"Claim victory" is just something for dorks (myself included) to argue about on the internet. It doesn't matter to any one, in any way.
Linux "won" the server. Linux has not "won" the consumer desktop/laptop gaming market.
SteamOS is super interesting. Does it count as Linux? Yes and no? Depends on your goalpost! If I were shipping a game today I would 100% support SteamDeck and SteamOS. I'd maybe provide support via Win32 emulation, or maybe native. I'd probably stick to Win32 and only do native if needed for performance.
But I would 1000% NOT claim to support "Linux". I would support SteamDeck and that's it. If any user reported a bug or issue on other Linux distros then I would close the bug as "not supported". If it works, cool. If it doesn't, that's cool too. You're entirely on your own.
Supporting one Linux distro on one piece of hardware is pretty easy. Supporting all the Linux flavors on all possible hardware configurations is a bloody nightmare. And it's radically harder than supporting Windows across all hardware configurations. And it's definitely not worth it to increase sales by ~0.5% or so.
> Supporting all the Linux flavors on all possible hardware configurations is a bloody nightmare. And it's radically harder than supporting Windows across all hardware configurations.
Linux "won" the server. Linux has not "won" the consumer desktop/laptop gaming market.
SteamOS is super interesting. Does it count as Linux? Yes and no? Depends on your goalpost! If I were shipping a game today I would 100% support SteamDeck and SteamOS. I'd maybe provide support via Win32 emulation, or maybe native. I'd probably stick to Win32 and only do native if needed for performance.
But I would 1000% NOT claim to support "Linux". I would support SteamDeck and that's it. If any user reported a bug or issue on other Linux distros then I would close the bug as "not supported". If it works, cool. If it doesn't, that's cool too. You're entirely on your own.
Supporting one Linux distro on one piece of hardware is pretty easy. Supporting all the Linux flavors on all possible hardware configurations is a bloody nightmare. And it's radically harder than supporting Windows across all hardware configurations. And it's definitely not worth it to increase sales by ~0.5% or so.
Take from that what you will.