[Finster]

Agreed. After years of haranguing Nvidia, for example, it wasn't until Valve started pushing linux gaming that Nvidia FINALLY started clearing the air a bit on their atrocious driver support.

Valve has a lot of influence in PC gaming. Whether it's enough to raise linux as a preferred platform for PC gaming, only time will tell, but I hope it does.

[yapcguy]

Developers (should) prefer using Linux over OS X.

Mac gaming languishes like it always has.

Pro video users have jumped shipped (still waiting for the new Mac Pro sometime this month, 18 months after Tim Cook teased folks after WWDC, years after any serious update)

What future OS X?!

[ekianjo]

Actually it seems that some indie developers are already supporting Linux more often than OSX. I have seen on Steam several titles where the title was multi-platform, but multi as in Windows/Linux, not Windows/Mac/Linux. Interesting trend. I would be very interested to hear about sales numbers on Steam Linux from developers or publishers, and see if the time they spend converting their game is worth it as this stage, or if this is simply a bet on the future of the platform.

[shinratdr]

Flipping through the Linux games section on Steam (which is 11 pages comprising 256 titles) I see exactly nine titles that support Linux but don't support OS X. Subtracting those nine from the total Linux games leaves 247 titles. Subtract those from the Mac game total of 601 titles, and you're left with 354 titles that appear on OS X but not on Linux. That arguably constitutes a trend.

Not only that, but looking at the games themselves makes this even more of a dubious claim.

Signal Ops - Mac version in development, not launched yet.

Aquaria - Mac version was developed by Ambrosia, who doesn't participate in Steam.

Capsized - Temporarily pulled from Steam due to an issue with the Mac port.

DIVO - No public information as it's a one-man dev team without a company name or website.

Salvation Prophecy - Another one-man dev team, the developer mentions he wants to but has no dev experience on Mac.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Mac version is in development, Linux version on Steam is a public beta.

Natural Selection 2 - Mac version in development, not launched yet.

Intrusion 2 - Mac version is out via the HIB, it's just not available on Steam yet.

Painkiller Hell & Damnation - Mac version in development, temporarily delayed.

So out of the nine games that comprise this "trend", three that have Mac ports in the wild but aren't available via Steam for various reasons, four have Mac ports in active development, and one who lacks the experience to develop a Mac port but is on record saying he would like to.

That leaves one title who's developer hasn't already released, is in active development, or is exploring a Mac port. I wouldn't mind seeing more games on Linux too but I have to say, I'm pretty sure you're reading into this something that simply isn't there.

[Mikeb85]

All that realistically matters is what came out on Linux in the last 3 months, and what's upcoming on Linux.

The fact that there's going to be Linux powered Steam consoles coming out soon trumps anything that has happened up until now...

[shinratdr]

Not really. There are countless Android powered game consoles too but it hasn't exactly lead to an explosion in Android gaming.

Releasing hardware doesn't automatically lead to developers providing software. Linux still lacks 100% of triple-A titles not developed by Valve. What's upcoming is almost entirely indie ports.

Whether or not that is enough to start the cycle of shipping units, gaining more attention and seeing bigger titles dip their toes in the water remains to be seen. OS X had a decent advantage at launch, there were already smaller porting shops producing OS X ports of triple-A titles. Gaming on OS X was never popular, but it was there.

Valve is looking to pretty much single-handedly launch gaming on Linux. Nothing here is a trump card, everything is up in the air.

[ekianjo]

Ok, fair observation. I admit I did not look further into these games past the fact that the Mac icon was missing on Steam.

Comparing the number of games available on Mac vs the ones available on Linux on Steam is not really comparing apples to apples, since Steam Linux just launched less than a year ago, and the pace of releases has been steadily increasing since then.

[Glide]

Isn't this trend of things being on OS X rather than linux helped by things being ported from iOS back to OS X as well? I've noticed a lot of games on the Mac App Store that happen to be on the iOS App Store.

[stormbrew]

Pro video users have jumped ship from Macs? To what?

[ics]

Could be referring to the micro-exodus of users after Final Cut X came out, but then of all my friends in film and video none have switched from Mac since then, only to...

[reustle]

I'd love to do most of my amateur video editing on my powerful ubuntu desktop instead of my macbook air. Is there a good community around any particular video studio project for linux?

[yapcguy]

Some of my film friends moved to Avid on Windows.