New games in colorful packaging are unlikely to disappear entirely, but digital sales channels are becoming more and more important – especially for younger audiences. Games can be bought directly from Steam, and others, and once you've logged in to your account, you can play them immediately. Occasional bargains keep players happy, and other players are there to evaluate games.

The digital distribution channel has its downside. You have to have a stable Internet connection and often download loads of files. Reselling games isn't always possible, and if a server on the provider's platform goes down, you won't be able to purchase anything. Not least are the security risks: Every now and then payment information is hacked and ends up in the wrong hands. Most people are aware of this possibility but happily live with the risks, considering the increasing number of Steam users.

Under Pressure

Steam is probably the largest of the game distribution platforms, with more than 2,000 titles and 50 million accounts (the website still claims only 40 million). Among the vendors who sell games on Steam are Ubisoft, Epic Games, Electronic Arts, id Software, Rockstar Games, Activision, and, naturally, Valve itself. The distribution of its own games (Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, Portal) was the impetus for developing Steam. It was published in 2003 and became a prerequisite for getting some Valve games such as Half-Life 2.

Steam for Linux

A native Steam client for Linux was officially announced in July 2012, but was already haunting blogs and online forums before that. Until the official release, Linux gamers ran Steam with help from Wine. Steam for Linux is currently in a beta version open to all Linux players. My test resulted in an almost flawless operation with Ubuntu 12.10, although switching to "Big-Picture" mode crashed the software.

To get started, you can download the Steam client from its website [1]. At the top right, click Install Steam , and the web server should automatically detect your platform and provide the Linux client for downloading. On the next page, simply click Install Steam Now to save the Debian package locally. Software Center opens and presents you with the licensing agreement. Accept it and proceed with the installation.

Ubuntu now downloads the Steam package with its dependencies and opens a window that prompts you to start the Steam client. Alternatively, you can open Steam from the Dash. Starting the client first downloads any necessary updates, which can take a few minutes. If you've never used Steam or haven't deleted the old files (see the "Removing Steam" box), you end up in a window in which you can enter a new account using Create New Account or register with an existing one with Login to existing account . The first option takes you to a registration page and the other to login lines.

After logging in, you come to an empty window that shows the available games. To buy a certain game, just enter its name in the top left search bar. To view all games available for Linux, click Store and then Linux on the right (Figure 1). The store gets new games and game accessories every day; click Top Sellers to get a list of the more popular ones.

Figure 1: New games and add-ons appear daily in the Steam store.

You can use the Steam | Settings menu and Interface tab to set the game language, although you have to restart Steam. Clicking a game provides information about it. Steam might require that you install the newest Flash player to view certain content. If you've already installed a Flash player, you need to close the browser, remove the adobe-flashplugin package in Software Center and replace it with the flashplugin-installer package. To purchase a game, move it as usual to the shopping cart and follow the instructions. Apart from PayPal and credit cards, Steam allows for (controversial) instant money and payment by mobile phone.

Desura

Desura [2] is similar to Steam, except it has two clients and a much smaller focus. It targets indie games and so-called mods (modifications) – that is, games developed by players themselves and add-ons for certain games. Desura waives DRM (Digital Rights Management) but allows game developers to use their own form of copyright protection. Connected to and used by Desura are the well-known ModDB [3] and IndieDB [4] databases.

The client development model follows that of Google Chrome and Chromium. A working open source client named Desurium is the template for the almost unaltered official version that the project publishes on its website. You can install the open source Desurium client from an unofficial PPA:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:makson96/desurium-stable
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install desurium

To install the official Desura client (which still bears the company branding) instead, you can download the tar.gz archive for your Linux architecture from the website and unpack it somewhere in your home directory. Then, navigate to the folder in the file manager and double-click desura to download and install the client. You also need the libssl0.9.8 package from Software Center. Only then should you start the client. Note that this doesn't work in the Dash – only if you double-click the Desura executable file.

Other Clients

IndieCity [5] is yet another game distribution platform and specializes in independent games and modifications. Created in 2011, it's still pretty young, and the Linux client is under development. As the magazine went to press, I still couldn't get a test version of the client; it was being revised because of a download bug.

Browser game shops often also have small games and apps for Linux users. This includes the Chrome Web Store (Figure 2), which you can access when you install the Chrome or Chromium browser and click the link to the shop on the start page. Many of the games are based on Flash, Shockwave, or Microsoft's Silverlight, so whether they will run in the browser or not is hit or miss. Angry Birds ran successfully, although the five-year-old computer staggered a bit, and some games required the newest Flash version before running, as described in the Steam section.

Figure 2: Forge of Empires is one of the games available from the Chrome web store.