OEM interoperability/functionality guarantee
The last big game dev holdouts will agree to target Linux if the PC userbase jumps significantly and Valve guarantees a standard expectation with technology with things like rolling kernel, latest libs, steam functionality, etc.
There’s still a lot of stupidly annoying things that are missing like proper wayland (valve->frog) and its resultant features like HDR, VRR, etc.
The linux packaging problem from 20 years ago is still a problem (albeit much less) which Torvalds himself mentioned Valve would just say “screw it” and bypass/solve the problem via Steam (which they did). The issue is the remainder. Kernel updates are all over the place depending on distro. Everything Ubuntu is technically out of date because SteamOS uses Arch. Fedora gets you closer at least.
It’s really just that OEM guarantee that would get it moving quicker. Although it might not even happen tbh, Valve said they weren’t that interested in competing against Microsoft which makes sense because its still the primary OS of their customer base.
Checked and no they haven’t lol.
I don’t think this used to be an issue because I used to use desktop icon launchers in the past, which makes it weird that it somehow changed. I think maybe after the big new UI update?