[Zambyte]

Gaming hasn't been an "excuse" for years. More games run on GNU/Linux than any gaming console, installed as easily as finding the game on Steam / GOG / itch.io etc. and clicking "install".

I actually switched to GNU/Linux in college because I wanted to play video games less. This happened right before Proton was released in 2018. Let's just say that I was very unsuccessful in my goal when switching.

[rickstanley]

Maybe not an excuse for you, but there are still games that don't work out of the box, and the solutions for third party launchers are still fragmented and/or not feature complete, in comparison to its native Windows client. Let's take Heroic Games Launcher for example, looking at GoG: it does not yet track hours played nor achievements (they have work in progress [1]); Lutris on the other hand doesn't even have cloud Sync.

Proton is also no complete, perhaps one day it'll be, it's not quite there yet. I've stumbled on some games that don't work (Obscure 1, Resident Evil 0, Dark Messiah, etc) and games that didn't work in the past but now works, with some flaws that are hard to distinguish between Windows' and Linux's fault (Thief: Deadly Shadows).

[1]: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/05/comet-is-an-open-sourc...

[nerdjon]

I feel like just looking at the numbers isn't really a good counter on wether or not a platform is viable.

However gaming is still very much an excuse. On my Steam Deck I even primarily use Windows after not being able to use Game Pass, issues with Kingdom Hearts, and anything through Epic game launcher being a mixed bag.

Proton is great but it really isn't a silver bullet and you may need to go to Windows if you want to play a specific game.