It's Been 3 Years Since Valve Launched The Steam Linux Beta, Now At 1,600+ Linux Games

[adakite]

Satellite Reign and Alien Isolation. 100% of my Steam lib is Linux

[emblemparade]

I use Linux 99% of the time, including for gaming. I run Steam native on Linux, and also Steam for Windows using WINE: a surprisingly high number of games work just fine that way,

However, I still dual boot into what I call "GameOS" (Windows 10 now) for some games. Unfortunately, this happens even for games do support Linux. One problem is that some ported games are buggy and possibly missing some graphical features. So, I just get tired of fighting it and reboot into Windows.

Also, I am big fan of NVIDIA 3D Vision, and that feature is simply not supported in Linux, so I have no choice, even if the game is otherwise ported well to Linux.

As for Steam Machines: as much hope as I have, I am still doubtful about their success. For now, it still makes more sense to install Windows instead of Linux on your Steam Machine: you will get the exact same features, but a much wider game catalog. Even if the difference is $100 for the Windows license, it still seems to be worth it. For now.

I'm even an early adopter of the Steam Controller. So far it's been disappointing: I don't see it revolutionizing gaming. But, I am willing to give it a chance to live up to its potential.

A lot is riding on this: gamers might finally have an open platform for gaming, in which they no longer restricted to the very expensive walled gardens set up by Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, and can play a wide catalog of games both old and new, AAA and indie.

[anarki2]

3 years and 1600 titles later still below 1%. Earlier the excuse was lack of games, wonder what the new excuse will be. Maybe at one point they'll realize it's not that people are stupid for Linux, they just don't want it because it's awful? Noooo, that can't happen, cognitive dissonance is in the way.

[johnc]

The biggest selling point of consoles are the games, of course. And I'm not talking about numbers but the actual titles. All the big developers are targeting consoles. PC Master Race is lucky to get some leftover attention in the form of a half-crippled, barely-working port.

Steam Machines are in even worse shape. They don't even get the typical crippled PC ports of the big titles, and they don't have the draw of the big games that the consoles do.

Valve will really have to step up and bring their A-game if they expect this thing to work. Otherwise all that effort is just going to wither on the vine.

[dungeon]

3 years and 1600 titles later still below 1%. Earlier the excuse was lack of games, wonder what the new excuse will be. Maybe at one point they'll realize it's not that people are stupid for Linux, they just don't want it because it's awful? Noooo, that can't happen, cognitive dissonance is in the way.

That question is probably the best to ask Windows gaming users - so Windows users of steam, as percentage by far just depends on them .

1% actually mean numbers of steam Linux users is on raise probably by 60%, of course steam Windows users are on the same raise... games for both platform are also on raise and then percentage stay the same I think there was 90 millions of steam accounts and now 215 millions, etc...

Why Windows but not Linux, same question 20 years ago and now

[verde]

Most of the games in my library are Linux supported. Football Manager 2015 and Wargame European Escalation are counting 384 hours of Ubuntu gameplay but the game I enjoyed more than anything was Left 4 Dead 2. Skype group call, launch L4D2 and 58 hours of laughing..

The only reason I have Windows partition is for Assetto Corsa and overclocking tools.

The biggest disappointment: Metro Last Light

I bought Metro 2033 just to play MetroLL on Ubuntu and I am counting 3 hours of trying to solve the tearing issue. VERY bad port. Performance is bad too. Not only this, they released Redux after some months and they didn't offer any discount for me that I own both games already.

[eidolon]

I noticed that ASUS was removed today from the list of manufacturers at http://store.steampowered.com/sale/steam_machines. As of now, the ASUS unit is still pictured on http://store.steampowered.com/universe/machines/ (underneath the Alienware Steam Machine). Maybe ASUS will be added back, maybe not. iBUYPOWER had also been previously removed from the list of manufacturers.

[theriddick]

Linux really needs the next gen drivers before it can start real momentum for gaming. Need AMD/NVIDIA drivers to support Vulkan and have features like what Windows has, such as costless vsync, gsync, freesync and framerate limiters would be nice. There is a whole heap of things needed, but they need to work good not crapo like how vsync currently works (murders FPS, very costly, hardly works).

I currently run 390x under Ubuntu MATE, and it has been a tough time getting decent performance and dealing with catalyst limitations (OSS not there yet).

[humbug]

3 years and 1600 titles later still below 1%. Earlier the excuse was lack of games, wonder what the new excuse will be. Maybe at one point they'll realize it's not that people are stupid for Linux, they just don't want it because it's awful?

Yep well Valve will only continue to focus on the Linux gaming ecosystem.
It's upto canonical and the mint, fedora, debian guys etc to take advantage of that and push the overall Linux presence on laptops/desktops. Of course that means addressing a host of other concerns not related to gaming..

[dbzlotrfan]

3 years and 1600 titles later still below 1%. Earlier the excuse was lack of games, wonder what the new excuse will be. Maybe at one point they'll realize it's not that people are stupid for Linux, they just don't want it because it's awful? Noooo, that can't happen, cognitive dissonance is in the way.

Some of the people that say they don't use Linux because of the lack of games mean the games they want to play - COD, Assassin's Creed, TES, Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein (yes I know the older titles of all three should be on Linux I think), Fallout, Thief (older titles), Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, GTA - If those could be played natively on Linux I'd think I'd have larger market share but the other issue is most people most likely don't want to try to change the OS or know they can.