Gabe Newell is the co-founder and managing director of the video game development and online distribution company called Valve Corporation. He want to port 2500 game titles on Linux. But, why? First, Gabe hates Windows 8 and he thinks Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in PC space. He recently made a rare appearance last night at Casual Connect, an annual videogame conference in Seattle. From the allthingsd:
The big problem that is holding back Linux is games. People don't realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior. We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It's a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that's true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.
It appears that Mr. Gabe is really worried about Microsoft as Windows 8 app store is going to take way business from steam. However, this is a win-win situation for Linux users as it will brings good game titles on the Linux system that haven't been there. I only use windows so that I can run games and when steam for Linux arrived I will get rid of windows install once in for all.
This blog post, Why Valve Wants to Port 2500 Games on Linux?, was originally published at nixCraft on July 26, 2012 under Hardware, Linux news.