This is a good update for Linux Gaming fans. There was definitely uncertainty when the Steam Machines page was delisted, some even thinking this was game over for gaming on Linux.
Those who were there at the beginning of the Valve Linux Offensive (circa 2012) will remember Gabe Newell stating that the main driver for investing in Linux is their dependency on Windows as a platform. Valve has never been one for dependencies at the best of times (creating their own engine to replace quake, creating their own sales platform to replace retail) and having a dependency on a platform that explicitly seems to be trying to emulate the iOS/Android approach more and more is absolutely a reason to at the very least have a plan B.
Having Valve come out and say that they're still invested in Linux is important, but what is highlighted in the post is also poignant - in 2012 it seemed the barrier to adoption was interest in the platform and access to a Linux machine. The solution to both of these was to create a high-profile, easily accessible form factor which was Linux by default. It turns out that this may not have actually been the right solution. Linux adoption has risen and the back catalogue of available games has increased incredibly, despite lacklustre sales. The problem now, and perhaps always was the graphics APIs and cost of porting. Valve are actively investing in Vulkan which is absolutely the right thing for them to be doing. The only downside is that it looks like they're neglecting the 'movement' they started with Steam Machines.
I hope to see big things from Valve in the future. If I were them, however, I would invest in creating a truly fantastic desktop experience with seamless transition from Windows, lots of toys to play with, riced desktops etc. Hardware and the console form factor should be secondary to creating a PC desktop experience worthy of the people who created Half Life and steam.
Those who were there at the beginning of the Valve Linux Offensive (circa 2012) will remember Gabe Newell stating that the main driver for investing in Linux is their dependency on Windows as a platform.
I see a problem that is just as big, or probably bigger, here for the (PC) game industry: the near-monopoly of Steam.
I try to buy non-Steam versions of the games I buy, because I dislike Steam's online DRM and their client, but it seems that Steam is the new Windows when it comes to gaming. "Everything" is released on Steam first, and it seems a lot of times only on Steam. Which means that we're one focus shift or stolen password away from not being able to run the games we've bought and paid for.
gog.com has a better offer, IMHO, by being DRM free. Are there any other similar competing services? Humble Bundle seem to be selling Steam keys these days, so they're a subset of Steam.
You and they are probably right. Investing in Vulcan and the attractiveness of non-Windows platforms in general is the most important thing they can do. The many games that are now available for Linux are what makes Linux a good gaming OS, not the steam machines that were never sold.
Still, it is a bit sad. Steam machines could have worked, but they were severely flawed. Buying a steam machine did not guarantee that one would get a machine actually capable of playing current games, they were very different and often underpowered. Linux-compatibility alone is then not enough.
I think they could be great if they had been more controlled: Define a form factor, define the minimum cpu and gpu power needed, buy those in big quantities to be able to give a discount compared to buying a PC manually. Release it at the start of a gpu-release cycle, so it does not need to be updated that soon. Pre-install SteamOS on a machine like this and add a starter game (Portal) and one would actually have an upgradeable gaming console developers could target games for.
Steam machines biggest flaw was they eschewed the biggest benefit of a game console, being a common hardware Target for devs.
They should have a rolling release built around a good Apu and move from v1 through to v2 etc revisions of the hardware every couple of years.
Maybe throw in a pro version of the hardware for people with money to burn
The biggest issue I've faced when it comes to playing games on Linux that have good support (for example CS:GO) is that mouse handling in linux is not easy to configure and vendor mouse drivers are often atrocious if they exist at all.
Specifically for first-/third-person games this means getting the right sensitivity and disabling mouse-acceleration (or setting it in a very specific way for some hardcore quake pros supposedly).
Last time I checked, disabling mouse accelleration is a huge hassle and no working UI exists. The average gamer will not go into config files of the OS to try and find the right formula that makes their mouse move the way they expect it to.
This isn't really an important issue in normal desktop usage or point-and-click games. Thus support by linux developers is understandably lacking.
>The problem now, and perhaps always was the graphics APIs and cost of porting.
Perhaps some special financial incentives from Valve to big studios would be able to get the rock moving down the mountain? Temporary discounts perhaps?
