Unfortunately by translating Windows games, Valve doesn't even manage to get game studios to port Android/Linux (NDK) into GNU/Linux, shows how much studios care.
I think this is ultimately a benefit. I've had too many proprietary native Linux games that slowly broke overtime as libraries they depended on changed or became deprecated. Hosting unmaintained proprietary software like this has always been difficult with Linux.
With Proton we basically have a common stable runtime that handles all the platform specific needs of a video game. It just so happens that runtime is largely binary-compatible with Windows. It's easier for devs to support when all they have to do is stick to a Proton-compatible subset of the Win32 API. Users get way more games. And anecdotally my experience as a user is generally better than with true native ports. It's a big net win.
Devs don't support anything, they target Windows as if Proton did not exist.
It is up to Valve to make it work.
It is a loss for GNU/Linux as gamming platform.
Do you think anyone would be paying for Nintendo and PlayStation consoles, if they were running XBox OS translations, instead of having the games natively target them?
That is why all those cheap Chinese handhelds never go nowhere, being basically MAME devices.
Lots of dev go out of their way to make sure their games play nice on Steam Deck.
The alternative is that they do not do this at all because it is too much work for too little payoff. Proton is driving real Linux adoption in PC gaming.
Really? Name a AAA game studio that actually activily does anything instead of letting Valve do the work themselves, coming up on their developer blog "We did this for Proton".
Proton is driving the adoption of PC Windows games on Linux.
