Epic Linux Gaming Predictions for 2023

We’re again with our prediction recreation that’s been happening since 2021! In 2021 we had a lot of great insights about the place the long run was headed, in 2022 not as much, however let’s see if our seers have learnt something from the final version and if they may enhance their notion energy!

So we have been capable of collect fairly a couple of company this 12 months’s version:

• Nick from the Linux Experiment (primarily based in France)
• James Ramey (primarily based within the US)
• JugandoenLinux (primarily based in Spain)
• Chris Had been (primarily based within the UK)
• Luke Quick (primarily based within the US)
• Corben (primarily based in Germany)
• Sirmikester (primarily based within the US)

And you can find on the finish the Boiling Steam’s employees predictions too.

Methodology

Similar to for the earlier years, everybody was requested (privately) to arrange their predictions independently from one another. None of us have been conscious of the character of different’s predictions to keep away from any exterior or peer affect. Everybody was requested to offer 5 predictions, and as a lot as potential preserve them particular and measurable to keep away from any ambiguity in interpretation.

The predictions for 2023 have been collected between Feburary and March 2023, some sooner than others however roughly inside a month’s window. No prediction got here true earlier than the top of the gathering so there was no sudden change required earlier than the publication of this text.

We’ll first begin with the visitor predictions, in no specific order.

Visitor Predictions

Nick from The Linux Experiment

Nick is a product proprietor and venture supervisor turned YouTuber. He talks concerning the Linux desktop, privateness, Linux gaming, and all associated subjects on his youtube channel, The Linux Experiment: youtube.com/thelinuxexperiment.

1. The announcement of an up to date Steam Deck

I don’t suppose we’ll see a Steam Deck 2, if solely as a result of Valve undoubtedly stated they gained’t do this but, however I might be stunned if we didn’t see at the very least an announcement a couple of revised mannequin. Whether or not it’s akin to a Steam Deck “Professional”, with a greater display screen, higher battery, or higher sticks, or a Deck Mini, or a small {hardware} revision with numerous enhancements, I’m anticipating a brand new gadget to be introduced in 2023.

2. Full Wayland assist for Linux gaming

I’m anticipating the Wayland driver for Wine to be accomplished this 12 months, and promptly included in Proton as nicely. The Deck makes use of Wayland and runs video games with XWayland, and I believe they’d a lot want to take away that small efficiency distinction ASAP, so I’d be stunned if work wasn’t accomplished this 12 months on this entrance.

3. Official Steam OS ISO

It’s lengthy overdue, and I actually suppose we’ll see an ISO for SteamOS in 2023. One thing official, that helps Nvidia and AMD GPUs, and that may be run on any laptop of your selecting. The final holdout is the Sport UI of the Deck working nicely on Nvidia, they usually’re already engaged on it, if the most recent launch notes for the Linux Steam Consumer are to be believed. I believed it will launch earlier than the top of 2022, and I used to be flawed, so we’ll see if it occurs this 12 months!

4. 2% Market share for Linux on Steam

Not a really optimistic prediction, however earlier than the top of the 12 months, I’m anticipating Linux to crack 2% of the Steam market share, at the very least as reported by the Steam {Hardware} survey. We’ve at the moment nearer to 1.2 or 1.4%, however with the Deck out there in Asia now, I’m anticipating a small increase. I already had this prediction for final 12 months, however I believe we will make it in 2023!

5. Passing the 80% bar of Playable Steam Video games

We’re at the moment sitting at 68% of the highest 1000 video games on Steam which might be Playable or Verified. I’m anticipating this ratio to go up considerably, and attain 80% on the finish of the 12 months. Now that the Deck is nicely put in, and as new, Deck Verified video games take the place of older ones in that high 1000, I believe we will crack it.

James Ramey from Codeweavers

James is well-known in case you are aware of our articles and interviews conducted with him in the past. He’s the President of Codeweavers (the corporate behind many of the WINE/Proton efforts). He has additionally reviewed his personal predictions a couple of days in the past.