I feel like Valve has certainly been putting effort into Linux, but not serious effort.
They seem to be going low-moderate risk/investment. Sure there's progress, but then the Wine devs are moving pretty steadily too at the moment.
If Valve wants to really be serious:
- Offer incentives to Devs to support Linux/Vulkan
- Release a goddamn new game (HL3 - dreams) and make it Linux exclusive for a time
- develop and release new features for Linux first (maybe if GoG ever get the Galaxy client over to Linux Valve will get a kick in the pants to act...)
- Promote SteamOS and (maybe) Steam Machines, like at least some. Show Steam Machines as an 'out-of-the-box Windows gaming replacement, not a console competitor.
- Fund Linux devs or take a lower cut from Linux releases
- Convince Adobe to release their suite on Linux! Push for/fund official Unity and Unreal Engine Linux versions
- Offer the ability to natively launch games through Wine (and either use 'community' environment files or require one exist, or have a link to WineHQ for help)
Be serious Valve, be genuine and get your flat structured 'follow the shiny thing' company focused and determined.
> Release a goddamn new game (HL3 - dreams) and make it Linux exclusive for a time
A move like this would definitely not win Linux any friends, because as it turns out the Linux Desktop really isn't that great and you'd just be causing a huge headache for a lot of people. The gamers would be annoyed at having to deal with Linux's bullshit, the Linux Destkop community would be annoyed at the huge influx of new users who don't think "try another distro" (especially after the third distro), or "write your own driver, it's open source!", are acceptable solutions to their problems.
If Linux wants gamers there's a simple (note: simple != easy) thing they have to do: make their platform attractive to gamers and game developers. So far they can't manage either, the only reason gaming on Linux is even remotely viable is A) Valve coming in and saying "Ok, since there's no such thing as a standardized base system in Linux Desktop land, here's a standardized base system for Steam you can target", and 2) the popularity of Android making engines like Unity and Unreal have Linux support, which allows devs to tack it on without too much extra effort.
Dunno, my Steam Box runs games like Grid Autosport, Mad Max, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex etc. without a single issue, as fast as on Windows (quad i5 + NVidia), and I don't even notice I am on Linux. So thanks to Valve and Feral Interactive, I can slowly move away from Windows to Linux for all my computing needs, not just for programming, Deep Learning and blockchain. What else is missing?
Moreover, I can run a lot of software under Wine, like Adobe CS6 or MS Office, or even many games (it has gotten significantly better lately).
In Gabe Newell's own words, Linux support was a hedging strategy against Microsoft potentially mandating software distribution through the Windows App Store:
"So we’re going to continue working with the Linux distribution guys, shipping Steam, shipping our games, and making it as easy as possible for anybody who’s engaged with us — putting their games on Steam and getting those running on Linux, as well. It’s a hedging strategy.
I think that Windows 8 is kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space."
Given Gabe's fears never really materialized (perhaps with the exception of Windows 10 'S', but even that no longer has fees to enable third party software sources), there simply hasn't been anything like as much pressure for Valve to push SteamOS/Linux.
>>Release a goddamn new game (HL3 - dreams) and make it Linux exclusive for a time
I think people seriously overestimate how popular that game would be. If they really did release it as a Linux exclusive, a lot of us nerds(and I mean it as a compliment here) would install Linux in a heartbeat just to play it, but I think overall, the game would sell very poorly. It has been so many years since the last one that the mainstream public doesn't care about it anymore - a group of hardcore enthusiasts would buy it + some people interested in what the whole Half-Life hype is about, but I'd be surprised if it sold million copies.
They aren’t trying to promote Linux. They are trying to have an open platform to run and sell games.
Why would they be talking to Adobe, limit their sales while pissing off fans by releasing a Linux exclusive (for any amount of time,) or spend/forgo money on Linux development/sales?
This doesn’t make any sense. It’s just a wishlist for someone who likes Linux, not a part of strategy to deal with DirectX.
- Fund Linux devs or take a lower cut from Linux releases
I believe Valve is already employing people to work on Linux and it's ecosystem directly.
