Valve have been working hard on getting STEAM ported to Ubuntu. They have also placed focus on Left 4 Dead 2 as a first, ‘showcase' title for the platform. The popular software company talked about this recently on their blog.
Phoronix were the first to break the story back in 2010, but the blog has highlighted that Valve have Left 4 Dead 2 running natively on Ubuntu 12.04 with OpenGL. They are focusing now on improving the performance to get it close to the Windows version. Valve haven't ruled out supporting other Linux distros, however Ubuntu is for now the primary focus.
The move by Valve may help push developers to release other native versions of their games.
Valve say that they want their blog to be the launching point for a ‘community of game developers' and wants more feedback on the subject.
You can read more from Valve directly, here.
Kitguru says: Let us hope that mainstream gamers can have more solid alternatives to Windows in the future. Will Microsoft be concerned?
This is very exciting news indeed, i have been very fasinated by linux (ubuntu mainly) for some time now. The only area holding me back from making a full time switch was the fact gaming isnt supported very well, while wine is good it doesn’t support everything I want to play.
If more devs decide to make ubuntu native games then I kight be able to make the switch once and for all !
Awesome news. Same as Nathan, I’ve always wanted to switch entirely to Ubuntu, but being a gamer stops me from ditching Windows completely. It’s also worth noting that the latest Humble Indie Bundle was fully compatible with Linux, and was packed with great games. Most indie devs at least, will be behind this. 😀 <—- is me right now.