The Linux community is one full of passion. From the outside it may seem strange why a small percentage of people around the world care so much about an operating system, after all it's merely a tool or set of tools used to complete certain tasks.
For many of us it isn’t that simple however, and we have a multitude and wide variety of reasons which drive us to support Linux in the way we do. Be it contributing code, running websites like this one or simply advocating the OS and showing its greatness to others.
Some have different views to others, some may insist on calling it GNU/Linux and may insist on only using free software, while others may be less ideologically inclined and simply use Linux because it's the best operating system out there. What unites all these people is the operating system and the desire for it to succeed, seeing it widely adopted or improving in many areas.
In fact, this desire for success and to show the world that we exist has led many of us to take regrettable actions, ranging from abusiveness in forums to insulting the CEO of a major game development company or even going as far as threatening developers who aren’t supporting the platform.
In the gaming world, what often makes many of us flip out most (or the more level headed among us, respond in a constructive manner) is when two simple facts are stated:
1 - Linux only accounts for a small percentage of the desktop market.
2 - Many Linux gamers dual boot or have access to a Windows machine.
While there is not a huge amount we can do about the first of these two points, the second is one which always perplexes me considering it's so simple to amend. If there are so many of us who care so greatly about Linux succeeding (often to the point where we act immaturely) then why do so many of us commit the “cardinal sin” of the Linux world and use Windows?
When I set out to do the GOL survey, one of the things I expected was the number of dual booters to slowly decline as more games come out. In June of last year there were 500 Linux games on Steam. Since then, that number has risen to 1000 and we’ve had huge games like CS:GO, Dying Light, Borderlands 2, Dead Island, Civilization: BE and many AAA games right round the corner.
Despite this, and despite the passions which surround Linux, our survey has shown no significant change in the amount of people dual booting or who have a Windows partition, unlike the amount of people using Wine which seems to be showing signs of declining. In many ways, it seems as if while Linux gaming is making leaps and bounds, Linux gamers are standing still.
.png)
The controversial phrase “Sie wissen das nicht, aber sie tun es” (they do not know it, but still they do it) from Das Kapital comes to mind, though condescending and completely incorrect in this case. Dual booting is far more cynical, a case of “they know very well what they are doing, but still they do it”.
We are all fully aware that the thought of Linux users dual booting and using Wine as a motive not to port a game to Linux has crossed the minds of many developers and even though we may badly want that game on our OS of choice, we still choose to be part of that percentage which makes that argument a valid one.
So why this doublethink? With the recent case of the WoW petition, it is a certainty that all those signing the petition who play WoW do so either on Windows or through Wine. It is easy to see how Blizzard CEO said what he said:
From his perspective, why should he spend money on porting a game to a platform when nearly all the people who would benefit from it are customers already? The irony of the petition is that its very existence also negates its purpose (unless, of course, Linux users were to abandon Blizzard altogether).
As much as I personally loathe the idea, the unavoidable fact is that we do live in a global free market which defines culture as an industry and decides who gets access to that culture based primarily on the profit motive. Culture, in this case, is video games and to many companies giving Linux users access to that culture does not fall within the worldview of putting profit above all else.
It is somewhat presumptuous to state to people whose lives are dictated by this fundamental premise that they are wrong in their conclusions. Simply put, yes 2% (or thereabouts) may be worth it to many developers financially, but when taking into account that with a game like WoW many (if not most) of their potential 2% like the game enough to sacrifice their principles in order to play it, then the rigid logic of the free market implies that WoW (and games like it) will never come to Linux so long as those individuals continue to choose the game over the operating system.
In essence, that 2% in many cases is non-existent and rather than being its own separate "market segment", developers like Blizzard will continue to see it as a percentage of the Windows market which also happens to use Linux on the side, that is, until people stop dual booting. Simply put, there is a significantly higher chance of games getting ported if users use Linux and Linux alone.
Thoughts and suggestions
The intention of this article isn’t to tell people what to do or to shout people down for not thinking in the same way as I do (in fact, if I see discussion heading in that direction, I may well see to it that comments are deleted). The intention is to create a debate surrounding a few simple questions to which there are no right and wrong answers:
- Why do you dual boot?
- Do you see yourself first as a gamer, then as a Linux user?
- Are the 1000+ games on Steam and hundreds more on other sites still not enough for you to be a 100% Linux gamer?
