
BlueTemplar 11mo ago
Your comparisons are a mess. "Casual player" is very poorly defined. You are comparing concurrent players with unique players (IIRC half a billion for Fortnite ?) "Many millions" hardly means anything when you use it to cover 3 orders of magnitude. And so on and so forth...
MetaWhirledPeas 11mo ago
> the lack of popular multiplayer titles that require a kernel-level anti-cheat is a heavy downside It's a downside if all you want to do is play those games. But it's an upside if you're hoping they someday ditch all that nonsense. This puts more pressure on those publishers.
- rtkwe 11mo ago
  More likely is that some linux distro like SteamOS gets a large enough install base that it actually makes sense as a target and these big platforms make their anti-cheat work on at least that distro. As unfortunate as it is not having a very strong anti-cheat or a system like Valve's VAC ban to detect and lock cheaters out leads to really shitty online experiences in public lobbies for PVP games.
  - Hikikomori 11mo ago
    Some anti cheat works with proton if the game dev allows it. But anti cheats are generally not effective on Linux because you can just load your cheat as a kernel driver.
    - awakeasleep 11mo ago
      What kind of device & kernels driver attestation is possible in linux at the present time?
      - Hikikomori 11mo ago
        Secure boot, signed drivers, attestation, is all possible. But you can just sign your own driver anyway so kinda useless. Might be possible with a more secure mode that is booted into when you launch a game that only allow specific drivers and programs like the game and maybe discord.
morshu9001 11mo ago
True. Things were better the old way with so many kids at least having a video game like Melee or CoD or Halo in common. I would've liked those to run on Linux, but that doesn't matter so much.
spookie 11mo ago
Eh multiplayer games are doomed. Computer vision based cheats using an external machine that records the game's final rendered frames, process them with specialized YOLO models, and control "mices" and "controllers" to aim for you already exist. If the aim for kernel level anti-cheats was to combat cheating, they have failed and are completely worthless.
- jack1243star 11mo ago
  That's like saying online banking is doomed because rubber-hose cryptanalysis exists. The defense does not have to stop 100% of the exploits to be effective. I hate kernel level anti-cheats but they do provide friction and reduce cheating.
  - spookie 11mo ago
    There are open source solutions out there. If anything there is less friction now.
- fulafel 11mo ago
  You don't need an external machine. Since games are set up to allow twitch etc streaming, it's easy for apps on the same machine to get access to the video.

lazyfanatic42 11mo ago

What made you go with comparing things to 2004? Seems random, there is so much that is different in the Linux ecosystem generally, Valve just put the situation on a rocket and shot it into space. Point taken, it really is marvelous! When I was running Gentoo Linux, and Windows 2000 back then I never thought things would be so portable and simple!

NooneAtAll3 11mo ago
> What made you go with comparing things to 2004? I guess HL2 release? Steam launch was late 2003 and first non-valve Steam games appeared in 2005, so "thereabouts" can be a reason as well for "Valve era"

surajrmal 11mo ago

I was a heavy gamer in 2004 and never played HL2 or DOOM3. I know many such people. I think games like Mario party, smash, and Mario kart were far more ubiquitous.

shawn-butler 11mo ago
Your definition of heavy gamer I think differs from the norm if your main plays were Mario kart, et al.
- rkozik1989 11mo ago
  Yeah, I am pretty sure most heavy gamers in 2004 were knee deep into MMOs and FPSes.
  - TheTon 11mo ago
    There isn’t a single one way to be a dedicated gamer. Inevitably everyone has finite time and access to games and has to make choices about what to play. As a Mac guy, I always found the game platform wars weird because even on the weakest gaming platform there are still more good games than anyone can individually play. And even on Windows, probably the strongest gaming platform, you’re still missing out on many significant games. I totally understand buying a system because it has some game that you absolutely must play. I bought an OG Xbox back in the day because I thought I desperately needed to play Deus Ex: Invisible War when it didn’t come to Mac. Got burned on that one, but at least I had Halo before it came to Mac (and was in the end much better there than on Xbox due to expanded online multiplayer). What I actually don’t get is folks who have to play the hot game of the week every week. Just seems expensive in terms of money, time, and space for different systems, and you only scratch the surface of the games.
SmallDeadGuy 11mo ago
That just sounds like all you had access to was a Nintendo console, not necessarily due to your own choice. I missed out on all the early zelda, metroid, and mario home console games because we were a playstation family until the wii.
- nwsm 11mo ago
  Saying “everyone” played those two titles is still incorrect. Personally I think the landscape was more fragmented then.

BlueTemplar 11mo ago

Your comparisons are a mess. "Casual player" is very poorly defined. You are comparing concurrent players with unique players (IIRC half a billion for Fortnite ?) "Many millions" hardly means anything when you use it to cover 3 orders of magnitude. And so on and so forth...

MetaWhirledPeas 11mo ago

> the lack of popular multiplayer titles that require a kernel-level anti-cheat is a heavy downside It's a downside if all you want to do is play those games. But it's an upside if you're hoping they someday ditch all that nonsense. This puts more pressure on those publishers.

rtkwe 11mo ago
More likely is that some linux distro like SteamOS gets a large enough install base that it actually makes sense as a target and these big platforms make their anti-cheat work on at least that distro. As unfortunate as it is not having a very strong anti-cheat or a system like Valve's VAC ban to detect and lock cheaters out leads to really shitty online experiences in public lobbies for PVP games.
- Hikikomori 11mo ago
  Some anti cheat works with proton if the game dev allows it. But anti cheats are generally not effective on Linux because you can just load your cheat as a kernel driver.
  - awakeasleep 11mo ago
    What kind of device & kernels driver attestation is possible in linux at the present time?
    - Hikikomori 11mo ago
      Secure boot, signed drivers, attestation, is all possible. But you can just sign your own driver anyway so kinda useless. Might be possible with a more secure mode that is booted into when you launch a game that only allow specific drivers and programs like the game and maybe discord.

morshu9001 11mo ago

True. Things were better the old way with so many kids at least having a video game like Melee or CoD or Halo in common. I would've liked those to run on Linux, but that doesn't matter so much.

spookie 11mo ago

Eh multiplayer games are doomed. Computer vision based cheats using an external machine that records the game's final rendered frames, process them with specialized YOLO models, and control "mices" and "controllers" to aim for you already exist. If the aim for kernel level anti-cheats was to combat cheating, they have failed and are completely worthless.

jack1243star 11mo ago
That's like saying online banking is doomed because rubber-hose cryptanalysis exists. The defense does not have to stop 100% of the exploits to be effective. I hate kernel level anti-cheats but they do provide friction and reduce cheating.
- spookie 11mo ago
  There are open source solutions out there. If anything there is less friction now.
fulafel 11mo ago
You don't need an external machine. Since games are set up to allow twitch etc streaming, it's easy for apps on the same machine to get access to the video.