- Convince Adobe to release their suite on Linux! Push for/fund official Unity and Unreal Engine Linux versions
Maybe they should just convince Microsoft to port over win32 and all the other APIs to linux? Whilst they're at it, they could also convince your most hated political figure to be more like your most loved political figure. With the convincing powers like these, Valve could just convince the world to no longer suffer from hunger.
The only incentives that work would be of the financial kind, however, paying for support is not sustainable. Console vendors can pay for first party or exclusive support from game devs because they are fairly sure this will increase revenue in the long term. Valve gains no more money if they incentivize developers to support Linux. I also don't really want for things to be supported exclusively on Linux unless if there are good technical reasons - I use Linux because of the freedom it provides me, I wouldn't advocate for people to be forced to use it.
FWIW, Unity and Unreal run on linux, but a lot of developers elect to use windows-only Unity plugins. The developers don't care.
What Linux really needs is non-shit drivers and a mainstream desktop environment that takes into account input latency when developing it's window manager - Wayland on Gnome is really bad in this regard, yet Gnome is the target desktop environment for Steam OS (at least last time I checked). They should maybe make sure that their games run just as fast on Linux as they do on other platforms - currently this is not the case. I believe that solving these issues will be hard and may require a unilateral effort across various entities in the ecosystem - something which is incredibly hard to do, especially when it comes to Gnome. Then there's things like drivers - yes, performance wise Intel and Nvidia drivers might be OK, but they are not feature complete especially when it comes to power management. I don't believe there is a single problem that has to be fixed to make gaming on linux a massive success - there isn't even a shortlist of 10 incredulous tasks. It has to be a long-term effort and the open source community has to take part in it.
One thing Valve may just be able to do is somehow convince Apple to support Vulkan. I feel that if Vulkan becomes the official API for both macOS and iOS (even if say 3 years from now), that would be a huge boost to the Vulkan ecosystem.
I think the prospect of developing a game that "automatically" works on both Windows (and not just 10, but also 7 and 8) and macOS would be quite compelling. Plus the bonus that the games would also work on Linux, and iOS/Android, and eventually the web (at least some of them for these last three).
Besides Apple, Valve should also convince Sony to support Vulkan on the next-gen PS5 console. They should tell both of these companies that they benefit more from being in this larger ecosystem than they do by creating their little walled gardens while Microsoft's gaming ecosystem engulfs and dominates them from outside.
It's also quite imperative for Valve to try to achieve this because they are still at risk of being obsolete by a future version of Windows that restricts Win32 apps by default for consumers (a non-zero chance of that happening over the next 10 years). So Valve should have a big incentive to try to get some kind of "partnership" with both Apple and Sony and get them to support Vulkan.
"sure, you guys sell delicious chocolate near by, but i feel you are not commited to this. You should open a factory if you are to show you are serious with my street"
The thing is, statistically, no one uses Linux desktops. There's really no point in expending any great effort there, aside from ideological reasons.
I suppose it could be a hedge against Microsoft doing something incredibly stupid, like cutting support for Win32 and mandating UWP garbage through their garbage store.
If you release games on a platform, or targeting a hardware spec which has a player base with is too small (like say, VR), and don't make enough money in your 'big bang' release, you're screwed, and your company goes under.
Heck, even if you do make some money, if its not enough to 'wow' investors, your studio will probably still be shut down. The economics of big bang release software are very hard ('Explain to me again why after making a million dollars this month you want another million dollars investment that will not generate any return for the next 2 years?'), and game companies are behind the curve in dealing with it.
The alternative (freemium) is just a race to the bottom, and its happening on steam right now the same way it happened on the app stores.
Incentives to encourage developers to target 'linux first' isn't just not going to work; its actually unethical.
You're basically paying people to target a platform that you know isn't significant enough for them to recoup the significant development costs in making games.
So yeah.
Realistically, you need to do one thing:
Figure out a way to provide a meaningful continuing income stream to developers targeting the platform.
As I understand it, what value is currently doing is attempting to bootstrap the market to consume linux games, by:
- Minimise the cost of developing on the platform by improving the tooling and making it easier to target 'cross platform' to include an additional platform (vulken, steam networking, etc).
