They’ve been separate desktop environments from the start. From top to bottom they share nearly nothing. The compositors, window managers, toolkits and shells are all different.

They also are ideologically opposed. If they merged, which direction would they go? The more feature-rich KDE? Or the more streamlined Gnome? Such a merger would lead to infighting and stagnation.

This is before even talking about the actual code underlying both environments.

I think it’s better for everyone if they stay as two separate projects.

My guess is that some genres are going to be more problematic due to more extensive use of anti cheat. What are some of the games you’re having trouble with?