this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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While I mostly agree with this, every time I see this mentioned it reminds me that ~~MS-DOS~~ Windows was not very popular, until a Microsoft employee offered to port Doom to ~~DOS~~ Windows, because he saw that if games ran on a platform people would use it and migrate naturally, that employee was called Gabe Newell. So I do have some hope that there's some bigger migration, and in fact we've seen the numbers steadily rising, and these sort of things tend to be exponential, so I wouldn't be surprised if it picks up speed.
DOS was the most popular OS for gaming at the time and Doom was released first on DOS by id.
Gabe Newell and team ported it to Windows 95.
I did not realize Gaben worked for Microsoft. So he knows wtf he's doing with the steam deck. I think he is 100% trying to recreate that OS migration of the 90s
Oops, thanks for the correction I'll update the post
Windows was wildly popular prior to Doom. Doom for Windows 95 was a showcase for DirectX, not Windows.
Doom was on more systems than Windows 95, yes, but that's a little misleading. First off, it was released several years before Window's 95. Secondly, people upgraded computers less often back then, and Windows 95 wasn't packaged with most systems and wasn't distributed online. You had to actively decide to go to a store and buy it.
Third, the vast majority of Doom copies were the shareware version of the first campaign. It was tiny and free. People would bring their floppy to a friend's house, or they'd post it on a bbs for download.
The port to Windows 95 was a technical showcase of the advantages of using DirectX. It showed that Windows had integrated features that could be used to enhance games with minimal development cost, and that games could be run without having to exit Windows to DOS, which was a huge hassle required for most games at the time.