This is fine. I don’t mind a diversity of opinion here. I agree that Proton is a stop-gap solution, and that most older games are going to need it, and newer AAA games are not going to support Linux all of a sudden.
However, I do think that we should continue to encourage developers to create native builds when they can. Indie devs tend to do this and it’s a pretty great experience. Not only that, it often enables playing on unusual devices such as SBCs. For example, UFO 50 was made in Gamemaker, which offers native Linux builds, and it’s already on Portmaster. You basically can’t do that with Proton.
My problem is calling people who want Linux native games misguided or wrong. I really don’t think that’s helpful.
I wish he wouldn’t repeat the idea that Proton is acceptable to game devs and Linux users shouldn’t demand native games. I’m much closer to Nick’s (from Linux Experiment) idea: That these games work as long as a company like Valve pays for Proton. The day Valve stops is the day these Proton games start to rot. For archival, for our own history, and for actual games on Linux, we should want Linux native games.
The thing is, the “no tux no bucks” crowd doesn’t advocate for other people to say the same. The proton crowd is actively telling the “no tux no bucks” people to shut up, and it’s not very nice. We need a multitude of views to succeed in the long term as a community.
My main issue with it is that everyone is using it to push their own narrative about why the game failed. People doing the “It’s a woke game, so it went broke”, or “it’s a saturated market”, or whatever. These are just reactions, not data driven analyses.
There were a bunch of game company closures in Australia in the 2000s and now there are a bunch of Australian indie devs, as an example. The cycle takes a long time though.
I don’t think it’s a death, it’s more of a transition. Firstly, a lot of XBox games have been coming to PC, intentionally, because Microsoft basically own the market*. They’ve also created XCloud + Game pass, possibly the most convenient way to play games, and you don’t need an XBox.
The real people who’ve turned on the device itself has been devs. Some of the stuff they’ve been saying at GDC have been at the same level as the stuff they say about Linux as a target. Like your game shouldn’t be that dependent on platform, it hurts things like archival.
6dof works via basalt (and there’s hand tracking as well I believe) but right now the experience is very Janky. eg if I put the headset down it gets confused and starts drifting heavily, forcing a restart. It used to crash sometimes on some types of motion as well. My WMR controllers aren’t being detected and 6dofing properly even though they should be. But the bones are there.
Here’s a video of Monado being used and doing the tracking.
I’m using Monado with my WMR device. It’s still very early days but progress is good. The big issue is that you’ll need to have up-to-date firmware, and the only way to do that is on Windows.
While, yes, Steam doing this is… OK… The resale is what matters. Technically passing it on via Gog’s download is “piracy”, but having some sort of physical identifier for the thing makes it legal to resell.