For the Steam Machine to vary PC gaming, Valve should resolve Linux’s anti-cheat drawback

Following months of rumors, Valve lastly introduced the brand new Steam Machine earlier this week. And whereas I would query the corporate’s determination to ship a system with solely 8GB of VRAM in 2026, I consider the “Gabecube” will do extra for PC gaming than something Microsoft has finished within the final decade.

With SteamOS and Linux, Valve has polished away most of the issues that make PC gaming unapproachable to some folks. Want to set a body restrict to increase your Steam Deck’s battery life? It’s an easy-to-find possibility within the Performance overlay, not one thing you have to dig via a number of menus to search out. Want to droop a sport? That’s attainable on SteamOS.

And now with the Steam Machine, Valve is poised to deliver the enjoyable of PC gaming to a completely new viewers: residence console avid gamers. Even although I do not plan to purchase one, selfishly I hope it is a runaway success. Like loads of PC avid gamers I think about, I’m prepared to go away Windows behind. Over the previous couple of years, Microsoft has confirmed to be a poor steward of the platform. The firm appears extra considering pushing AI options few take care of, relatively than fixing the problems which have plagued Windows for years. After all, it was solely lately that Microsoft mentioned it will deal with shader stutter, an issue that has plagued many latest AAA video games. Worse but, that answer might take years to totally implement.

I would like the Steam Machine to be the revolution that brings SteamOS to desktop PCs, however earlier than that may occur, Valve should resolve Linux’s dishonest drawback. Right now, the Steam Deck covers two of the three pillars of PC gaming: indies and singleplayer AAA video games. For some folks, that is sufficient, however it leaves out an enormous part of the PC market. Nearly 4 years after its launch, you possibly can’t play a few of the hottest aggressive video games, and it is all due to how simple it’s to make dishonest software program for Linux-based working programs.

In a 2024 interview with The Verge, Riot’s Phillip Koskinas summarized the difficulty concisely. “You can freely manipulate the kernel, and there’s no user mode calls to attest that it’s even genuine,” he instructed the outlet. “You could make a Linux distribution that’s purpose-built for cheating and we’d be smoked.”

When Valve launched the Steam Deck at first of 2022, there was some hope video games like Fortnite and Rainbow Six Siege would ultimately be playable on the hand-held, and for some time issues appeared constructive. Toward the tip of 2021, Valve introduced Proton compatibility with BattlEye. A number of months later, the corporate did the identical for Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat. There’s additionally Valve’s in-house answer, VAC, which is absolutely supported and means the corporate’s personal video games, together with Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2, are playable on Steam Deck.

However, regardless of Valve’s help for a few of the hottest anti-cheat options available on the market, many studios selected to not deliver their aggressive video games to SteamOS, citing dishonest issues. Some notable examples embody Fortnite, Valorant and PUBG. Those video games have by no means been playable on Steam Deck. In truth, final fall EA withdrew Linux and Steam Deck help for Apex Legends, one of many few aggressive shooters you may play on Valve’s handheld.

“In our efforts to combat cheating in Apex, we’ve identified Linux OS as being a path for a variety of impactful exploits and cheats. As a result, we’ve decided to block Linux OS access to the game,” the corporate mentioned on the time. “We believe the decision will meaningfully reduce instances of cheating in our game.”

For EA, Riot, Epic and builders of different well-liked aggressive video games, the difficulty is two-fold: Cheating software program is more durable to detect when it is used on Linux. More importantly, for a lot of of them there aren’t sufficient Linux gamers to justify the sources wanted to safe their video games for each Linux distribution. For instance, when Riot made its Vanguard software program a requirement to play League of Legends in 2024, the studio mentioned there have been simply over 800 each day customers taking part in the sport on Linux. For context, tens of millions of individuals League on daily basis. Put one other manner, it is a hen and egg drawback.

The Steam Machine represents a chance for Valve. According to Are We Anti-Cheat Yet, a crowd-sourced database itemizing video games that require anti-cheat software program and whether or not they work via Linux or Valve’s Proton compatibility layer, 682 video games do not work for one motive or one other. That means greater than half of the 1,136 video games that require anti-cheat software program cannot be performed on SteamOS.

With the character of Linux being what it’s, it is unlikely Valve may make even the preferred kernel-level anti-cheat apps work throughout each Linux distribution, and based mostly on the corporate’s strategy, it does not have an curiosity in doing that. However, if Valve made a greater sandbox for builders to safe their video games, we may completely see a SteamOS model of Valorant, as an illustration.

Studios will go the place their gamers are. The Steam Deck has confirmed that. And if the Steam Machine turns into well-liked sufficient to warrant corporations like EA to deliver their video games to SteamOS and Linux, the PC gaming panorama will abruptly be very completely different.