Earliest support, in the late 90s and early 00s way before Valve jumped in was from Loki Entertaiment who ported many AAA titles. Individual developers like id

Earliest support, in the late 90s and early 00s way before Valve jumped in was from Loki Entertaiment who ported many AAA titles. Individual developers like id and Epic also released Linux versions of their titles back around the same time. Of course after Loki fell and it started to become apparent that Linux wasn't going to take over the desktop there was a very long period of virtually no AAA games on Linux. There are now more games on Linux than there ever have been thanks to the rise of indie games, crowdfunding and Valve's efforts with SteamOS. Just a while ago Gaming On Linux noted that 8 out of 10 of the current most popular games on Steam are now available or coming soon on Linux. I hope Valve really is in it for the long term as the Steam survey numbers (floating around 1% for Linux) are still very poor and most non-indie developers don't find the saler figures to be worth it. I don't think things would become as nearly as bad as they did back when Loki folded even if Valve decided SteamOS is dead though, thanks to indie games and Kickstarter. Not having VR with HTC Vive on Linux/Steam machines on day one seems like a missed opportunity. It's a new platform where it would have been easier to get a significant portion or even all of the games also on Linux.