Valve Corporation's Steam is coming to Linux in 2012

[Lucradia]

I hope Valve drops Vindictus for Steam if Vindictus can't be ported :V since it uses Source.

[mamamia88]

So what percentage of games will be released for this? Thinking of building my first gaming rig soon but the idea of going back to windows doesn't appeal to me. Should i just keep gaming on my ps3/360 and wait and see for a few years?

[Merk42]

So what percentage of games will be released for this? Thinking of building my first gaming rig soon but the idea of going back to windows doesn't appeal to me. Should i just keep gaming on my ps3/360 and wait and see for a few years?

That's really up to the individual developers. Valve is only porting the distribution method (Steam) and a game (Left 4 Dead 2, probably other Source games).
Look at Steam for Mac, it's been around for a while but not EVERY game is available for Mac because the developer didn't make a Mac version.

[forrestcupp]

That's really up to the individual developers. Valve is only porting the distribution method (Steam) and a game (Left 4 Dead 2, probably other Source games).
Look at Steam for Mac, it's been around for a while but not EVERY game is available for Mac because the developer didn't make a Mac version.

That's right. The only hope this gives us is for the games that run on the Source engine. There are a lot of games out there that don't use Source. As of right now, we have no hope at all for all of those, other than that Valve's move might inspire and motivate them.

[drawkcab]

I'm going to go buy left 4 dead 2 immediately. I'm a huge tf2 fan so I hope that's next.

[foutes]

You can add 6 months to a year(as any Left 4 Dead 2 on 360 fan can attest to) onto any date Gabe gives,this is called Valve Time.

[Ji Ruo]

Use of Open GL would be the main criterion for a developer to consider porting a game.

[forrestcupp]

Use of Open GL would be the main criterion for a developer to consider porting a game.

The good thing about this is if you're using a game engine, like Source, the game developer doesn't have to worry about whether it uses DirectX or OpenGL. You just write one set of code using the Source API and let it handle what method it uses.

[Sslaxx]

I suspect the games available for Linux Steam will be something like 95% Unity 4, 4% Source and 1% everything else. I'd be VERY surprised to see any major publishers support it (ala Mac Steam); I'd imagine 0.1% of the 1% would be from major publishers other than Valve, and that's an optimistic guess.

[Lucradia]

The good thing about this is if you're using a game engine, like Source, the game developer doesn't have to worry about whether it uses DirectX or OpenGL. You just write one set of code using the Source API and let it handle what method it uses.

Both Portal and Portal 2 can use OpenGL even on Windows (but only if you completely remove DirectX, and force Portal/2 to use OpenGL by not letting it install DirectX, etc.)

Or try this command: -force-opengl