Should my game natively run on Linux, or is Steam OS good enough now?
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Hey there!

I’m a solo dev working on a sci-fi grand strategy game (I didn’t manage to find if self-promo is allowed so I’ll keep the name for myself).

I was updating my planning and started to think: since my game will be published on Steam, it will be playable on Linux using Compatibility Mode even if I don’t specifically target Linux itself. I myself play on an Ubuntu and this allows me to play almost every Windows game (old ones are more capricious, but recent ones are ok).

So I’m wondering, is there really an advantage to have native Linux support nowadays? As a solo dev, the thing I lack the most is time. The days/weeks/months it would take me to add it and fix all the probable bugs it entails could be used to improve the game itself or add features instead for example.

On a more general note, what do you other Linux players expect from a Linux game?

  • @unchartedsectors@lemm.eeOPEnglish
    10•4 days ago

    Yeah I agree, it’s honestly impressive how well it works. As soon as I have the possibility I’ll take a Steam Deck and try to make my game compatible with it, I’m sure if I manage to make it work on it that should eliminate 90% of Proton compatibility-related bugs if I don’t make a native build.

    I’m still seeking for answers from people for whom it doesn’t work well or who have bad experiences with it, because I’m sure there are cases where it doesn’t work

    • @toothbrush@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      3•4 days ago

      I had some bad experiences with wine/proton, especially on older hardware. There are sometimes weird bugs that are very hard to reproduce. For example: I couldnt play starfield for about a year because most textures were missing. No idea what was causing it. After a year it suddenly worked. Generally if you check Protondb for any game you will find that a few people have crazy bugs, even if everyone else says that it runs perfectly. I think I dont have a single game in my library that has a “Platinum” compatibility rating.

      I think it boils down to how would you prefer to support linux players: By fixing bugs in your port, or chasing after bugs in wine/proton. The negatives of native ports that other people have raised are because many (larger) developers make the initial linux port, and then forget about it. Civilisation 6 for example has a good linux port. Yay! But they stopped updating it years ago. Many bugs were never fixed, and linux players dont even have access to the newest dlc! Compare it to running Civ 5 in wine. Things mostly work, exept mod support. Most mods just dont work. Who knows why.

      I think native ports may have become easier nowadays too, because of the steam runtime. Steam can run linux games in their flatpak-like runtime, so ideally you only have to support that.

      If you are planning on open sourcing your game (maybe some time after the commercial release) then a linux port would be very appeciated for packaging reasons. Other than that, your preference.