Comment by zeta0134

And it's worth noting that CS2 is still the most played game on Steam. It has double the players of the second most played game, Dota 2, which also works on Linux. And that has double the player base of the number 3 game, Arc Raiders, which also works great on Linux.

The idea that you'll be missing out is ill founded. Yes, there are some games that won't work. PUBG, Bongo Cat, Rust[0], and EA Sports FC 26 are the ones on the top 10 multiplayer list. But it's also not like you don't have plenty of massively popular games to choose from.

I'll even say don't switch to Linux, just stop playing these abusive games. Honestly, if you're unwilling to change OSes but willing to do this then people that want to jump ship can. We all win from this behavior. Even you as it discourages Windows from shoving in more junk and discourages publishers like EA from shoving in massive security vulnerabilities like rootkits. I mean we've all seen how glitchy many AAA games are, you really think their other software isn't going to be just as unpolished and bug ridden?

[0] Apparently works with Linux servers? https://www.protondb.com/app/252490

P.S. If anyone wants to check for yourself:

  - Steam Multiplayer by rankings: https://steamdb.info/charts/?tagid=3859
  - Proton Support: https://www.protondb.com/

Because their friends play Fortnite, for example? Multiplayer is often social, so "just play something else" turns into "just get new friends".

1. The audience is mostly kids. They can't buy any premium games easily (and is the lens for the rest of my points)

2. Network effects. Works as well on them as any of us. Especially in a world that makes it more and more hostile to have them meet IRL.

3. It's a generation raised on "forever games". They are used to games they pick up and will continually play for years. Games that will always provide new stuff for them. They fundamentally have different habits from Millenials.

4. Mobile support. So many kids play on mobile. So they are even more isolated from the consple market.

I empathize with the question. But you are essentially asking *why do people want to use instagram and not any other one of millions social media app?*

I can't answer that, but probably similar reason why anyone plays any game. It's fun, their friends play it, etc.

I don't personally play fortnite. But substitute fortnite for any DRMd multi-player game (or MMO).

> Fewer anti-consumer dark patterns

> isn't worth it

This is a gross reduction of why people choose Linux. People don't choose it just for a snappier file browser and fewer anti-consumer dark patterns.

1. games that install what amounts to be rootkits on my computer are not ok 2. windows potentially spying on my data without my consent is not ok

If you wanna label these as dark patterns, that's fine, but let's not pretend that this behavior is ok.

I like playing games. But I like privacy and security more than playing games, which is why I have a linux gaming machine and a PS5. Some people would rather just play games and not worry about the other stuff, which is understandable for the reasons you mentioned.

This is overestimating the amount of effort involved to game on Linux, imo. It is true that there are a couple games using kernel-level anticheat which preclude their working on linux, but for the most part the effort required to play games on Linux now is zero if it's a Steam game and almost zero elsewhere.

At this point, I think quite a few people are basically treating their Windows desktop as a console.

X11 has basically no development anymore. That means regressions are entirely ignored.

I switched my Gentoo box from X11 to Wayland three years ago at this point.

It's shocking that people still install X11 as a default in 2026 except with very old hardware.

Ah. Yeah, I play games very much like that (but not those specific ones). I also play rhythm games, which require precise timing.

Like this guy mentions [0], for all but one of the games I've tried, [1] I see comparable or superior performance to Windows.

I'm running AMD hardware, and I'm using KDE without a compositor on Xorg (that is, not on Wayland). I strongly expect that I've successfully disabled KDE's compositor because I seem to get the same performance when I use WindowMaker, which has never had a compositor.

[0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46799656>

[1] That game is the Deus Ex that takes place in Prague... I think it's Human Revolution. It's mind-boggling how slow it is.

Well yeah, it always comes down to money. Even on an indie level Linux support is a commitment.

https://reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/e2ww5s/mike_rose_linux...

Now if you do care about quality, having a committed, technical audience giving quality big reports is a godsend. But that's not where we are this decade rife with layoffs and rampant outsourcing in the industry.

Kernel-level anti-cheats are considerably more complicated to make for Linux for obvious reasons like lack of ABI stability in kernel space.

Oh, it absolutely is; if your product doesn't update its EAC bits regularly then it may as well not use EAC at all. Even still, there are known ways around it.

As far as I know, all the anti-cheat options for Linux are not kernel-level, which means that they are drastically less effective at their intended purpose. That's why so many competitive multiplayer games choose to not enable it.