Valve Software has released their latest game, Left4Dead. This is a zombie thriller game and I’d like to give it a try. I love Valve games and I love zombies, so this should be my favorite game of the year, right?
Well I won’t find out, possibly for years to come. I play Valve’s games under Linux (unsupported) via WINE. WINE’s DirectX support is pretty solid through DirectX 8 and I can play Team Fortress 2, Portal, Counter-Strike: Source, HL2 + Episodes, etc. They run just fine on my system and I have fun.
As of Left4Dead, Valve has dropped DirectX 8 support. I look at the game on the WINE AppDB and the word is it runs fine, but slow as a dog. So I don’t buy it.
This is an example of sales prevention. Valve already chooses not to support Linux as a gaming platform; their choice. But now they are cutting off the ability to play their new games via WINE. Also their choice, but a choice which means that I won’t be giving them my money until I read on the WINE AppDB that things have improved.
And for the record I’ve bought pretty much every Valve game since Half-Life. I would love to continue to do so.