1. My first prediction is that we are going to see some form of VR gadget for the Steam Deck in 2023. To make clear, that is seemingly NOT an Oculus Rift kind gadget however one thing between the NReal Air and the Oculus Rift. With the recognition of the Steam Deck, I believe it’s a matter of time earlier than somebody builds out some equipment for it. I predicted this in 2022, and I’m predicting it once more in 2023.
2. Subsequent, I imagine that there shall be a AAA recreation unique for the Steam Deck in 2023. It is a stretch because the Linux gaming market remains to be comparatively small compared to your entire video gaming market; nonetheless, I imagine that the shape issue of the Steam Deck lends itself properly to gaming to which I imagine at the very least one recreation developer will capitalize on.
3. Linux market share on Steam will hit 3% by the top of 2023 (at the moment at 1.27% as of February 2023). The prevailing thought is whereas 3% doesn’t sound like a lot that was lower than 1% as of June 2021. That’s a big enhance in Linux gaming (simply on Steam) in a comparatively quick time frame.
4. That is my longshot… I predict a Steam-based console corresponding to the Xbox or PS5 shall be introduced earlier than the top of this 12 months.
5. Lastly (one other very longshot), I predict that we are going to see at the very least two further online game streaming companies commercially out there to players earlier than the top of 2023. This house appears to be gaining appreciable momentum and whereas gaming machines are nonetheless very fashionable I see a future the place individuals are taking part in extra AAA titles by means of their TVs and different units.

Jugando en Linux

JugandoenLinux is the reference for Linux Gaming within the Spanish Language. That’s what they’d in thoughts for 2023:

1. Valve will announce a VR system primarily based on SteamOS, that gained’t require a PC
2. Valve pronounces the Steam Controller 2
3. Epic offers official assist for Linux on the EGS and places Heroic Video games Launcher out of enterprise
4. Lastly, GOG annouces official Linux assist for GOG Galaxy
5. The Steam Linux Gaming user-base reaches 2%

Chris Had been

My title is Chris Had been, and I’m a Fediverse person. I additionally generally make movies on YouTube and now TikTok (@ludo_chris). I did very poorly with my predictions last year; let’s hope 2023 is healthier.

1. OpenMW will merge the multiplayer forks into its principal department, which is able to imply that a complete bunch of latest folks will begin taking part in Morrowind multiplayer. Non-FOSS and non-Linux gaming YouTubers and Twitch streamers shall be placing out movies of individuals having enjoyable and breaking the sport in multiplayer.
2. The Steam Deck will proceed to expertise regular development in reputation following the announcement of a brand new launch, which shall be an incremental enchancment and a refined model of the Steam Deck.
3. Ubuntu has misplaced its high spot because the gaming Linux platform. Regardless of Canonical’s try to bolster its standing as a gaming platform, it’ll stay in second place.
4. Canonical will try so as to add proprietary video games to the Snap retailer on the market in an try to legitimize it to customers. It will fail to realize any traction for the platform. Flathub will even begin promoting video games; it’ll be off to a sluggish begin however could achieve little traction within the coming years since Itch.io has already made an honest title for itself as a Steam different. Neither platform will come near difficult Itch.io and definitely not Steam.
5. The Boiling Steam Twitter account will develop into inactive by the top of the 12 months. Both Twitter will fold, or they are going to cease posting as a result of the platform has develop into too terrible.

Observe us on Twitter or Mastodon to remain updated with our content material in addition to the quite a few additional information we share each week with our followers!

Luke Quick

Luke Quick is the creator of winesapOS, a Gross sales Engineer @VMware (whereas he could have modified jobs just lately), a Linux gamer, a cloud native developer, and naturally an open supply advocate. His predictions for 2023 are as follows:

1. Mature Vulkan drivers on Arm.

Vulkan drivers utilized by Broadcom (v3dv for the Raspberry Pi 4) and Mali (panvk for Rock Pi and different Arm chips) drivers will lastly obtain Vulkan 1.3 assist this 12 months. They’ll be pretty much as good because the Adreno driver (turnip for Qualcomm telephones) driver which is rock strong due to Collabora. This additionally opens the best way to make use of Zink for units which have incomplete OpenGL drivers.

2. Apple Silicon graphics drivers getting OpenGL 4.6 working.

On the finish of final 12 months, the Asahi Linux venture had partial OpenGL 2 working. Lately, they received OpenGL 3 working. I believe it’s potential for full OpenGL assist to be added to the brand new “agx” driver in Mesa. The “agxv” Vulkan driver will even be began and printed earlier than the top of the 12 months however gained’t be usable.