- Make a platform that will consistently actually run said games, and push that upstream for other distributions to pick up.
- Work with partners to provide hardware that is configured in a way that can actually run that platform without having to compile the kernel yourself.
So... frankly, that seems like a pretty smart way to tackle the problem.
...but on the other hand, it hasn't been massively successful, to be fair.
Practically speaking, 'linux first' is never going to work; but I don't really know what else they can really do to help it along the way.
I completely disagree with that. I don't believe anyone should be forced to use a different platform, when the only reason behind it is a handshake and a piece of paper - even if it's my preferred platform.
Kinda goes against one of the reasons for using Linux.
Pretty much if you could get Adobe on Linux, it would be a clincher for me. I would move, endure whatever drama I have to endure with configuration etc, and just live happily ever after.
Even change distro every now and then.
I love how many good games are available for linux in steam! Factorio, Terraria, Silicon Zeroes, ...
It seems that it's even trivial to release Stream games for linux when using any common game engine, and I hope developers will make use of that as much as possible.
Fallout 3 has no linux version in steam unfortunately, but I actually could play it perfectly by running the windows client of steam in wine. Everything just worked (I had to do a memory patch to support 64-bit CPUs, but so do windows users have to so no difference there)
I tend to prefer GOG over Steam lately, mostly because of how shady Valve is at certain stuff. The first 2 of the 3 games you mentioned are available DRM-Free on their site.
Playtesting takes time and money and it's entirely possible that just exporting the game for linux won't run perfectly, so I can see why some companies using the common game engines don't do it, I kinda wish they did, though.
Potentially unpopular opinion: There is no money to be made in consumer desktop operating systems in 2018, so there is little funding for innovation in the consumer desktop operating system space. Until a business model emerges which challenges this, the status quo will remain roughly the status quo.
The two major commercial producers of proprietary operating systems are basically giving away their operating system at this point. Free Linux distributions offer basically the same functionality for most users; the only things preventing migration from one OS to another are existing applications. For non-gamers, that's often moot, because the world exists in a web browser now. Yes, there are other applications causing OS lock-in too, but they're mostly on the business side, not the consumer side.
There is still plenty of money to be made from enterprise operating systems, but the innovation there is in a totally different direction than what consumers would find valuable.
Example: Linux containers are great! But who's spending the R&D money to make them a viable way to distribute games? There's plenty of work being done on containers and graphics chipsets for ML applications, but not for consumer use.
> The two major commercial producers of proprietary operating systems are basically giving away their operating system at this point.
Huh? Windows 10 home and pro aren't free? It's true that Apple doesn't charge for upgrades, but they do charge a significant markup - and they will happily sell you a licence to run Os X on a hackintosh although they'll forbid you from doing it in their licence ("non apple hardware").
> Until a business model emerges which challenges this
Appstores. Windows, and Os X have app stores. Steam is an appstore. Microsoft and Apple bundle a competitor to steam with the Os.
Just because both apple and Ms suck at making/marketing/developing their App stores... Doesn't mean valve don't want to stay in the business...
They can't get in on ios, Xbox, ps4, etc. They could probably make an appstore for Android - but I'm guessing they'll just focus on streaming games from the cloud to Android (esp Android TV).
With hw support for virtualization, Linux could be the universal runtime - allowing the same game to run on Mac, Windows and Linux...
When leaving Windows for Linux I kinda gave up on gaming, but not only some but most of my favorite games do work on Linux! For example Kerbal Space Program (which unfortunately get more and more buggy for each update, and is currently unplayable due to space ships spontaneously rip apart spreading parts all over the galaxy)
Most of the big game engines were ported to Linux at this point, so it has become easier for developers to target these platforms. There are multiple AAA titles running natively on Linux, with comparable performance to their Windows counterparts (some people have noticed even better performance).
I've been playing older titles that now have official Linux versions, like Bioshock, Metro 2033. Let me tell you, I would never have predicted I'd be playing AAA titles natively on Linux.
I don’t understand why no one is talking about Linux on stand-alone VR headsets.
Valve’s hardware team has been very busy, designing the Vive in 2016 and the knuckles controller in 2017.
