Linux Gamers Have More Choices Than Ever

After a number of years of remaining woefully behind other platforms, Linux is starting to be a gaming platform to take seriously. Late last year, I covered comments from Lars Gustavsson, a creative director for EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE), the Electronic Arts studio that does the Battlefield series, on the topic of Linux games. He had told Polygon  that DICE would love to delve into Linux games, and that what Linux really needs is a "killer game." Now, as 2014 is underway, Linux gamers actually have a lot of good choices.

Here were Gustavsson's comments, as reported by Polygon:

"We strongly want to get into Linux for a reason. It took Halo for the first Xbox to kick off and go crazy — usually, it takes one killer app or game and then people are more than willing [to adopt it] — it is not hard to get your hands on Linux, for example, it only takes one game that motivates you to go there."

Indeed, attractive games have attracted users to computing platforms for years. If you want to dive into Linux games, Muktware is out with a good roundup of your best choices. They cover Desura (and it’s open source client Desurium), which is a centralized Linux game distribution platform that I covered here. A Desura Battlefield game is seen in the screenshot above. They also cover Valve's work with Steam, and we have covered SteamOS a number of times.  Steam works on most any Linux distro, but note that only Ubuntu and SteamOS are officially supported.

And, finally, Muktware notes the following: "Each distribution usually will have an assortment of games in it’s official repositories. These will of course be open source, and while many tend towards smaller, casual titles to kill some time, there are some substantial games to be found as well, like Battle for Wesnoth and Warzone 2100."

We're actually at a tipping point for Linux games, where Valve and others are likely to start driving the arrival of truly attractive game titles. Watch for much more Linux gaming news as this year progresses.