There’s some wrong things in this article, and a thing worth mentioning.
Half-Life (and its mods like Counter-Strike) had Linux server versions, and a lot of dedicated servers ran on Linux, which I think is worth mentioning when talking about the history.
Steam wasn’t well received at first, people didn’t like that there was now this special launcher/downloader you had to use. Mind you they moved their old games onto Steam, so it’s not like you knew about this when you bought it. Also there weren’t any games on there except Half-Life and related titles, like HL mods that got their own release.
Contrary to what the article claims, MacOS does not support some outdated version of DirectX, it does not and never has supported DirectX at all. DirectX was only ever supported on Windows and XBox.
DirectX also was not well received at first. Here’s an old article from gamedev.net (2002):
What later became known as DirectX 1.0 ended up not being very widely accepted. It was buggy, slow, badly structured, and overly complex.
Of course, Microsoft wasn’t about to just give up. They kept working at it, asking the community for ways to improve it. The first truly viable version of DirectX was DirectX 3.0. A few years later, they released DirectX 5 (skipping 4 entirely), which was the first truly useful version. Incremental improvements were made with version 6. Then came DirectX 7.0.
DirectX 7 was the first one to actually be embraced by game developers. It worked well, making game programming reasonably easy, and a lot of people liked the interface.
Here's a bunch of things John Carmack had to say about DirectX over the years:
First, a rant by John Carmack from 1996:
I have been using OpenGL for about six months now, and I have been very impressed by the design of the API, and especially it’s ease of use. A month ago, I ported quake to OpenGL. It was an extremely pleasant experience. It didn’t take long, the code was clean and simple, and it gave me a great testbed to rapidly try out new research ideas.
I started porting glquake to Direct-3D IM with the intent of learning the api and doing a fair comparison.
Well, I have learned enough about it. I’m not going to finish the port. I have better things to do with my time.
John Carmack revised his opinion later. Here he is posting in 2001 about DirectX 8:
D3D is clunky, etc
Not really true anymore. MS made large strides with each release, and DX8 can’t be called a lousy API anymore. One can argue various points, but they are minor points. Anti-Microsoft forces have a bad habit of focusing on early problems, and not tracking the improvements that have been made in current versions. My rant of five years ago doesn’t apply to the world of today.
But:
All of Nvidia’s new features have showed up as OpenGL extensions before they show up as new D3D features.
MacOS actually does now support DX12: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-built-a-directx-12-translation-layer-for-apple-silicon.2391876/
So, the Manhattan Project started. Manhattan Project was Microsoft’s attempt at creating a set of APIs that would make the task of writing games for their platform significantly less painful. The questionable naming decision was, sadly, fully intentional: while Microsoft had most of the PC gaming on its side, the gaming industry as a whole was mostly dominated by game consoles from Japan.
WTF Microsoft.
Article doesn’t even cite their sources correctly, typo-ing “Bringus Studios” as “Dingus Studios”
I feel like after he gets over the slight he’d be fine with it…
The article was really interesting and made me appreciate everything Valve has brought to the Linux ecosystem.
It’s also why, once I’ll have a Steam Deck in a few months, I’ll probably buy my games on Steam instead of GOG even if game preservation is important to me.
Between Steam promoting Linux and GOG promoting DRM-free software, I will never purchase from another storefront that doesn’t even pretend to do something good for the broader community (Origin, Uplay, Microsoft Battle.Net, iOS App Store, etc).
Same, only Steam or GOG for me (sometimes both).
Very informative article! Mostly an overview of Valve’s reasons for embracing Linux, which are more related to market than ideology. But I also feel they have good of the industry at their heart which inheritly makes them more successful. I love Valve and remain cautiously optimistic about Steam.
Linux keeps getting more development because it is the cheapest way to develop a platform. It is the reason why almost all servers are Linux and it was used as the basis for Android.
That said, Steam is a wildly profitable company that is self aware enough to not kill its golden goose.
I remember when the steam machines where first announced and how excited I was. I am still excited. :)
Thanks for the lookup to that article! Very Informative and entertaining
thelibre.news is woefully underappreciated.
