I first would like to state that this article is more about all CEO’s of game development companies like Blizzard, EA and Bethesda, just to name a few. The reason why I mention Mr. Morhaime in the title is because he is the CEO of Blizzard, a company that has world wide popularity and therefore can allow the Linux desktop surpass market share of Mac much quicker than probably any other gaming company.
Most CEO’s like to use market share as a way to judge if they should release their game or software on a particular PC operating system. Unfortunately this is the wrong way of doing it. Instead they need to change their way of thinking now that the Linux desktop has advanced so much over the years and the increasing hatred Microsoft constantly creates among Windows users with every release/updates.
If you check any forum for a particular game or software, there is a high chance of seeing a Linux request topic. This was happening so much on the Blizzard forums that the moderators use to delete every Linux request topic. Although since the new forums came out some years back and the moderators are no longer deleting those topics, Linux support requests keep coming in from the Blizzard fans in every forum for each Blizzard title.
With so many fans expressing not only their desire to play on Linux but also their disgust with Windows, it is clear that bringing popular titles to the Linux desktop will help a great deal to increase usage of the operating system and show your customers that you do care about them.
To those that say “use WINE”, not all Windows made games/software work in WINE or break with the most minor of updates. Look at Overwatch for example, it currently is completely unplayable in WINE. Battle.net Desktop has stopped working many times when updated and lets not forget when DIABLO III was released. Blizzard anti-cheat system was viewing Linux players as cheaters causing many to be banned. A representative from Blizzard even admitted it around 6 months later so by supporting Linux, the gaming company improves their image to their fans by not forcing them to use an operating system or special software to use the game/software they love so much.
So Mr. Morhaime and other CEO’s, are you going to help Linux desktop increase it’s usage by listening to your fans and finally supporting Linux desktop? Or; Are you going to keep Linux down by continuing to ignore your fans?
Remember:
Supporting all 3 PC operating systems (Win, OS X, Linux) = more income and happier fans.