Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront developed by Valve Corporation. It was launched as a software client in September 2003 to provide game updates automatically for Valve's games, and expanded to distributing third-party titles in late 2005. Steam offers various features, like game server matchmaking with Valve Anti-Cheat measures, social networking, and game streaming services. Steam client's functions include game update automation, cloud storage for game progress, and community features such as direct messaging, in-game overlay functions and a virtual collectable marketplace.
Portal is a 2007 puzzle-platform game developed and published by Valve. It was released in a bundle, The Orange Box, for Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and has been since ported to other systems, including Mac OS X, Linux, Android, and Nintendo Switch.
Linux-based operating systems can be used for playing video games. Because many games are not natively supported for the Linux kernel, various software has been made to run Windows games, such as Wine, Cedega, and Proton, and managers such as Lutris and PlayOnLinux. The Linux gaming community has a presence on the internet with users who attempt to run games that are not officially supported on Linux.
Garry's Mod is a 2006 sandbox game developed by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve. The base game mode of Garry's Mod has no set objectives and provides the player with a world in which to freely manipulate objects. Other game modes, notably Trouble in Terrorist Town and Prop Hunt, are created by other developers as mods and are installed separately, by means such as the Steam Workshop. Garry's Mod was created by Garry Newman as a mod for Valve's Source game engine and released in December 2004, before being expanded into a standalone release that was published by Valve in November 2006. Ports of the original Windows version for Mac OS X and Linux followed in September 2010 and June 2013, respectively. As of September 2021, Garry's Mod has sold more than 20 million copies. A successor, Sandbox, has been in development since 2015.
Machinarium is a puzzle point-and-click adventure game developed by Amanita Design. It was released on 16 October 2009 for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, on 8 September 2011 for iPad 2 on the App Store, on 21 November 2011 for BlackBerry PlayBook, on 10 May 2012 for Android, on 6 September 2012 on PlayStation 3's PlayStation Network in Europe, on 9 October 2012 in North America and on 18 October 2012 in Asia, and was also released for PlayStation Vita on 26 March 2013 in North America, on 1 May 2013 in Europe and on 7 May 2013 in Asia. Demos for Windows, Mac and Linux were made available on 30 September 2009. A future release for the Wii's WiiWare service was cancelled as of November 2011 due to WiiWare's 40MB limit.
Black Mesa is a 2020 first-person shooter game developed and published by Crowbar Collective. It is a third-party remake of Half-Life (1998) made in the Source game engine. Originally published as a free mod in September 2012, Black Mesa was approved for commercial release by Valve, the developers of Half-Life. The first commercial version was published as an early-access release in May 2015, followed by a full release in March 2020 for Linux and Windows.
Oil Rush is a tower defense real-time strategy game developed by UNIGINE Holding S.à r.l. using their Unigine engine technology. Set in a flooded, post-apocalyptic world, the game consists of players fighting over control of the world's last remaining oil reserves. The game was released as a digital download for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and OS X.
Fruit Ninja is a video game developed by Halfbrick originally released on August 12, 2010. In the game, the player must slice fruit that is thrown into the air by swiping the device's touch screen with their finger(s) or the player's arms and hands, and must not slice bombs. It features multiple gameplay modes, leaderboards and multiplayer.
In the video game industry, digital distribution is the process of delivering video game content as digital information, without the exchange or purchase of new physical media such as ROM cartridges, magnetic storage, optical discs and flash memory cards. This process has existed since the early 1980s, but it was only with network advancements in bandwidth capabilities in the early 2000s that digital distribution became more prominent as a method of selling games. Currently, the process is dominated by online distribution over broadband Internet.
Desura was a digital distribution platform for the Microsoft Windows, Linux and OS X platforms. The service distributed games and related media online, with a primary focus on small independent game developers rather than larger companies. Desura contained automated game updates, community features, and developer resources. The client allowed users to create and distribute game mods as well.
Anomaly: Warzone Earth is a real-time strategy tower defense video game by 11 bit studios. The game was initially announced in late 2010, and released on April 8, 2011 for Windows and Mac OS X.
Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! is a 2011 auto-running game developed by Be-Rad Entertainment and published by Devolver Digital. The player controls a Headless Kamikaze that chases after Sam "Serious" Stone, attempting to defeat him. The character moves automatically and can dodge or deflect incoming hazards. Announced in March 2011 and developed over six months, Kamikaze Attack! was created as part of the Serious Sam Indie Series to promote the launch of Serious Sam 3: BFE. It debuted for Android and iOS in September 2011, followed by a release for Windows in January 2012. The game received a mixed reception, with praise for its controls, conflicting opinions about its visuals, and criticism for its repetitiveness and lack of appeal to non-fans of the Serious Sam series.
The Pinball Arcade is a pinball video game developed by FarSight Studios. The game is a simulated collection of 100 real pinball tables licensed by Gottlieb, Alvin G. and Company, and Stern Pinball, a company which also owns the rights of machines from Data East and Sega Pinball. Williams and Bally games are no longer available since June 30, 2018, as FarSight had lost the license to WMS properties, which has since passed to Zen Studios.
Organ Trail is a "retro zombie survival game" that parodies the educational game series The Oregon Trail. It was initially released as a free Adobe Flash-based browser game, and later as a Facebook app. This version was developed by Ben Perez, Michael Block, and Ryan Wiemeyer. The game uses the Unity game engine.
Besides the Linux distributions designed for general-purpose use on desktops and servers, distributions may be specialized for different purposes including computer architecture support, embedded systems, stability, security, localization to a specific region or language, targeting of specific user groups, support for real-time applications, or commitment to a given desktop environment. Furthermore, some distributions deliberately include only free software. As of 2015, over four hundred Linux distributions are actively developed, with about a dozen distributions being most popular for general-purpose use.
A Virus Named TOM is a puzzle game for Windows, macOS, Linux, and PlayStation Vita, though it was planned for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. It was developed by the independent American game developer Misfits Attic, and the PC versions were released worldwide on August 1, 2012. The PlayStation Vita version was released on April 5, 2016 as a part of the Instant Game Collection titles for PlayStation Plus.
Counter-Strike (CS) is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror while counter-terrorists try to prevent it. The series began on Windows in 1999 with the release of the first game, Counter-Strike. It was initially released as a modification ("mod") for Half-Life that was designed by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe before the rights to the mod's intellectual property were acquired by Valve, the developers of Half-Life, who then turned Counter-Strike into a retail product released in 2000.
Source 2 is a video game engine developed by Valve. The engine was announced in 2015 as the successor to the original Source engine, with the first game to use it, Dota 2, being ported from Source that same year. Other Valve games, such as Artifact, Dota Underlords, Half-Life: Alyx, and Counter-Strike 2, have been produced with the engine.
Delver is a 2018 first-person roguelike action dungeon crawler video game developed by Priority Interrupt. It was released for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux on February 2, 2018.
