[TriLUG] Linux Gaming

[Brandon Van Every]

On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 11:38 AM, Bill Farrow <bill at arrowsreach.com> wrote:
> Someone with more (recent)
> gaming experience should step in here and comment on what "Steam" is
> all about.

Steam is a portal for selling digitally downloaded games.  Steam is
important because it carries a lot of AAA titles.  They also have a
fairly healthy indie gaming ecology.  Steam tends more towards
"hardcore" games than the "casual" games market.  Other portal sites
like Big Fish Games dominate the casual market.  Steam coming to Linux
is a push towards "for real" game development on the Linux platform.
It's a chicken-and-egg problem, as Steam is only a delivery platform
and its owner, Valve, does not necessarily make games for Linux.  Also
even if Valve did, its offerings alone wouldn't be enough.  But Steam
is a major piece of enabling infrastructure for developing some kind
of critical mass on Linux for game development.

Desura is another portal that's already on Linux.  They have an ok
selection of titles but not all that many offerings in the scheme of
things.  I think Valve wants to make sure they're on Linux before
Desura gets any chance to take all the business for itself.  It's
important to note that however noteworthy the Valve entry may be,
they're not pioneering anything here.  A serious gaming ecology has
been growing on Linux, led by Desura and most notably the Linux
contributors to The Humble Indie Bundle.
http://www.inatux.com/?r=humble-indie-bundle-shows-gnu-linux-gaming-statistics


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every