Really? I've had pretty much no issues playing video games on Linux for the past 2 years. At least not any more than I did when I used Windows.
Steam has been providing support for the Linux community for years, through native ports of their games, explicitly selling Linux ports on their store, and just making sure their client works on Linux as well. This isn't to mention their actual innovations such as the Steam Controller, Steam In-home Streaming, Steam Remote Play, and even Proton.
In contrast, we have Epic Games who, besides adding nothing to the market besides a bunch of free games (which is likely going to end when/if they feel like they have a good enough share), actively killed the Linux version of Rocket League when they purchased the game.
I appreciate Epic Games for the Unreal engine, but if this is how they want to get a share of the PC game store market, they're not getting a dime from me.
> In contrast, we have Epic Games who, besides adding nothing to the market besides a bunch of free games
You shouldn't talk about things you don't know about...
- Millions in grants for developers
- Unlimited free backend services for game developers, the same the power one of the most successful games in recent history (and the first serious offer for this caliber of service outside of Steam despite AAA publishers having stores for years)
- Millions invested in arguably one of the most technologically advanced game engines freely available
- Thousands of dollars in free content to help developers kickstart their projects
- Finally moving the needle for developer revenue splits after years of stagnation
- No built-in DRM (Games can still optionally include their own DRM, but there's no Steamworks-style DRM options)
- Built a publishing house with a blanket deal for studios which is very competitive, (50/50 split of all profit)
- _Retroactively_ waived fees for any game that made under 1 million dollars running on Unreal.
Say you didn't care about anything Epic did besides release a few free games, they did plenty more than that
Can't reply to your comment directly but for a reply...
How is massively supporting the game industry and providing a real competitor in a the market not doing anything for the end-user?
You realize the games the end-user plays benefit from literally every single thing I mentioned right?
Nothing of that is directly impactful like the features I listed about Steam. I'm not arguing for Epic Games being an "evil corporation", they just don't do anything to the end-user except for a couple free games.
I'm speaking explicitly as an end user here, and from my point of view the Epic Store is a straight downgrade from Steam in almost every aspect.
> Really? I've had pretty much no issues playing video games on Linux for the past 2 years.
Yes, really. This just sounds like the standard Linux Desktop evangelist "Works for me! (TM)". Take this case [0], where in it is claimed that support requests for Linux were vastly disproportionate to the number of Linux users.
Linux has huge problems as a platform due to its fragmentary and ever-changing nature combined with its near-total disregard (in userland) for backwards compatibility. People have been screaming this at the community for the better part of a decade and a half (including Linus himself!) and mostly falling on deaf ears.
Which is not to say that one should support Epic if you do happen to care about gaming on Linux. Quite the opposite, as Valve has done more than anyone[1] to try and make it work.
I agree. Linux definitely has a long way before it's usable for the majority of the public for gaming. I only wanted to point that out because the myth that Linux can't play games still exists for some reason, while I'm sitting here playing every game that I want (except for those with rootkit anti-cheats. I have a VM for them).
The packaging story, the driver stories, the market share...
The stores don't lose anything when a developer supports Linux, Epic's own engine supports Linux as a target
The problem is the support costs don't seem to add up at all, and I fail to see why the store fronts would be to blame...