3. Extra Arm gaming.

Extra AAA titles and numerous x86 engaged on Arm units due to FEX-Emu, Box64, and Hangover. It will partly rely on the Raspberry Pi normalizing which the corporate stated ought to occur within the second half of 2023. That’ll open the doorways once more to be extra accessible for group testing now that the software program is maturing. The Steam Deck helps a bit greater than 80% of Steam video games. I predict that half of that, 40% of Steam video games, will work on Arm units which have Vulkan 1.3 assist.

4. Ubuntu tries to drop 32-bit utility assist. Once more.

Now that Steam is a Snap, Canonical’s purpose of containerizing Steam’s 32-bit dependencies is full. The host working system not requires legacy 32-bit libraries. They stated they’d solely preserve across the 32-bit libraries that Steam wanted and work on a containerized answer for the long-term. Snap is that answer. Ubuntu 23.10 often is the first launch to drop 32-bit DEB packages.

5. Linux on Linux 64-bit (LoL64, related in idea to WoW64) infrastructure.

Linux wants higher 32-bit assist on programs with 64-bit. Particularly with out the necessity to construct and distribute 32-bit Linux binaries. So far as I’m conscious, a venture like this doesn’t exist but. I predict a brand new venture will come alongside this 12 months to fill on this area of interest. Presumably made in partnership with Canonical.

Corben Dallas

I’m a software program engineer from Germany, studied laptop science and began to work full time within the IT 2007, working with embedded C programming for ARM units and now full stack internet improvement with MVC frameworks like Laravel.

The hassle that Valve has put into Linux gaming has all labored in direction of the Steam Deck, so I assume it’s okay if most predictions are associated to the Steam Deck:

1. SteamOS as a brand new Arch Linux primarily based distribution on Desktops and different gaming units

We see this already taking place with the group pushed holoiso, although at the moment solely working correctly with AMD GPUs. Most likely this shall be expanded to nVidia as nicely. Valve said they want to see SteamOS on extra units. Having a ready-to-use Distribution, with gaming focus and nonetheless be usable by the not-so-well-versed (Linux) person might be turning level for folks to present it a strive.

2. Steam Deck as Desktop alternative

Valve is proud of the success of the Steam Deck, their crew is motivated to enhance the expertise, and although it’s primarily a gaming gadget, it’s also a (Linux) PC. However it lacks some options to have it primarily as a Desktop PC if folks select to, e.g. at the moment a characteristic for battery “saving” is lacking if you happen to use the Deck primarily docked (so it retains the battery between 40% and 60% to extend lifespan), booting into Desktop mode wants additional steps. However I additionally hope we see options like a 1:1 mirror of the gaming mode when docked or hooked up to an exterior monitor (at the moment it’s utilizing the decision of the exterior monitor).

3. Steam Deck in retail shops

Thus far the Deck has solely been bought through Valve’s retailer web page, besides in sure Asian areas (Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea), the place they’re promoting the Deck through a neighborhood associate. With Valve having the ability to have the Deck in inventory, they’ll now begin promoting it in retail shops, which is able to enhance its attain much more. Which suggests extra Linux players!

See Also

The Artwork of Communication Design: Intro | by Melinda Seckington | Oct, 2023

4. Valve will encourage devs to construct native Linux variations

Through the announcement of the Deck, they stated devs don’t have to fret a lot about Deck compatibility, as Proton will care for it. In addition they stated it wasn’t but the time to speak about Linux variations. 2023 it’s the time! It will enhance demand of devs to have the ability to do that with the frequent Sport engines. So the Engine instruments will enhance and make it less difficult to create native variations for different platforms, particularly for the Deck and Linux. The dream of a one-click export shall come nearer!

5. Reaching 2% on the Steam {hardware} survey

Most likely not, however I’m out of concepts and my latest predictions haven’t come true actually. 2% will finally occur, most likely not this 12 months although. Identical for the Deckard, we’ll see extra on it, extra work behind the scenes shining to the floor for us to witness, however an official announcement might be nonetheless a couple of years out and they’re at the moment having their give attention to the Deck.

