[ndepoel]

That 20% is mostly covered by competitive online multiplayer games that use kernel-level anti-cheat systems which will only work on Windows. There's not a whole lot Valve can do about that, other than continuing to push Linux for gaming and hope that it gets popular enough to create an incentive for anti-cheat providers to start targeting Linux as well.

[IshKebab]

I never understood why game devs don't just segregate players based on their anti-cheat status. Have a setting in the game like "only play with anti-cheat verified players" that defaults to yes.

That way Linux gamers can still play with other Linux gamers if they want (and cheaters).

Not an ideal situation but probably better than nothing.

[quesera]

I think that would make Linux players into second-class citizens who could only play in a pool that is 90+% filled with Windows cheaters.

Segregating into two pools: Windows-verified, or Linux-unverified, would probably not work for Linux users either. It'd be the same problem (on a smaller scale) as not including kernel anticheat in Windows. No fun for the non-cheaters.

I'm not a gamer though, so I may be missing important details.