… upon the release of Windows 8 in 2012, Valve’s CEO Gabe Newell called it “a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space”, and discussed the possibility of promoting the open-source operating system Linux that would maintain “the openness of the platform”.
Gabe was worried about UWP (and Microsoft’s obvious plan for an App Store) back then. Remember, Windows Phone was a thing, and UWP/Windows 8 was shiny and new.
Microsoft failed spectacularly. Hilariously spectacularly.
But you aren’t wrong; Valve don’t want to hitch their business to the solvency of Windows.
Oh yeah, my poor mother was scammed into buying one of those, just about the most worthless piece of technology I’ve ever seen.
But yeah, it’s quite an amazing journey Gabe has been on. He led the Microsoft team that ported Doom to Windows 95 using DirectX, so he kind of put the first nails in the coffin that was OpenGL back in the day. By 2005 it was all DirectX, and then he clawed that Microsoft victory out of their hands starting in 2012 and 12 years later in 2024 I switched to Linux full time playing Cyberpunk 2077 on a Debian based system of all things. Kinda wild.
Gaming is the only thing I still find Windows useful for. I can neuter it to oblivion and just do literally everything else on linux better/easier, but (unfortunately) Cyberpunk 2077 and some other games still run much faster on neutered Windows, even compared to tricked out linux systems… At least on Nvidia cards.
It’s hilarious. It’s like they’re eagerly waiting for Windows to self immolate, all prepped to stroll into the vacuum it leaves.
They’ve been preparing since 2012:
Gabe was worried about UWP (and Microsoft’s obvious plan for an App Store) back then. Remember, Windows Phone was a thing, and UWP/Windows 8 was shiny and new.
Microsoft failed spectacularly. Hilariously spectacularly.
But you aren’t wrong; Valve don’t want to hitch their business to the solvency of Windows.
Oh yeah, my poor mother was scammed into buying one of those, just about the most worthless piece of technology I’ve ever seen.
But yeah, it’s quite an amazing journey Gabe has been on. He led the Microsoft team that ported Doom to Windows 95 using DirectX, so he kind of put the first nails in the coffin that was OpenGL back in the day. By 2005 it was all DirectX, and then he clawed that Microsoft victory out of their hands starting in 2012 and 12 years later in 2024 I switched to Linux full time playing Cyberpunk 2077 on a Debian based system of all things. Kinda wild.
Gaming is the only thing I still find Windows useful for. I can neuter it to oblivion and just do literally everything else on linux better/easier, but (unfortunately) Cyberpunk 2077 and some other games still run much faster on neutered Windows, even compared to tricked out linux systems… At least on Nvidia cards.