- If you feel so passionately about Linux that you’ll take questionable actions to defend it, then why not do the most simple thing and stop gaming on Windows?
- As someone with a tendency towards a specific genre, do you feel the current Linux suggestion doesn't cater to your gaming needs?
Ideally, I would like to see the number of dual booters decline after reaching some sort of consensus that it would be in all our best interests. I see myself as a Linux user first and a gamer second, and haven’t had Windows on a single computer since ~2008. However, I bear no animosity towards those who think differently. If all that comes of this article is an enlightening debate surrounding these issues and perhaps leads others to oppose the statements made in this article through other articles or through comments, then I’ll still be more than happy.
Even though I may have my own views as to how things should progress which may differ from those of others, I think we can all agree that being respectful, helpful and constructive goes a long way - be it to each other or to the developers which are (or aren't) porting our games. Though dual booting might not be something will (or maybe even should) disappear overnight, aggression and abuse certainly should. Likewise, the same goes for buying Linux games before porting - something which has been repeated and discussed time and time again. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
For many of us it isn’t that simple however, and we have a multitude and wide variety of reasons which drive us to support Linux in the way we do. Be it contributing code, running websites like this one or simply advocating the OS and showing its greatness to others.
Some have different views to others, some may insist on calling it GNU/Linux and may insist on only using free software, while others may be less ideologically inclined and simply use Linux because it's the best operating system out there. What unites all these people is the operating system and the desire for it to succeed, seeing it widely adopted or improving in many areas.
In fact, this desire for success and to show the world that we exist has led many of us to take regrettable actions, ranging from abusiveness in forums to insulting the CEO of a major game development company or even going as far as threatening developers who aren’t supporting the platform.
In the gaming world, what often makes many of us flip out most (or the more level headed among us, respond in a constructive manner) is when two simple facts are stated:
1 - Linux only accounts for a small percentage of the desktop market.
2 - Many Linux gamers dual boot or have access to a Windows machine.
While there is not a huge amount we can do about the first of these two points, the second is one which always perplexes me considering it's so simple to amend. If there are so many of us who care so greatly about Linux succeeding (often to the point where we act immaturely) then why do so many of us commit the “cardinal sin” of the Linux world and use Windows?
When I set out to do the GOL survey, one of the things I expected was the number of dual booters to slowly decline as more games come out. In June of last year there were 500 Linux games on Steam. Since then, that number has risen to 1000 and we’ve had huge games like CS:GO, Dying Light, Borderlands 2, Dead Island, Civilization: BE and many AAA games right round the corner.
Despite this, and despite the passions which surround Linux, our survey has shown no significant change in the amount of people dual booting or who have a Windows partition, unlike the amount of people using Wine which seems to be showing signs of declining. In many ways, it seems as if while Linux gaming is making leaps and bounds, Linux gamers are standing still.
The controversial phrase “Sie wissen das nicht, aber sie tun es” (they do not know it, but still they do it) from Das Kapital comes to mind, though condescending and completely incorrect in this case. Dual booting is far more cynical, a case of “they know very well what they are doing, but still they do it”.
We are all fully aware that the thought of Linux users dual booting and using Wine as a motive not to port a game to Linux has crossed the minds of many developers and even though we may badly want that game on our OS of choice, we still choose to be part of that percentage which makes that argument a valid one.
So why this doublethink? With the recent case of the WoW petition, it is a certainty that all those signing the petition who play WoW do so either on Windows or through Wine. It is easy to see how Blizzard CEO said what he said:
Michael MorhaimeLinux usage represents less than 2% of installed desktop operating systems browsing the web, and I would assume most of those people also have access to a Windows or Mac device capable of playing Blizzard games.
From his perspective, why should he spend money on porting a game to a platform when nearly all the people who would benefit from it are customers already? The irony of the petition is that its very existence also negates its purpose (unless, of course, Linux users were to abandon Blizzard altogether).
As much as I personally loathe the idea, the unavoidable fact is that we do live in a global free market which defines culture as an industry and decides who gets access to that culture based primarily on the profit motive. Culture, in this case, is video games and to many companies giving Linux users access to that culture does not fall within the worldview of putting profit above all else.
