Linux as a gaming platform

Linux gaming refers to playing and developing video games for the Linux operating system, involving a Linux kernel–based operating system, often used for all computing tasks like surfing the web, office applications, desktop publishing, but also for gaming.

Linux gaming started largely as an extension of the already present Unix gaming scene, with both systems sharing many similar titles. These games were either mostly original or clones of arcade games and text adventures. A notable example of this was the so-called "BSD Games", a collection of interactive fiction titles. The free software and open source methodologies which spawned the development of the operating system in general also spawned the creation of various early free games. Popular early titles included NetHack, Netrek, XBill, XEvil, xbattle, Xconq and XPilot. As the operating system itself grew and expanded, the amount of free and open source games also increased in scale and complexity.

The beginning of Linux as a gaming platform for commercial video games is widely credited to have begun in 1994 when Dave D. Taylor ported the game Doom to Linux, as well as many other systems, during his spare time. From there he would also help found the development studio Crack dot Com, which released the video game Abuse, with the game's Linux port even being published by Linux vendor Red Hat.id Software, the original developers of Doom, also continued to release their products for Linux. Their game Quake was ported to Linux in 1996, once again by Dave D. Taylor working in his free time. Later id products continued to be ported by David Kirsch and Timothee Besset, a practice that continued until the studio's acquisition by ZeniMax Media in 2009. In 1995 DUX Software contracted Don Hopkins to port SimCity to Linux. Other early commercial Linux games included Hopkins FBI, an adventure game released in 1998 by MP Entertainment, and Inner Worlds in 1996, which was released for and mostly developed on Linux. In 1998, two programmers from Origin ported Ultima Online to Linux. A website called The Linux Game Tome began to catalog games created for or ported to Linux in 1995.

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