Sirmikester

Sirmikester works on Linux-based software program & units (sirmikester@mastodon.social). He steadily discusses Linux-gaming associated subjects, and he predicts the next for 2023:

1. Steam deck customers will make up > 30% of all Linux customers on Steam, Steam’s total OS market share will go > 2% by the top of the 12 months
2. A serious recreation developer/writer will add Proton to its record of formally supported configurations
3. Valve will announce official/beta Steam assist for ARM64, enabling it to work natively on latest Macbooks, Android telephones with desktop modes (e.g. Samsung DEX) and ARM-based Linux units (e.g. RaspberryPi)
4. Steam will come out of BETA for Chrome OS, however adoption shall be comparatively low given a scarcity of excessive finish gaming {hardware}.
5. (Wishful Considering) Activision/Blizzard will launch a Battle.Internet shopper for Linux, and undertake Proton/Wine for compatibility throughout its portfolio of video games.

The Boiling Steam Employees

And now let’s transfer to our personal predictions! We’ll begin with our latest crew member, Nils.

Nils

1. Nobara Mission will develop into a preferred gaming/content material creator distro. Metrics: we’re going to see extra of it on protondb, and it’ll enhance positions on distrowatch (it simply appeared for the primary time), presumably passing garuda, and attain 5k folks subscribed to their Reddit web page by the top of the 12 months.
2. No new handheld gadget shall be launched with SteamOS out of the field. (however some would possibly supply assist). 0 new units by the top of the 12 months.
3. For each single month of steam {hardware} survey, Nvidia will nonetheless be on high of AMD if you happen to low cost steam deck GPU.
4. Ubisoft will patch a few of their video games on steam to work with proton (due to deck). By the top of the 12 months, I anticipate to see For Honor (EAC) first, then Six Siege final (as a result of they’re comfortable with their numbers). Properly, until they forgot to fireplace the individuals who received them in NFTs, to desert steam and no matter they’re doing to report loses each single 12 months in addition to sizeable gross income.
5. I’ll play 100 totally different video games on Linux by the top of the 12 months, I believe lower than 10 will fail, and fewer than 5 won’t have a repair by the top of the 12 months.

Patola

1. Within the first half of the 12 months, Valve will launch a brand new non-VR recreation within the half-life universe;
2. Linux will cross the three% mark on Valve {Hardware} Survey till the top of the Yr;
3. Microsoft will launch a XBox moveable console by the top of the Yr.
4. An enormous AAA writer will launch a recreation that’s native Linux with dxvk-native, in order that it runs on the Deck
5. One of many huge cloud publishers (Xbox Cloud, Ps Now, GeForce Now) will begin supporting VR through cloud (earlier than the top of the 12 months).

Podiki

1. The Steam Deck shall be out there by means of at the very least one main retailer, together with in-person brick and mortar shops with demo items. And in time for vacation buying in December.
2. Valve will announce a brand new VR headset by the top of the 12 months, but it surely gained’t be out there in 2023. The most important improve to the Index shall be wi-fi assist and a brand new monitoring system (not simply base stations for the controllers).
3. Together with that, Valve will open supply (most of) SteamVR for others to make use of, and for the group to lastly repair long-standing bugs. This shall be introduced with the brand new headset.
4. Linux numbers on Steam will proceed to extend, however slowly. I believe we’ll break the 1.5% degree by the top of summer season, and hover round there by 12 months’s finish.

Eki

I did pretty badly in 2022 in terms of accuracy, let’s hope I might enhance a bit this 12 months.

1. Valve pronounces a refresh/revision for the Steam Deck, that doesn’t essentially change its capabilities however builds on it (bigger battery? modified shell?) primarily based on the top person suggestions.
2. Linux passes at the very least as soon as the two% market share on Steam earlier than the top of the 12 months.
3. Box86 and Box64 could have near full assist by the top of the 12 months on the RISC-V structure – and you will notice quite a few Home windows video games working on it (low-end just for now).
4. Regardless of the sooner rumors, Valve won’t enterprise into the stand-alone VR headsets for now, as a result of the market isn’t mature but, and Steam VR for Linux has a protracted option to go as nicely.
5. Proton will develop into an extra construct goal for at the very least one middleware engine (for instance Unity, or Godot?), with the premice that if you happen to goal Proton, the sport will run each on Home windows and on the Steam Deck with out compatibility points.

What’s Subsequent?

We’ll reconnect on the finish of the 12 months to examine once more how the whole lot turned out. However earlier than that, we will even situation the highest mixed predictions (so long as there was some commonality within the above) and see in the event that they fare higher than the person ones, too!

Your predictions?

It’s now or by no means if you happen to additionally need to be part of the prediction recreation – remark under with 5 statements and we shall be completely satisfied to think about them as nicely for rankings later within the 12 months!

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