zlacker

I think you're talking past each other, and actually agree with each other.

I believe pjmlp's point (although it requires a fair bit of reading between the lines) is that Windows already has fantastic backwards compatibility (as you elaborated on), and Valve's work has created a situation such that all developers need to do is target and build for only Windows, release Windows-only binaries; then, Valve/WINE will do the hard work in ensuring they run seamlessly on Linux. This means developers don't need to care about building natively for Linux (à la Factorio and a tiny handful of other games). In other words as another commenter said, the real stable ABI on Linux is Win32 + WINE.

Furthermore, Valve's work also negates the work of open-source engine and game developers who have ported their engines and games to native Linux. This is because developing for Windows is a known quantity, and there is an overwhelming volume of resources, effort, and experience in writing games for Windows.

pjmlp concludes with 'Now with Windows based handhelds, Valve will learn what happened to netbooks', which I gather to mean that the Steam Deck will lose popularity to Asus and MSI's (and soon, other manufacturers too) handheld systems, since running most games directly on Windows is still easier than the occasional faff that someone has to do when running games on WINE/Proton.

>>delta_+(OP)
It's possible they've shot themselves in the foot, but in order for things to play out like that, I feel like there would have had to have been some demand in the first place. Wine/Proton makes possible something that the vast majority of game developers were never even considering: playing their games on Linux. As you note, Factorio is one of very few mainstream games (by which I mean, AAA and indie, not open-source) to target native Linux support, and did so long before the Steam Deck.

Even on macOS, which sits between Windows and Linux in terms of stability and user base, the selection of available games is about 10-20% of my library. Apple dropping support for 32-bit x86 (only to kind of resurrect it with Rosetta 2 on M1/M2/+) and only barely supporting OpenGL anymore while refusing to support Vulkan at all doesn't help. Credit again to Factorio for porting to macOS/ARM64, but they're once again in the small minority.

There's an interplay here between user-driven demand and platform-provided stability. As much of a faff as Wine/Proton can be, writing a game to properly support, say, Wayland is worse. That's a problem Valve _could_ help fix, but won't do anything for the vast majority of existing games.