Games need to live closer to the bleeding edge than a lot of other software.
Also, for wine/proton, and the other customisations built into the deck, it makes sense to pick a starting point that is more built for customisation. By that I mean there was probably less things they needed to add or remove at the start.
As mentioned, it’s also likely there was personal bias internally. But even that can be a valid reason as they need to be familiar/comfortable with the starting distro.
Not saying that Debian cannot do it, but doing it this way probably made valve’s employees lives easier.
Games need to live closer to the bleeding edge than a lot of other software.
Also, for wine/proton, and the other customisations built into the deck, it makes sense to pick a starting point that is more built for customisation. By that I mean there was probably less things they needed to add or remove at the start.
As mentioned, it’s also likely there was personal bias internally. But even that can be a valid reason as they need to be familiar/comfortable with the starting distro.
Not saying that Debian cannot do it, but doing it this way probably made valve’s employees lives easier.