They’ve said they are working on multiple full length VR games, but that they wanted to be able to design the hardware (knuckles) and the games together a la Nintendo.
This is public knowledge.
It’s also known that Oculus is releasing two standalone VR devices in the next couple years.
Valve has a headset, controllers, and a Linux OS. It seems obvious to me where this is all going: a stand-alone Valve VR device running SteamOS.
Of course they’re not investing in screen-based games and desktop Linux boxes. They’re perfectly positioned to release a medium-defining device in a green field new computing paradigm.
They are at least as well positioned in this fight as Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple. That’s the big leagues. Valve makes good money on Steam, but not that kind of money.
And you know Apple and Microsoft aren’t going to use Linux. So having Valve means there’s a Linux horse in the VR race.
I'm really confused if PC gaming is a winner-takes-all market. Most of the people I know (let's be honest, it's probably 90%-95% of your friends) play games (AAA, bigger indies, the "household names") on Windows and only a very fervent minority plays on Linux.
I personally have been using Linux on work computers and personal laptops (almost) exclusively for.. I don't know, 10 years? - but my "gaming pc" is still on Windows and I'm not in the mood for experiments with WINE or grasping at the games that run on Linux.
Does anyone play major games on Windows and Linux? I'm really excited for the idea of Linux gaming, but it's not a thing I'm willing to compromise and fiddling if the games I want to play really work.
It's about platform independence. Basically it lets steam tell microsoft, us and our ecosystem can move our PC 'console' to a linux foundation any time.
>While it's true Steam Machines aren't exactly flying off the shelves
I hope they didn't expect anything else. Steam already has a limited choice of games and a console that is even more limited is a niche product at best.
To make it succeed, they need a lot of resources to get GPU manufacturers and game publishers on board (also those who took their games off Steam and created their own launchers). They need both of that only to have a chance to attack regular consoles.
I recently received an invite for the GeForceNOW beta. For the unaware, GeforceNOW is game streaming; they leverage cloud GPUs to render games, then stream the results back to you. My take away is in-line with critical consensus. If you have a sublime Internet connection, it's an awesome service. It's prone to the odd dip in quality, but all-in-all it's a major paradigm shift.
I have been a proponent of gaming on Linux most of my adult life, but I can't help but think that Valve might be missing the boat by sinking resources into gaming on Linux local hardware. Times are a-changin'.
Steam as a platform is completely, utterly atrocious in all regards. Their client is ancient, outdated, and barely usable, there's no content quality filtering, the greenlight program is a failure that only succeeds in bringing complete bottom of the barrel dreg in 99% of cases, even from a developer's point of view the platform is just a major PITA.
But it has the first mover advantage and that is really everything. Even platforms that are infinitely better, have better tools, support, and pricing (such as itch.io that doesn't require a cent to publish your games) are heavily disadvantaged just because it takes extra work for developers and gamers to adopt them. There's no easy way out of this and Valve can continue being lazy and make major slip-ups every year and there's very little others can do to endanger their heavily entrenched position on the gaming market.
As far as PC (or GNU/Linux in particular) gaming is considered, Steam is everything, and it's not going to change any time soon.
There exists a world where the Switch is the Steam Machine. It would have been very well possible if Nvidia had chosen Steam instead of Nintendo as distributor for its Shield.
We'd have an open handheld platform for indie games.
[+] [-] Zhyl|8 years ago|reply
Those who were there at the beginning of the Valve Linux Offensive (circa 2012) will remember Gabe Newell stating that the main driver for investing in Linux is their dependency on Windows as a platform. Valve has never been one for dependencies at the best of times (creating their own engine to replace quake, creating their own sales platform to replace retail) and having a dependency on a platform that explicitly seems to be trying to emulate the iOS/Android approach more and more is absolutely a reason to at the very least have a plan B.
Having Valve come out and say that they're still invested in Linux is important, but what is highlighted in the post is also poignant - in 2012 it seemed the barrier to adoption was interest in the platform and access to a Linux machine. The solution to both of these was to create a high-profile, easily accessible form factor which was Linux by default. It turns out that this may not have actually been the right solution. Linux adoption has risen and the back catalogue of available games has increased incredibly, despite lacklustre sales. The problem now, and perhaps always was the graphics APIs and cost of porting. Valve are actively investing in Vulkan which is absolutely the right thing for them to be doing. The only downside is that it looks like they're neglecting the 'movement' they started with Steam Machines.
