That’s true, and I can hardly blame the Linux developers for this problem. It’s just an unfortunate result of the fact most software is written for profit, including most Linux code. GPU vendors support Linux either because if data center support cases or because they sell devices (like the Steam Deck) and make them money.

Microsoft, making their own money, can clean up after these manufacturers where necessary, or at least clean up much better than volunteers can. It’s not like Linux gamers make or break a product launch, they barely make up more than a few percent on the global gaming market.

With the performance of modern Windows executable wrappers, the lack of native Linux support isn’t even a problem. Some games run faster on DXVK than on Windows, amazingly. Linux may not have vendors hot patching badly programmed games, but Proton does a pretty good job in their place. And honestly, publishing proprietary software of any kind on Linux is a massive pain, because so many parts of the Linux ecosystem assume distro maintainers will pin and compile matching versions of system libraries for you.