The title sounds a bit Trolly to me. I can't help but agree with what he says though. Linux is only slightly higher than BeOS on my radar...

Well it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy at the moment, isn't it?

Most PC games are windows only -> Most gamers use windows -> Most PC games are windows only -> Most gamers use windows...

Somebody (a powerhouse like Valve, basically) has to break the cycle for Linux to matter. I'm sure many people would be willing to switch over to Linux or at least try it if their games where waiting for them. That's basically what he says in the last paragraph as well. It isn't particularly hard to support Linux if you plan it from the start instead of embedding loads and loads of platform dependant code throughout your game.

Hey, if Carmack and his team actually contributed to Wine and helped resolve compatibility issues between their games and Wine, then I would be fine with that. Unfortunately, most developers take a complete hands off approach in that regard.

And as Lewis says above, if you consider Linux (and at the same time Mac) from the beginning of development and you don't use a bunch of platform dependent code, then you will find bring your games to Linux to be worth while and relatively simple.

But, lucky for us Linux users, more and more companies are making the choice to support Linux. This includes powerhouses like Valve as well as middleware providers like Unity3d. More will follow.

Fortunately, now that engines like Unity can export to Linux, it's a much easier decision for many developers whether or not they can/should support it.

While I've been a hardcore Windows guy for my entire career, it wasn't until a little over year ago that I was first exposed to the Linux world. And I run two computers at home -- a Windows 7 gaming rig, and a Linux web/file server.

I do see there are a lot of people that like the ability to install their own OS without having to pay for it, and Linux is quite popular for that, and the open-source nature of everything. I can see this growing into a non-insignificant number over time. Especially for developers, some really fantastic software such as STS (Eclipse) -- I know you can get it for Windows, but it just works better with Linux. A lot of open-source development, tools, and workflows are made for the Linux environment.

My experience with Wine is that it is a terrible and brute force Windows emulator. When any particular software feature works 90% of the time, it doesn't really give you piece of mind, not to mention, I would question it's support of graphics and audio drivers and maintaining any semblance of gaming performance.

That said, I don't use Linux to play games, and don't really plan on it and I would imagine most Linux builds are more geared to home servers. The way I see it, most proper gamers yield to Windows whether they want to or not... because frankly that's where the critical mass is and has always been. I do think over time, Linux will become more of a force to recon with. My feelings on Linux is that it is a hodge-podge of software that ranges from awesome to sketchy. At least with Windows, you know exactly what you are getting.

Unity is great, and making a Linux version for the +$500 per license would be worth considering on any desktop release, and of course, iOS.

I think the big issue with Linux reaching the masses is the fragmentation of the OS. There are just too many versions out there that product x wont work on for this reason, but works on this version. Its the same problem a lot of apps have with android. Hardware support is also lacking amongst a wide array of components. An annoying thing to is that when I have tried to download or install a piece of software it then tells me I need to go download a bunch of libraries I'm missing. Those kinds of things should be packaged with the software, but because they aren't it leads me to believe that they should be there and the OS didn't natively supply it. I have no problem doing this, but I am an above average PC user. One can't expect the average or below average user to have to do this kind of stuff.

I have no problem developing for linux though as a branch to regular releases, but exclusives just aren't worth it yet. I think it is still a sort of novelty to say "I got it running on Linux." We're still a bit away from it being a norm. Steam will probably solve that though.

It really is a tech support nightmare with all the different distros having different conventions and naming, and all the different sound systems (alsa? oss? esound? klang?) as just one example. I still do new Linux installs with well maintained distros where getting the sound to work takes text editing config files. There's just so much Direct[X] does for you other than graphics that people forget about till it comes down to the nitty gritty. Managing input devices is another.

I'm really curious to see what happens with Project Eternity having committed to Linux support through Unity. If that turns out well and Unity handles most of the sound/input/network abstraction for you then it seems like a low effort way to get a Linux version out. As long as you don't have to handle tech support for getting sound working in the first place.

I think the question really is, who will benefit?

Companies don't benefit because the majority of gamers are on Windows. Adding further platforms adds both fixed and variable costs (porting, support, respectively).

Gamers don't benefit because unless companies can retain optimization experts for each platform (and let's face it, each major "family" of distros if we go Linux) we'll get generalized code which will perform worse than code with platform specific optimizations.

In the end, the only people who benefit are Linux afficiados who for some reason either won't pay 100 bux every 2-3 years to upgrade Windows and dual boot, or have some anti-MS thing.

MS could totally throw this away by making Windows a closed platform, and if they do Linux (or some other OS) will surge, not just for games, but for everyone. In that case though, we can just follow the trend. And by the way, if games go to "Linux" what that means is "either Redhat or Ubuntu become the standard". Debian, Slackware, Scientific, Centos, Fedora and any other distros, even if they are based on the above 2, will be unsupported platforms.

Valve may very well do for Linux gaming what Microsoft did for Windows gaming. Linux never really had a champion for gaming. the GL ARB for years seemed like it was infiltrated by the enemies of the linux desktop.

A custom Steam Linux Distro for gaming could finally give a broad base of PC developers a single target that isn't jumping all over the map.

Valve can even create an equivalent of a GL SDK to rival the DX SDK to assist windows developers making the transition.

Steam going network API in this light seems a critical first step towards vastly increasing the installed base by encouraging every single game developer to support the platform and thus every single gamer to join the steam community.

I wonder if Valve thought about buying out Unity3d? Or maybe it'll be Microsoft looking for their XNA replacement, lol.

Personally I think if Linus ever wants Linux to be taken seriously as a gaming platform doing things like publicly giving nVidia the finger and saying "f*ck you" probably won't move things in the right direction.

That being said I think it's great Steam is coming full force to Linux and eventually everyone can enjoy their steam library regardless of their OS.

Linux needs to be distributed by Valve and be part of a dual boot solution for the masses to make headway into becoming a gaming OS.

Look at what Apple did with OSX. Boot camp was a safety net that nudged many consumers over the fence. Same with the virtual machine software like Parallels or Fusion. Maybe Valve could partner with them or Virtual Box/Oracle.

Because of consoles and tablets, etc, more and more games will be written in Opengl. At that point it gets easier to port to Linux. They probably will standardize on Ubuntu. Also, with the diversity of platforms for games now, adding one more port isn't as big of a deal as it used to be, especially because most games are choosing engines rather than writing them in house. For the engine writer, it's one more feather in the cap if it ports to another platform, especially if that platform is showing growth.

Sorry, boys but Valve is too lazy to make own Linux distro, its is only empty wet dream. It would be nice, but chance is very, very small. Yes they can buy some comercial Linux distro, but it never works before (some company, but another and they quickly integrate themselfs and make product).
If Valve dont would be band of faerytale teller, but realy do someting, they realy could invest into good linux project in tens of millions dollars, simple donate these projects or make price money on achieving certain goal for develepers.. but think that they are too weak to do that.