It is somewhat presumptuous to state to people whose lives are dictated by this fundamental premise that they are wrong in their conclusions. Simply put, yes 2% (or thereabouts) may be worth it to many developers financially, but when taking into account that with a game like WoW many (if not most) of their potential 2% like the game enough to sacrifice their principles in order to play it, then the rigid logic of the free market implies that WoW (and games like it) will never come to Linux so long as those individuals continue to choose the game over the operating system.
In essence, that 2% in many cases is non-existent and rather than being its own separate "market segment", developers like Blizzard will continue to see it as a percentage of the Windows market which also happens to use Linux on the side, that is, until people stop dual booting. Simply put, there is a significantly higher chance of games getting ported if users use Linux and Linux alone.
Thoughts and suggestions
The intention of this article isn’t to tell people what to do or to shout people down for not thinking in the same way as I do (in fact, if I see discussion heading in that direction, I may well see to it that comments are deleted). The intention is to create a debate surrounding a few simple questions to which there are no right and wrong answers:
- Why do you dual boot?
- Do you see yourself first as a gamer, then as a Linux user?
- Are the 1000+ games on Steam and hundreds more on other sites still not enough for you to be a 100% Linux gamer?
- If you feel so passionately about Linux that you’ll take questionable actions to defend it, then why not do the most simple thing and stop gaming on Windows?
- As someone with a tendency towards a specific genre, do you feel the current Linux suggestion doesn't cater to your gaming needs?
Ideally, I would like to see the number of dual booters decline after reaching some sort of consensus that it would be in all our best interests. I see myself as a Linux user first and a gamer second, and haven’t had Windows on a single computer since ~2008. However, I bear no animosity towards those who think differently. If all that comes of this article is an enlightening debate surrounding these issues and perhaps leads others to oppose the statements made in this article through other articles or through comments, then I’ll still be more than happy.
Even though I may have my own views as to how things should progress which may differ from those of others, I think we can all agree that being respectful, helpful and constructive goes a long way - be it to each other or to the developers which are (or aren't) porting our games. Though dual booting might not be something will (or maybe even should) disappear overnight, aggression and abuse certainly should. Likewise, the same goes for buying Linux games before porting - something which has been repeated and discussed time and time again. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
0 Likes
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
All posts need to follow our rules. For users logged in: please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Guest readers can email us for any issues.
Patreon
PayPal
How to install GE-Proton on Steam Deck, SteamOS, Linux
Edit: As the comments on this article kind of remind me of some organisation that may be safely called "Linux Anonymous" I think it would be appropriate to start with:
"Hello, my name is Pavel and I'm proud to say that I've been Windows free for 2 years and Wine free pretty much for all my life." (Hehe, I know I'm not funny)
I think if there was a prize for the most ridiculous reason to dual boot it would most definitely go to me. My laptop came with Windows 8 pre-installed (included in the price for sure) and I still keep a small partition with that untouched installation as I'd feel like I'm donating money to Microsoft.
Another reason I guess is how minimal I am on storage space having more than 700GB free space out of 1TB (including that Windows partition) so formatting the partition wouldn't really do much for me though next month I'm buying an 240GB SSD and Windows won't be getting there.
Then again I guess I'm in quite a privileged position being a student in the UK as last year .odf was voted as the national standard as well as my whole college running on Macs using OpenOffice.
A bit of background; I decided back in October to move away from Windows and to return to Linux. My reason was rather complex but the part of it was that I wanted to start focusing more on Linux (and Unix) administration as over the years I have found that I have become more of a Windows admin and while I've always worked with Linux in some form it wasn't at the level I desired.
At first I started off by planing to drop my gaming rig completely and convert it into a hyper visor and instead of having a massive overclock and water cooled system as my primary machine I would use a notebook instead. So I opted for a Dell 17 7000 series notebook as it provided the large screen I liked while still begin rather slim allowing me to use it on flights without any issues.
I soon found myself back into gaming however as a means of entertainment while staying at the hotels. This is when I decided to see how far I could push the little 750M and was rather surprised to what the GPU could handle. By December I was 100% Linux and only used Windows for testing purposes on my hyper-visor.
Overall I found that staying pure Linux has been easy, something that I wouldn't have thought five plus years ago.
However the issue I am seeing now is that while more games are coming to Linux many of them are poorly optimized and in some cases there have been games that run better on wine than their native counter part. I feel that once we start getting games that are optimized for Linux we will see more people move away from dual-booting for gaming reasons.
