As annoying as it is, it really shows how much developers already care about getting their games compatible with Steam Deck, and, in extension, Proton.
Keeping SteamOS relevant in the handheld market will be a big factor that decides how many games will run on Linux in the future.
While this is understandable, it really shows how Proton is still a Damocle’s sword over Linux (and SteamOS) future in general.
God of War isn’t “Linux compatible” but “Linux-Windows compatible”: this is a problem because the Windows part is still under the strict rule of Microsoft, which mean Microsoft is in position to shut down any kind of access ( UWP is partial work on that direction ) and phase out the classic Windows support on which Proton/Wine works on.
Yeah, while there’s some truth to the joke that Win32 is the most stable Linux API that’s still a big downside to the current Linux landscape.
That said, I don’t think Microsoft is currently in a position to enforce drastic changes to their ecosystem, mostly because the desktop market has mostly been reduced to business and gaming, and they can’t do anything that affects backwards-compatibility for the business. The only thing that I currently see as an issue is if they boot anti-cheat kernel modules due to the whole Crowdstrike incident and replace it with their own, easy to use, alternative, which then gets used by more devs.
I really hope that when something like that happens, Linux has already has reached a critical mass, or, failing that, some legislators will care enough to prevent it.
