Jeremy White
Yesterday, Valve announced a new feature in Steam Play that allows Windows titles to run on the Linux version of Steam using Wine.
We have been working directly with Valve for two years on this effort, and the launch yesterday was one of the most joyful days of my career, for a variety of reasons. First, the personal – my sons both grew up using Linux. My older son graduated from college, got a job, and eventually bought a Windows PC so he could play his favorite games. My younger son is still in college, and he remains a die hard Linux user. Last night, he was able to install and run the few Windows games he craved on his Linux laptop.
Second, the professional – I have long felt that computer games are the key to any successful computer operating system. Sure, you absolutely need to be able to do productive work on your computer, but your heart is not in it until you can play. Without that joy, Linux, and the variety of Linux based operating systems (e.g. SteamOS, ChromeOS) are going to struggle to claim a meaningful share of the market. Valve has been providing amazing support for gaming on Linux for many years now, and we are proud to join them in expanding the range of high quality games that are available to Linux users.
This still remains a long, hard journey, but perhaps this marks the beginning of the mythical Year Of The Linux Desktop.
I hope that Proton brings you as much joy as it has brought me. And now excuse me, I have some, er, testing, to do...