Who knows maybe over the years as Vulkan grows we might start seeing big title games release same day on Windows, Linux and Mac and have all of them perform the same. Until then though dual-booting into Windows be something that is tempting to many Linux gamers because who doesn't want to have a smooth gaming experience?
Recently I've been working on moving over to a more powerful notebook ( in the process of being RMA'd due to hardware instability.) This has given me the opportunity to experience games I have only experienced on Linux on Windows and I could clearly see what dual-booting is attractive I even considered purchasing two mSATA SSD so that I could dual-boot because it was just that much more enjoyable (Dying Light being a great example in my case.) However I have decided that if/when my notebook is replaced I will stick with Linux and see what happens as this year looks very exciting indeed!
1.Still too much stuff isn't running on linux, even with wine. I wasn't using windows partition for a while(1 year more or less), but now I'm back to dual boot, as soon as they fix UE4 Editor for Linux, will be more then happy to go back to pure linux os.
2.I preffer to think of myself as Linux user first.
3. Don't think it will change anything. The big inflow of games to Linux lately seems to be coz of the steam project, sounds awesome and i really hope it works coz that will be good not only for them but for the whole Linux community as well, but without it I really don't think we would be seeing that many ports(or any) even if all the 2% were using only Linux. However there is one more thing here that i will mention bellow.
4. No problem with my gaming needs most of the time on Linux, I made partition for dual boot again coz of other software(game engine in this cas,however im sure they will get it stable, its already running just buggy). I'm using Wine A LOT though, I don't get why someone wouldn't. Will try to explain bellow.
Soo the other thing... World of Warcraft doesn't have native client, but it does have OpenGL rendering. Basicly OpenGL - Linux, Direct3D - Windows, So as far as I know only reaon a PC game to have OpenGL rendering is to make the game run smoother on Wine. And that it does, WoW runs a lot better on Linux for me, that it ever did on Windows(and i did run it on windows for a while too before).
Making WoW optimized for Wine basicly, so while no native client, a lot of linux gamers play happily and that blizz knows very well, The petition was for more blizz products apperantly of course, but most of the time ppl seems to be asking mostly for WoW. While it's not mentioned in the topic about blizz petition, I'm sure its counted by them, they did their part, support OpenGL now, will support Vulkan, basicly that means we can run it smoothly, at least if we are ok using wine.
I can think of other nice examples. The guys at Neverwinter MMO, they don't have OpenGL(hopefully will add someday), but when the game after 1 update stoped working on wine ppl posted in forums and they fixed it, right now works excellent on Wine again.
Or the trine 2 ppl, one of the patches made it unplayable on Wine if i remember right, they didn't really fix it but posted on the site what we can use to run it again on our OS.
One of the reasons I can't imagine signing a petition for WoW on Linux for example, we already have it on here, runs better then on Windows, I don't really need more and don't get the "no wine" attitude, gaming on linux right now imo is 90% wine and 10% hoping/waiting for ports.
It may change, with new engines more and more linux friendly and the steam guys project, but right now 1k titles isn't that much, and I think everyone can think of a lot more games they know/like/love that aren't ported then once that are. Though again if we add wine to that, looks a lot differently. In my opinion beeing a linux gamer and not using Wine, is like beeing a swimmer and trying really hard to avoid any touching of water. It can work, with proper gear, place etc. but overall - harder then it needs to be.
Just wanna say that Linux users aren't forgotten, even in some of this cases like blizzard, but the support for us is very often connected to Wine running the specific game and as that it works well. However if Linux gamers have the idea that Wine is something bad they will lose a lot more then 1000 potential games they can run very well, and here it includes MMOs etc
It may be a lot of games for Linux, but a lot of them are indie games, and I almost only play RPG, adventure and mmorpg. There aren't a lot of those games for Linux.
I also want to add that those who judge and entire community, or judge anyone because of the actions of some people have to stop doing so. I'm talking about those who judge all who use Linux because there are a few bad eggs. This is extremely unfair.
I don't
- Do you see yourself first as a gamer, then as a Linux user?
Linux user
- Are the 1000+ games on Steam and hundreds more on other sites still not enough for you to be a 100% Linux gamer?
Too many, ain't got enough time to play all games I want and which get released.
- If you feel so passionately about Linux that you’ll take questionable actions to defend it, then why not do the most simple thing and stop gaming on Windows?
I did.
