Open gaming roundup
Week of November 1 - 7, 2014
Hello, open gaming fans! In this week's edition, we take a look at Steam's birthday on Linux, OpenGL performance improvements, new games releases for Linux, and more!
Steam's second birthday on Linux
Steam, the multi-platform gaming and entertainment platform, has been available for two years now, on Linux. That is, if we count the release to Linux since it's beta on November 6, 2012. In their first week, Steam had more than 60,000 people sign up for the Linux beta. And currently, 1.12% of all Steam users, run Steam on Linux.
Major OpenGL performance improvements inbound for Intel
Good news for Linux gamers that play games running on the OpenGL graphics driver. Gaming on Linux reports that LunarG is working on a graphic driver for Intel. This could result in some major performance improvements; to name a few:
- Left4Dead2 increase of 17-25%
- Counter-Strike GO increase of 16-20%
- Lightsmark increase of 60%
You can read the full details on LunarG.com. For now, it's a waiting game for Linux distributions to include this improvement, or for Valve to create their own package for SteamOS.
Over 100 games on Linux
On the Humble Bumble blog, we learn about the release of three more games, and that brings the number of games on Linux to over 100. The new games are:
- Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
- Risk of Rain
- Tower of Guns
Humble Bundle uses talented porters, including their own full-time in-house porter, to bring these games to other platforms like Mac and Linux. As Humble Bumble says, "by setting examples like these we hope that games on all platforms will one day be the rule and not the exception."
Chukong Technologies launches Coco2d-x game engine
VentureBeat reports on the Chines gaming company, Chukon Technologies, who is launching a number of services for game developers with Coco2d-x. This gaming engine is based on an open source framework. To get an overview of these services, check out the Cocos Services Initiative. This Bejing-based company has more than 400,000 developers!
War Thunder MMO and New 'n' Tasty on Linux
Gaming on Linux announced a few new Linux games: War Thunder and Oddworld.
War Thunder MMO has been released for Linux already. This game is available for 64-bit systems and will also become available on Steam. You can read the official announcement, which includes a download link. Oddworld has released New 'n' Tasty, a puzzle-platformer type game, based on Abe's Oddysee. Oddworld says that the PC, Mac, and Linux versions of the game are completed and will launch on Steam "as soon as possible."
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