You escape one walled garden only to find another waiting for you at the gate, wearing a Proton badge and pretending it's open‑source.

The storefront lock‑in problem is worse on Linux, not better. On Windows, you can at least run DRM‑heavy titles, kernel‑level anti‑cheat, proprietary launchers, weird middleware, ancient DirectX versions and games with bizarre installers.

On Linux, you're almost forced into Steam (and their 30% tax) and other storefronts through Heroic. You don't escape the storefront; you depend more on it. Steam becomes your compatibility layer, your runtime, your update manager, your sandbox, your controller mapper, your shader compiler, your translation layer, your save sync, your everything.

If Valve ever changes direction, gets acquired, loses interest, pivots to cloud gaming, or stops maintaining Proton; Linux gaming collapses overnight. -You're bound by corporate infrastructure on Linux.