Software Spotlight: Steam
Steam is an ultra-popular gaming platform and digital gaming distribution service made by Valve, which creates software, games, and hardware (including VR headsets!). Steam has millions of active users every day, and only a few short years ago, Linux had less than 100 games that were playable on the operating system. Thanks to companies like Wine and CodeWeavers, Windows software and gaming compatibility are no longer a thing of the past. It is an unfortunate truth that many games are not built natively for Linux because we are a smaller platform as far as Desktop computing is concerned. However, the work of those listed above has turned the tides in a massive way, bringing Linux almost all the way the forefront for gaming. With the work of Wine and CodeWeavers, Valve/Steam started building what they call Proton, which is a fully-featured compatibility tool to allow games that are not natively written to run on Linux, to run on Linux. As of the writing of this post there are over 14,000 games that are playable on Linux. There is an amazing website that shows the quality of each title called ProtonDB which allows users/players to comment on game titles to report on how well or how not well a game is working via the Proton compatibility layer. This allows work to be done against each game to push Proton and gaming on Linux to new heights! Please contribute to the reports if you use this tool!
Remember before internet gaming was huge, you'd have to play a game with someone in person? You might have to bring your PC or console to their house and actually play cooperatively in the same physical location? The world calls this "Couch Coop", and Steam is bringing it back with an awesome project called Remote Play Together. It essentially allows one user to purchase a game that supports Remote Play Together (there are more and more every week!), and allows them to invite their friends to play the game via the internet. Here's the kicker though, only one player needs to buy the game - only one player needs to have a PC that does the heavy lifting (processing, graphics rendering, etc.) - but 2-4+ players (depending on the title) can all enjoy the game together! No more buying multiple copies of the same game in order to enjoy them!
Lastly, awhile back Steam created a piece of hardware they called Steam Link, which essentially allowed you to connect the unit to a TV, and stream games from your PC in a different room. They also now create software that does the same thing, called Steam Link (naturally). This allows you to use a PC in one room to stream and play games on a PC in a different room. This is awesome because you don't have to have two gaming machines in two different rooms. You can have one gaming machine, and another lower-powered machine in a separate room and enjoy games in either room! Check out the Flatpak they made!
That's it for this one, see you on the next! Keep living, learning, and loving Linux and open-source!