While Valve beavers away on bringing Steam to Linux with Left 4 Dead 2 as an appetiser, Croteam is working on a Linux Steam offering of its own. Later this year, its madcap FPS Serious Sam 3: BFE will launch for the hackers, code crackers, slackers and chatroom yakkers on Linux.

"We're in the process of integrating Steamworks and achievements and the whole shebang, but we can't get the little fucker of a penguin to stand still," publisher Devolver Digital's comedy chief financial officer Fork Parker said in the announcement.

So we may well be seeing Steam launch on Linux in 2012, though Croteam could also be whipping up a non-Steam version for that notoriously fussy Linux lot.