VirtualBox isn't the best solution, since it requires 2 operating systems to run simultaneously, along with a game. Plus, you will often experience problems with the mouse not working properly.
There is a better solution. There's a program called PlayOnLinux, which is a frontend for Wine.
Here's the download link: PlayOnLinux Download
If you download it here, you will be able to get the latest version, which you don't get via the Software Center.
After that, you can install Steam via PlayOnLinux, and you will be able to install your Steam games through that, as long as you make sure it is the right Wine version.
You can check which Wine versions you have to use for your games, here: Wine version
You can also browse games to install from PlayOnLinux, and you will be able to use the Steam version in some of them (I believe that Skyrim is one of those games, but I'm not sure). It's easier, because it finds the right Wine version for you, but of course, the PlayOnLinux doesn't feature all games, and you will have to find some of them yourself, and install them manually.
I did this, and most of my games work.
Also, on the WineHQ site, you will be able to see how the games work via Wine, if there is large amount of bugs, or anything like that.
Best Answer
Have you tried the latest version of Wine? From https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu:
If your system is 64 bit, enable 32 bit architecture (if you haven't already):
Add the repository:
Update packages:
Then install (example for the development branch):
If you prefer to use the Staging branch, replace
winehq-devel
withwinehq-staging
in the line above.The version of Wine in the Ubuntu repos is still 1.6, while the latest version is 1.9. It is very likely that the problem has been fixed in Wine already. If this does not help, try:
Note that if the default prefix is a 64-bit prefix, you will probably have to delete it, recreate it as a 32 bit prefix, reinstall steam, and re-run the command. To recreate the prefix as 32-bit (THIS WILL REMOVE ALL INSTALLED WINE APPLICATIONS):