Killed Linux gaming? I hard disagree with that. Yes developers may not do Native ports as often anymore but I would much rather have the ability to play games that are not considered a native Port because the ocean is so much vaster. If anything proton in the steam deck put Linux on the map, prior to the deck AAA titles you would never see running on Linux you barely saw AA titles on it. However with the introduction of the steam deck in proton we now have companies moving closer to at least making sure their game is compatible with the deck which is one step closer to allowing it to be Linux compatible. It allows you to take your windows games and for the most part just be able to play it without having to have the studio spend as much for it as they would with a native port, because that’s the number one thing that holds them back from making a native Port the lack of market share. I would not have switched off of Windows if this was not the case because that was basically the only thing that was holding me on Windows still was the lack of decent gaming support
Let’s take Elden Ring for example, it plays beautifully I haven’t had a single problem playing it. They weren’t going to release a Linux branch but they made sure it was steamdeck compatible, which meant that it was proton compatible which then allows me to play this amazing game on my Debian 12, a game that otherwise would not have worked because none of the other translation layers function with it. I notice zero difference in performance it plays flawlessly, but I would not have been able to play this game otherwise. It might as well be a native Port because I’ve had zero issues with functionality.