Comment on Xbox Console Sales Are Tanking
woelkchen@lemmy.world 2 years agoI see you don’t know about Steam Linux Runtimes which are backwards and forwards compatible. 1.0 (“scout”) is based on Ubuntu 12.04, so already 12 years of binary compatibility.
GoodEye8@lemm.ee 2 years ago
I think you’re missing the point. It’s not about OS backwards compatibility, it’s user library backwards compatibility. Imagine if proton didn’t exist and you have 15 years of Steam library that has expanded on a yearly basis. You now buy the Steam Deck to play your library. What games can you play? I guarantee you couldn’t play 99% of your library because less than 1% of all games on Steam have been made natively for Linux. If you can’t play 99% of your library what’s the point of owning the deck? This is why Valve is pouring money into Proton, because Proton is the tool that gives users backwards compatibility for their library. Without proton the Steam Deck would be an utter failure.
It’s also why they don’t need to incentivize native builds, because they already solved that problem on their own with Proton. Why put effort into having developers develop native builds when you could just put that effort into Proton and essentially get the same result (and extra benefits) without hoping the developers do something they didn’t want to do in the first place?
woelkchen@lemmy.world 2 years ago
I never proposed to ax Proton, so I’m not the one here missing any points.
I explained several times already that game updates breaking Proton compatibility is a real thing that would not have happened with native games.
Game developers develop for dedicated platforms other than Windows all the time. They’re called game consoles. Native games don’t just mysteriously break on updates or suddenly ban players because the game developer out of the blue decided that Proton is cheating. First launch of games doesn’t annoy with those stupid Microsoft runtime installer scripts, etc. Proper native games could be optimized the way console games are instead of relying on multiple levels of Windows compatibility layers (the newest BS Proton has to deal with is gamepad compatibility for launchers via a special input wrapper) – they are just a smoother experience all around.
GoodEye8@lemm.ee 2 years ago
So you understand that it is way more beneficial for Valve to support proton than native Linux, and then say that Valve should incentivize native builds?
woelkchen@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Proton should be the focus for older, existing games and native games should be the focus for new games. Not really that hard to understand.