It Was Only 4 Years Ago That Many Thought Steam On Linux Was An April Fools' Day Joke

Written by Michael Larabel in Valve on 30 March 2016 at 06:00 PM EDT. 24 Comments
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While there are around two thousand Linux-native games now available on Steam brought over by many different studios, it was just four years ago that many thought Valve bringing Steam to Linux was a joke or far-fetched rumor.

Today marks four years to the day since Gabe Newell had emailed us about Linux driver problems in their porting of Source Engine games to Linux as part of their initial Steam Linux bring-up. Many didn't believe it then, in part due to being close to April Fools' Day, and even when in 2012 I went out to Valve's HQ to talk with them about their Linux plans including what would become Steam Machines and SteamOS.

It's great to see how far Steam on Linux has publicly become since then, even though the reported Linux gaming market-share remains just around 1%. What further hopes do you have for Steam on Linux in 2016? Share with us your thoughts by commenting on this article in our forums. Beyond that, if you would like to help support our work and ensure many more exclusives to come, please consider joining Phoronix Premium or making a PayPal tip.
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Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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