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I think you are right that it was a turning point. Unfortunately back then Linux was even less known than it is today and Loki had no change to survive. It is great to see finally some Valve+OEMs pushing Linux forward in a form of Steam Machines. I'm sure journey is going to be very rocky and gaming websites are going to bash them without remorse. Interesting times ahead

If by "brand new" you mean "since 1998"1 then yes, they are "brand new". That said the turning point is really going to be installed user base. That goes up you're going to see more parallel development for Linux and other OSes, and I think Steam's efforts are going to make an impact there. 1I understand the first game ported was actually in 1994, but I believe 1998 is when Loki Software started, and I think that's considered to be the turning point in Linux game development Heh, OK. Sure there has been games for a "long" time but I think one could start seriously think Linux as a gaming OS since Valve started to support it. Loki did great work and still continues in form of icculus . And of course not to forget xbill, nethack, etc...

Oh, I'm all for diversity and choices, please don't get me wrong there and I would love to see Linux succeed as a viable alternative in gaming - if only because it means that the current chokehold on game development is broken up a bit. Look at how Vulkan made Microsoft streamline DirectX for the first time in ages - DX12 is so much better than the past decades of improvements they made. I just don't share the opinion that Brandon Adler's comments are harmful towards Linux gaming or that there is any major migration going on - and even if SteamOS succeeds on the market, it might just be used in the way consoles are these days with the remainder of its capabilities as fully formed Linux distribution lying fallow. Time will tell, but it is really far too early to play a requiem for Microsoft. To me Adler's comment doesn't sound harmful either but I have to say PC Gamers article wasn't very strong. There were never further explanation or reasoning added to article to explain better about the situation. Unfortunately the article left quite bad taste. Other thing I'm a bit concerned is that gaming sites are not ready for Linux/SteamOS. PC Gamer has all kind of Windows articles all the time but there hasn't been even a single article about Linux. I doubt they know much about Linux and that can lead in nasty articles in the future. I don't know much about graphics APIs. As far as I know Vulkan works on Windows XP to Windows 10 and has all the advantages that DX12 has (plus more because of extensions). I personally think PC is at its best when there are choices for users - Windows included. No, I don't like Windows at all and I have my concerns about Microsoft as well. I hope the gaming on PC would be open in terms of operating system and standards that are being used and to me Windows doesn't represent either of them.

I like the creative number interpretation that's going on. Sure Microsoft has lost some ground recently and Windows Phone has a hard time on the market (which I personally find rather sad because after having used iOS, Android and Windows Phone I can definitely say I like WP the most) there is absolutely no data to indicate that there is any large scale migration towards Linux going on. In spite of all the privacy issues, Windows 10 has, a mere month after it's release, three times the desktop market share that Linux has. Just let that sink in for a spell. If anything, casual users tend to use their tablets or smartphones intead of PCs these days, but none of those are likely to actually care for games that much. Aside Angry Birds and Candy Crush Saga, obviously. So perhaps Steam OS will shake things up a bit, but honestly, it's not the opinion of Brandon holding Linux gaming back, it's the lackluster support of certain companies regarding drivers that will REALLY be a problem (or already is one) - even for Valve and Steam OS. Can't quite shake that much up if half the graphics card market decides that they don't want to play ball. But yeah, whatever. In the other hand it is good to keep in mind that Linux is brand new in gaming business and it will definitely take some time to catch up. Microsoft has been there around 30 years already . Naturally Microsoft will do everything to keep Windows as the PC gaming OS. I don't expect Linux gaming to be big still for many years. Vulkan drivers and development tools has to mature and the developers requires much more experience - I guess most them has heavy MS DOS/Windows/DX background. I personally think Linux/SteamOS is very good addition for PC gaming; more choices and more control for PC gamers. Microsoft uses hundreds of millions to marketing Windows and they have all the OEM contracts. Linux has the community, so it requires a bit of pushing

Great news. It is always interesting to hear more about the development process, success stories and what kind of problems there were. Fortunately this had happy ending. Thanks for the Linux version.

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