- As someone with a tendency towards a specific genre, do you feel the current Linux suggestion doesn't cater to your gaming needs?
Well, MMOs are still lacking, but we'll get SotA.
When I deleted Windows last April, I found that I had booted it only twice in half a year. One time for a picture from a vetinary in a very specific format, and I think once for tax declaration.
It seems Windows survived much longer than it had to. Why? Well, I used Windows since pre-3.0 times. I guess I had hard times to imagine I could do fully without. Maybe, I would need it? Some day?
Now if it doesn't work under Linux natively (no WINE), I'm not using it.
To show publicly that I will not buy if it is not on Linux, I joined these groups:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/OnlyBuyLinuxGames
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/LinuxUsersExclusively
I DON'T dual boot and never will because Windows and Linux on one hard drive is a recipe for failure. Why, because Windows will certainly fail and when it does, you can kiss your Grub goodbye. Well, not always, but still. And you don't want windows to have "access" to your Linux partitions or the power to delete those partitions etc. However, I do need Windows for one reason only, Far Cry 4.
Instead, I have a HDD power switcher and two separate hard drives. One is my Samsung 850 Pro 1TB SSD with linux on and the other is a normal Seagate 1TB HDD with Windows 7 on. Each has it's own bootloader. On windows, it's the old MBR and on Linux, I am using Gummiboot with UEFI.
Whenever I want to play Far Cry 4 (I hate Ubisoft for not making AAA Linux games (yet)), I make sure my linux SSD is switched off. Then I make sure my Windows hdd is switched on. Then I power up my pc and there you go.
So please, on the next survey, please add an option for "I am using separate hard drives with each it's own boot loader and using a hdd power switcher to control power to them manually."
And sorry, I almost forgot about the questions:
- Why do you dual boot?
I don't. But I use seperate hdd's and seperate bootloaders so that I can play Far Cry 4.
- Do you see yourself first as a gamer, then as a Linux user?
No, Linux user first, then gamer. However, I game a lot on Linux.
- Are the 1000+ games on Steam and hundreds more on other sites still not enough for you to be a 100% Linux gamer?
Far Cry 4. One game causing me to use Windows. Literally just the one game. So no, 1000 000 games wouldn't be enough if there is one game I cannot play.
- If you feel so passionately about Linux that you’ll take questionable actions to defend it, then why not do the most simple thing and stop gaming on Windows?
I don't game on Windows, except for Far Cry 4 dammit. :-) I even have steam starting up in big picture mode on Windows just so that I can immediately launch Far Cry 4 , play and then restart my pc when I'm done.
- As someone with a tendency towards a specific genre, do you feel the current Linux suggestion doesn't cater to your gaming needs?
It caters well enough to have kept me gaming on Linux for at least the last 3 years, however, on occasion as for far Cry 4, I need to boot up windows.
I believe the "are you a gamer or linux user" thing is incorrect question to ask. Linux is an operating system, its a "means to an end" type of thing. It's like asking "are you a fan of cars, or roads". Linux, or any OS for that matter, has little inherent value in by itself, only as good as the applications that are available on it. Now, Linux does have advantages over Windows, not gonna list them cause we all know them - but in the end, the absolutely superior choice of software Windows offers cannot be compensated by them. Even further - you can get around most of disadvantages of Windows, you can improve security through 3rd party tools, and you can get around inconvenience of Windows (a lot of it is habit) - but even with Wine, you cant really use many of the software that you can use on Win reliably, and even then - the huge performance hit you take makes you wonder, why not just use Windows and suck it up.
The main issue for gaming on Linux is performance. Just reading a few articles on this site about latest releases makes it clear (not that we didn't know it) - gaming performance wise - Windows takes Linux, beats it, destroys it and dances on its grave. No questions or doubts or arguments about it - known undisputed fact. This is not a fault of Linux, or a special achievement of Windows tho. Windows was, and is, the absolutely dominant gaming platform for PC. As of right now, DirectX > OpenGL, you can bash M$ all you want, but they did managed to make it absolutely superior in every way. Far more resources was spent, and is spent on optimising engines, drivers and API for Windows than for Linux. Several orders of magnitude more. So, its not even surprising in any way. Even the inherently higher efficiency of Linux OS cannot compensate for that fact.
