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Unity announce expanded support for Steam, Native Linux, Steam Deck and Steam Machine
(www.gamingonlinux.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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Linux Gaming
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Cool. Native Linux support from a big name like Unity likely means they see Linux as a real player in the market.
Now if only Unreal would do the same, but we'll have to wait for Tim Sweeny to get his head out of his ass first.
You'll be waiting a while.
That said, fuck unity for trying to pull some bullshit with their licensing before the deserved shitstorm. Godot all the way. I hope they expand on the 3D capabilities.
Fun story, I know some of the engineers who worked on that exact Unity item. They were trying to make a very flexible billing system, so that it could be configured by business/marketing at a more personal level, and built it in a way that hopefully it would make it easier on users of Unity. For engineers here, think a purely config/DB driven way to bill, so if they wanted to say apply discounts or anything it would be a flip of an admin panel. It was a rules engine that you had any number of data points that you could use. From an engineering standpoint, it was a noble goal.
However, they handed it over to business, and yup, you guessed it, the MBAs and marketers saw it and immediately went to worst case scenarios. Engineers had no idea it'd be used that way. Installation was one of many metrics that billing could be tied to but it was never designed to. It didn't matter. The rest of the story is known. Those in charge took something that was meant to ease things for small developers and decided to use it against them. Unity lost all credibility, and my friends, the ones who helped build it, were all laid off.
Moral of the story. If you're an engineer, never go above and beyond. Never build more than what you are required to. You may have the best intentions, but there are people who will only see the worst ways to use what you build.
Fascinating insight. I do wonder how many of those mba/marketers were influential vs.... fucking John Riccitello.
Riccitello smelled money and no matter how many people explained in small words and crayon diagrams it would kill them, he pursued it anyway.
We gotta get that bread somehow :/
By taking away bread and security from others, with extra steps?
It is our collective propsenity to shrug at the inevitability of the system that makes the system inevitable.
They will, but they have a lot fewer people and they need to deal with slop PRs now. I do not envy them.
I strongly suspect over the long term a smaller team is going to get more shipped than what unity was flailing at - for all the things that get delivered how much is implemented accessibly (ecs etc) or rolled back because it never worked? For example, their URP consolidation on the unity side.
Also, would predict Bastiaan is going to deliver more XR stuff on Godot than Unity will manage in the next few years as well.
The slop contributor problem is real but my money is on Godot long term.
UE hat excellent Linux support. They need it for VFX production because that world runs on RHEL. Epic and their licensors just don't care for Linux games.
Both UE and Unity have supported both native Linux builds and developing on Linux for as long as I can remember. Has something changed recently? It's been a couple years since I've done this.
I've been doing my VRChat avatars (Unity 2019 and now 2023) on Linux for years. Not sure what changes here as Unity Editor had a Linux native version for quite some time, as well as being able to make Linux native games
I'm literally using unreal on Linux daily my dude. And you can see export on Linux package from the windows editor too.
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/linux
Btw Tencent has a 40%(and other companies) in Epic Games so its not just Tim Sweeney.
He's explicitly been against Linux adoption. Tencent has not made any aggressive comments against Linux that I'm aware of, but it you know of any, do share!
i think i also seen Tencent not allow Linux users to play their Video Games(through Riot games)
I hope both engines rot.
Works for me, but I'd also like to see more Linux adoption, and Unity offering native support might mean businesses will shift away from Microsoft.
I agree.
~~Unreal Engine 5 has a Linux native version though, unless you're talking about things like feature parity with Windows~~
I've been corrected in a reply
Its broken as fuck and doesn't really work.
If you mean trying to run the engine, to do game development, on linux.
Its a half-baked after thought.
O3DE arguably more fully actually 'works', on linux now, than UE 5 does.
Given that Unity and Unreal have the same owners, their asset stores have been consolidated, and Unity discontinued its HDRP branch/render pipeline...
Yeah, Unity is now Unreal Engine, Little Bro Edition.
That does not appear to be correct. Unity is owned by Unity Technologies (CEO Matthew Bromberg), whereas Unreal is owned by Epic Games (CEO Tim Sweeny).
Care to clarify what you mean?
FAB is the merger of the Unreal Asset Store, Quixel, and Sketchfab, which increasingly has more and more Unity assets on it.
Unity is no longer doing HDRP.
Unity is also generally financially floundering.
Tencent owns 40% of Unreal.
Tencent bails out financially floundering gaming companies by purchasing significant controlling stakes in those companies.
... conclusion:
Tencent owns a large share of Unity, we just don't know about it officially/publically yet.
Large known investors in Unity include:
Vanguard
BlackRock
Sequoia Capital
Silver Lake Technology Management
Wellington Capital Management
... all of these either literally are Private Credit/Equity firms, or they have significant exposure to Private Credit/Equity firms.
At the moment, and over the last 6 months roughly... Private Credit/Equity firms are basically all undergoing the Private Credit/Equity equivalent of a bank run.
They need cash NOW, so they sell to Tencent, Tencent establishes said controlling or at least substantial position, starts giving orders to Unity.
Thus, Tencent owns substantial parts of both Unreal and Unity.
.... but thats just a GAME theory!!!
rofls
I mean it's funny, but in no way reality.
tencent wants to make money no matter who wins.
tencent wants engines to run AAA games and mobile games. so that investment makes sense. but they don't own either.
also, unity selling out to tencent would make some sense, and unity's board of directors won't all that to happen (see unity's past perf).
so no, you're just making shit up. it's funny but not real.
no it doesn't. show me one 'unity' asset on the fab store.
there are artists and devs who provide stuff to BOTH storefronts, but that doesn't mean Unity is putting Unity assets on FAB.
lolol wtf are you talking about?
how did I miss this, please, explain.