Way I see it, there’s two ways to address the “cheating” issue in multiplayer online games.

First, let’s establish that game cheats typically involve using another application to modify the game’s running code while it is loaded in memory.

Historically, anti-cheat has largely taken a “reactive” approach. Try to detect the hook / modification taking place, ban the player if it is detected. These systems and bans were often circumvented. There are entire games that I stopped playing because the experience was ruined for me - GTA Online and the late stages of Titanfall 2 are standouts in my mind.

With how the Windows device security landscape has changed In the 2020s (MacOS has had something similar for ages), there’s now the option of taking a “proactive” approach by preventing application memory from being tapped in the first place. These technologies, notably Secure Boot and TPM, help mitigate rootkits and malware that might steal sensitive information from application memory, as well as paving the way for other protection measures like disk encryption.

And that’s the main part they’re interested in - by ensuring the entire process up through the kernel cannot be tampered with, the anti-cheat is going to be highly effective at pre-empting anyone from attempting the cheat to begin with.

It really sucks that, in the curent landscape, that means there are a handful of games that I can’t play on my Linux devices. But it also makes sense - Proton runs with many layers beneath it, which would make it trivial to tamper with memory and engage in cheating.

I’m hopeful that we’ll someday see a solution that opens up the opportunity for the same degree of integrity protection in Linux so that anyone can enjoy any game on the operating system of their choosing.