I myself use Windows on my main PC, and Linux on my laptop - because only Windows can actually leverage my gaming hardware to the full extent. I paid good money for GTX 970, and I want to see it working to its full potential, I bought it to get 60 fps and I will not accept less. I use Corsair M90 gaming mouse - there is no software or drivers for it for Linux, I cannot macro it there, I cannot change DPI on the fly, or use any of the advanced features that I paid for. Same goes for Logitech G510 gaming keyboard - none of the features I paid for work on Linux. Now, of course, they work when you plug them in to Linux computer, but thats about it - no macros, my built-in sound device on G510 is useless. And its the same for all of gaming periperials - at best, you will be able to take advantage of hardware macroing by booting Windows, making and saving macros on the mouse/keyboard itself (if your mouse or keyboard even have hardware macroing ability) - and then using it under Linux. And you need Windows for that, and even then - begs the question, why bother? For the sake of inferior performance and frame drops and stuttering?
I love Linux for what it is. I play many games on my Laptop - indie games, older games. Its an old machine - Gigabyte W576V, was quite capable laptop in its time, better than some low-end laptops even today. So I don't expect or find it irritating when I get bad performance - illogical to expect anything else from 5 year old laptop, and for many indie games and classics, FPS doesn't matter even for me. In fact, I can tell you this much - for gaming on older machines - Linux is absolutely superior. I tried, for the sake of interest, use Windows 7 on my laptop, and it sucked. The boot times, the huge memory and resource hog - even with better drivers and optimisation, same games worked worse on it than on Linux. But then again - my laptop is mostly for my studies, internet surfing, watching movies on my TV and stuff like that, light usage. So, I just want it to be reliable, efficient, have longer battery life and to be secure. Hence, Linux is an obvious choice. But on my main machine - thanx, but no thanx. Performance price I will pay for it, as well as lack of ability to leverage my gaming mouse and keyboard make it useless for me as OS for my gaming rig.
Hopefully, it will change somewhat. Its not a question of whether you can make make gaming experience on Linux the same, or better, than on Windows. Its just a question of how much resources are dedicated on porting the games, optimizing API/drivers, writing drivers for gaming peripherials and such. But it will be a long bumpy road. Heck, 15 years ago, gaming on Windows looked just like gaming on Linux looks today - bad drivers, lack of optimization, stability issues, horrible API. I remember having to swap drivers for my Riva TNT on a daily basis - because one driver had buggy OpenGL, another screwed the color palette in half of the games, and both of them didn't work with Test Drive 5, so I had to have 3rd driver just for that one game lol. And the same arguments were used in "Windows vs consoles for gaming" as they use today for "linux vs windows for gaming". In the end, Windows won, and modern Windows-based gaming PC wipes the floor with consoles. But it took some time, dedication and lots of money spent to get there. Back in the day, M$ made the effort, and spent money, and now they, and Windows gamers are reaping the benefits. I hope Valve will do the same for Linux.
I recently unsubscribed to WoW because of their attitude towards Linux. I was dual-booting but i think i'll get rid of windows now. no longer need it.
Why?
Because of Skyrim (10€ on Steam, couldn't resist) and Elite Dangerous....
I played Skyrim and all the DLC (apart from the vampire one) all the way through on WINE, with lots of graphics mods on my GTX 750ti. Was really stable for me!
I, using the PlayOnLinux script, installed Steam for Windows, and then installed Skyrim from within it. It runs very well indeed, along with all the Workshop content I have installed. I even installed Oblivion from within the same Steam window, and it runs perfectly. It is a bit of a crapshoot to try Windows Steam games. Some work and some don't, but it's usually worth a try.
These days, with the 1000+ Linux games on Steam, and probably hundreds more coming in the rest of 2015, there is literally no reason to dual-boot for me. I had kept my Windows partition for The Witcher 2, X-COM, Borderlands 2, Empire:Total War, and Bioshock Infinite. All except the last now have Linux versions, and Bioshock Infinite is coming Real Soon Now. Add those to Torment and Pillars of Eternity and many others Steam is promoting as coming soon to SteamOS (which is to say, coming soon to Linux), I have every reason to stay with Linux and avoid the Most Annoying OS I Have Ever Used.
As to Gamer/Linux user, I dunno if I count myself as either in the identity sense. I love games, and I feel most comfortable using Linux, although I'm an odd user in the sense that I'm not an enthusiast or really technically oriented at all. Not sure how to explain why I like Linux over Windows but in the end I do and that's what matters.