The company had previously outlined a Vision to build a Steam client for Ubuntu 12.04 that would function just as well as the Windows client.
Valve co-founder Gabe Newell had publicly criticized Microsoft's direction with Windows 8, describing it in July as a "catastrophe" for people working in the PC space. Speculation following his comments surround fears that the new OS could lead to content update filtering by Microsoft, potentially bottlenecking Steam updates.
Minecraft creator Markus Persson also criticized Windows 8, going as far as to claim the game wouldn't be ported to Windows 8.