I hope to see big things from Valve in the future. If I were them, however, I would invest in creating a truly fantastic desktop experience with seamless transition from Windows, lots of toys to play with, riced desktops etc. Hardware and the console form factor should be secondary to creating a PC desktop experience worthy of the people who created Half Life and steam.
[+] [-] m_eiman|8 years ago|reply
I see a problem that is just as big, or probably bigger, here for the (PC) game industry: the near-monopoly of Steam.
I try to buy non-Steam versions of the games I buy, because I dislike Steam's online DRM and their client, but it seems that Steam is the new Windows when it comes to gaming. "Everything" is released on Steam first, and it seems a lot of times only on Steam. Which means that we're one focus shift or stolen password away from not being able to run the games we've bought and paid for.
gog.com has a better offer, IMHO, by being DRM free. Are there any other similar competing services? Humble Bundle seem to be selling Steam keys these days, so they're a subset of Steam.
[+] [-] onli|8 years ago|reply
Still, it is a bit sad. Steam machines could have worked, but they were severely flawed. Buying a steam machine did not guarantee that one would get a machine actually capable of playing current games, they were very different and often underpowered. Linux-compatibility alone is then not enough.
I think they could be great if they had been more controlled: Define a form factor, define the minimum cpu and gpu power needed, buy those in big quantities to be able to give a discount compared to buying a PC manually. Release it at the start of a gpu-release cycle, so it does not need to be updated that soon. Pre-install SteamOS on a machine like this and add a starter game (Portal) and one would actually have an upgradeable gaming console developers could target games for.
[+] [-] shrewduser|8 years ago|reply
Maybe throw in a pro version of the hardware for people with money to burn
[+] [-] mAritz|8 years ago|reply
Specifically for first-/third-person games this means getting the right sensitivity and disabling mouse-acceleration (or setting it in a very specific way for some hardcore quake pros supposedly).
Last time I checked, disabling mouse accelleration is a huge hassle and no working UI exists. The average gamer will not go into config files of the OS to try and find the right formula that makes their mouse move the way they expect it to.
This isn't really an important issue in normal desktop usage or point-and-click games. Thus support by linux developers is understandably lacking.
[+] [-] imjustsaying|8 years ago|reply
Perhaps some special financial incentives from Valve to big studios would be able to get the rock moving down the mountain? Temporary discounts perhaps?
[+] [-] headsoup|8 years ago|reply
They seem to be going low-moderate risk/investment. Sure there's progress, but then the Wine devs are moving pretty steadily too at the moment.
If Valve wants to really be serious:
- Offer incentives to Devs to support Linux/Vulkan
- Release a goddamn new game (HL3 - dreams) and make it Linux exclusive for a time
- develop and release new features for Linux first (maybe if GoG ever get the Galaxy client over to Linux Valve will get a kick in the pants to act...)
- Promote SteamOS and (maybe) Steam Machines, like at least some. Show Steam Machines as an 'out-of-the-box Windows gaming replacement, not a console competitor.
- Fund Linux devs or take a lower cut from Linux releases
- Convince Adobe to release their suite on Linux! Push for/fund official Unity and Unreal Engine Linux versions
- Offer the ability to natively launch games through Wine (and either use 'community' environment files or require one exist, or have a link to WineHQ for help)
Be serious Valve, be genuine and get your flat structured 'follow the shiny thing' company focused and determined.
[+] [-] AnIdiotOnTheNet|8 years ago|reply
A move like this would definitely not win Linux any friends, because as it turns out the Linux Desktop really isn't that great and you'd just be causing a huge headache for a lot of people. The gamers would be annoyed at having to deal with Linux's bullshit, the Linux Destkop community would be annoyed at the huge influx of new users who don't think "try another distro" (especially after the third distro), or "write your own driver, it's open source!", are acceptable solutions to their problems.
