Here’s a plot twist in the Mac vs Linux gaming story.

[atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org]

Here’s a plot twist in the Mac vs Linux gaming story.

Right now, on Steam, there are actually more new games with native macOS builds than native Linux builds. Check the Coming Soon section yourself: macOS has about 1,400 upcoming titles, while Linux sits at roughly 1,100. Same story on the Popular New Releases pages.

But the bigger story is how fast this gap is closing.

Ten years ago, native Linux builds were practically a rounding error next to macOS. Mac was the secondary platform most engines targeted by default, while Linux was the weird niche you maybe exported to if someone on the team happened to be a penguin enthusiast.

Now? Thanks to Proton, Linux doesn’t even need parity in native builds anymore. Tens of thousands of Windows games work on Linux day-one, no porting required. Combine that with steady native growth and the Steam Deck effect, and Linux gaming has quietly leapfrogged macOS as a platform—even if the native numbers haven’t fully overtaken it yet.

Meanwhile, Apple has… made things worse. Killing 32-bit apps. Deprecating OpenGL. Constantly breaking compatibility. Entire libraries of older Mac games simply don’t run anymore. Native support looks good on paper, but in practice, the ecosystem is shrinking.

So the question becomes: what is Apple going to do about this? Do they care about being a relevant gaming platform? Or are they content to let the Mac slide further into irrelevance while Linux, of all things, eats their lunch?