[keyringlight]

I've been wondering what the limiting factors are for migrating gamers and I think the larger software ecosystem and cumulative effect of paper-cut issues will cause people to bounce off.

Linux and running games under steam/wine/proton is great in the broad strokes, but users will have built up their own collection of tools or ways of doing things they will seek out equivalents for and judge the linux experience as a whole on whether they can do that. Many of the windows applications are very mature compared to linux because that's the ecosystem and audience its had for decades, there's nothing touching Foobar2000 for example (and the UI glitches in wine). Now add in all the other things gamers regularly expect to do, what's needed to accomplish them and how well they do it, overlays, screen recording, using modding tools, etc.

It also strikes me with the win10 end of life there's going to be a huge variety of hardware configurations people want to 'just work', in terms of age and which model someone chose in a particular generation. For example support for fan control on my Z270 board doesn't exist, presumably because of the way ASUS made that model.

I can appreciate Valve and their direct partners picking their battles on what to support as it's a huge gauntlet to pick up, but I really doubt the needle is going to move large distances and saying "bye bye windows gaming"

[DCKing]

If you are demanding or particular about your gaming experience, then Linux isn't there yet. Compatibility with the very latest AAA titles can sometimes trail behind Windows, anticheat for competitive multiplayer often blocks out Linux compatibility, and you need to adapt to different tools for customizing and surrounding your gaming experience if you're so inclined.

What I'm highlighting if you just want to sit down to play some damn games already in your library, especially on a dedicated "console" like a handheld or HTPC, then the Linux experience is superior to Windows. And I expect that there's a sizable audience for that.

[kibwen]

> cumulative effect of paper-cut issues will cause people to bounce off

I disagree, PC gaming has always been rife with papercuts, especially relative to console gaming.

The real moat that Windows has is that anonymous-matchmade competitive multiplayer games are decreasingly going to want to run on hardware that supports user freedom. Which for me personally is fine, because I find anonymous-matchmade competitive multiplayer games to be dogwater that I ain't missing, but for a lot of people that's a non-starter.

(Disclaimer: proud owner of a Steam Deck which has also served double duty as my desktop machine while I wait for a replacement power supply for my laptop.)