[FD3SA]

All these things could have been said for Android when iOS and Blackberry's OS were kings.

The nature of gaming is changing. Listen to Gabe talk about player generated content being the way of the future. Core gamers are a niche bunch, and will spend thousands of dollars for custom hardware. Why would they settle for locked down, legacy software like Windows, when Linux can be made to work just as well if not better, for free, while allowing full customization?

Linux gaming is not going to be backwards compatible. It's not about now. It's about the future. An open source platform makes sense for the gaming industry, because it allows rapid experimentation and low barriers to entry.

Core gamers who support indie games have already moved to Linux. The AAA studios will follow once they see sufficient adoption.

[mbel]

> Core gamers who support indie games have already moved to Linux.

Do you have any evidence to support this claim? I've seen plenty of indie games targeting GNU/Linux, but no evidence of large amounts of players so far (the fact that there are GNU/Linux games does not mean that more than few people are playing them). From my personal experience (couple of demos of unfinished projects and loads of time wasted lurking into indie forums like TIG and /r/gamedev) the Windows is still pretty much the standard target platform.

[FD3SA]

Certainly:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/02/steam-linux-500-games

[jsnell]

The only mention of usage in the blog post is "stats from Valve’s own monthly Hardware Survey appear to show a continuing decline in the number of Linux gamers using the service". That doesn't seem to be evidence in support of your claim, but the opposite.

[malandrew]

Exactly. Game developers should support those decisions where the best, most portable tools get the most attention. Games are immersive and take up the whole screen, so gamers are barely tied to the underlying operating system. It's not like serious AAA games on OS X really have ever used cocoa or carbon. If you made an amazing, mind-blowing game for Linux, then people will figure out how to install and use linux just to be able to play the game. In fact for the younger gamer demographic, getting the system a game runs on for free on commodity hardware is preferable to a wold where you need to pay for a expensive new console every 2-4 years.

Insofar as games are concerned, at the end of the day, the game design matters many times more than the runtime of the game.