What does the games industry think about SteamOS and Linux games development generally?
Chris Thornett plunders his interview vault for some answers.
Whether or not you think games are important for Linux, the stone cold reality is that they significantly drive mainstream interest in any operating system. As I wrote in the feature for LXF179, Linux: the Future of Gaming, this was a lesson Gabe Newell learnt back in the early 1990s while working for Microsoft – and it changed the direction of his career.
Valve is only part of the Linux gaming story, though. I spoke to a lot of people for the Linux gaming feature: everyone from games publishers and Linux game porters, through to game engine and driver developers – and I just couldn’t get all their interviews into the eight-page feature. I encountered so many passionate people and it seemed a shame to leave their contributions on the cutting floor, so we’ve decide to publish a lot of them here.