Not entirely, its less an issue of Linux and more an issue of software packaging - which, incidentally is being solved right now. Ubuntu is building a new pack

Not entirely, its less an issue of Linux and more an issue of software packaging - which, incidentally is being solved right now. Ubuntu is building a new packaging format called "Click Packages", which possibly would solve a lot of these installation issues. It would be unsurprising, if Steam/SteamOS uses this at its core, precisely to solve the availability issue. However, I believe that SteamOS will become the default distro for all gamers.