As you might imagine, this could create compatibility problems going forward. Even if things don't break right away, there's no guarantee that Steam or specific games will run properly. The cutoff may cause problems for other game platforms, too. Phoronix noted that Canonical's Alan Pope had problems playing GOG titles under Ubuntu 19.10 without the 32-bit packages.

Things might improve in the long run. However, there isn't much time when Canonical is expected to freeze feature development for 19.10 in August. Unless the Ubuntu team changes course, some Linux users might deal with headaches across their gaming libraries -- especially if they're dependent on Steam.