Steam's Linux Efforts Were Influential To Microsoft, Other Companies

Just days after writing about how Valve's Steam Linux project was the hardest one veteran game developer had ever worked on, Rich Geldreich has begun blogging some more of the back-stories to the Linux project at Valve.

Geldreich has published a blog post about when they were writing about "Faster Zombies!" back in 2012 when L4D2 began running faster on OpenGL under Linux than Windows with Direct3D. Rich shared how Gabe Newell himself typed up much of the post, was looking to build a supportive community around their efforts, porting more games to Linux and helping other companies got in the way of making Valve's games from being even faster on Linux, Microsoft visited Valve after that blog post, some Microsoft developers even claimed to have enjoyed that blog post so they could then invest more into Direct3D, how the project was stressful, Valve's 2013 layoffs did impact the Linux cabal's morale, etc.

Those wanting to learn more about that blog post and the early Steam Linux efforts can read Rich's blog post via Blogspot.