If Linux wants gamers there's a simple (note: simple != easy) thing they have to do: make their platform attractive to gamers and game developers. So far they can't manage either, the only reason gaming on Linux is even remotely viable is A) Valve coming in and saying "Ok, since there's no such thing as a standardized base system in Linux Desktop land, here's a standardized base system for Steam you can target", and 2) the popularity of Android making engines like Unity and Unreal have Linux support, which allows devs to tack it on without too much extra effort.
[+] [-] bitL|8 years ago|reply
Dunno, my Steam Box runs games like Grid Autosport, Mad Max, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex etc. without a single issue, as fast as on Windows (quad i5 + NVidia), and I don't even notice I am on Linux. So thanks to Valve and Feral Interactive, I can slowly move away from Windows to Linux for all my computing needs, not just for programming, Deep Learning and blockchain. What else is missing?
Moreover, I can run a lot of software under Wine, like Adobe CS6 or MS Office, or even many games (it has gotten significantly better lately).
[+] [-] zeroxfe|8 years ago|reply
Wait, what? Valve has been making huge contributions to the large parts of the Linux ecosystem.
Of course they can do more -- anyone can, but patronizing them with "be genuine" and "follow the shiny thing" is really unnecessary.
[+] [-] giobox|8 years ago|reply
"So we’re going to continue working with the Linux distribution guys, shipping Steam, shipping our games, and making it as easy as possible for anybody who’s engaged with us — putting their games on Steam and getting those running on Linux, as well. It’s a hedging strategy.
I think that Windows 8 is kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space."
> https://venturebeat.com/2012/07/25/valves-gabe-newell-talks/
Given Gabe's fears never really materialized (perhaps with the exception of Windows 10 'S', but even that no longer has fees to enable third party software sources), there simply hasn't been anything like as much pressure for Valve to push SteamOS/Linux.
[+] [-] gambiting|8 years ago|reply
I think people seriously overestimate how popular that game would be. If they really did release it as a Linux exclusive, a lot of us nerds(and I mean it as a compliment here) would install Linux in a heartbeat just to play it, but I think overall, the game would sell very poorly. It has been so many years since the last one that the mainstream public doesn't care about it anymore - a group of hardcore enthusiasts would buy it + some people interested in what the whole Half-Life hype is about, but I'd be surprised if it sold million copies.
[+] [-] austinshea|8 years ago|reply
They aren’t trying to promote Linux. They are trying to have an open platform to run and sell games.
Why would they be talking to Adobe, limit their sales while pissing off fans by releasing a Linux exclusive (for any amount of time,) or spend/forgo money on Linux development/sales?
This doesn’t make any sense. It’s just a wishlist for someone who likes Linux, not a part of strategy to deal with DirectX.
[+] [-] eptcyka|8 years ago|reply
- Convince Adobe to release their suite on Linux! Push for/fund official Unity and Unreal Engine Linux versions Maybe they should just convince Microsoft to port over win32 and all the other APIs to linux? Whilst they're at it, they could also convince your most hated political figure to be more like your most loved political figure. With the convincing powers like these, Valve could just convince the world to no longer suffer from hunger.
The only incentives that work would be of the financial kind, however, paying for support is not sustainable. Console vendors can pay for first party or exclusive support from game devs because they are fairly sure this will increase revenue in the long term. Valve gains no more money if they incentivize developers to support Linux. I also don't really want for things to be supported exclusively on Linux unless if there are good technical reasons - I use Linux because of the freedom it provides me, I wouldn't advocate for people to be forced to use it. FWIW, Unity and Unreal run on linux, but a lot of developers elect to use windows-only Unity plugins. The developers don't care.
What Linux really needs is non-shit drivers and a mainstream desktop environment that takes into account input latency when developing it's window manager - Wayland on Gnome is really bad in this regard, yet Gnome is the target desktop environment for Steam OS (at least last time I checked). They should maybe make sure that their games run just as fast on Linux as they do on other platforms - currently this is not the case. I believe that solving these issues will be hard and may require a unilateral effort across various entities in the ecosystem - something which is incredibly hard to do, especially when it comes to Gnome. Then there's things like drivers - yes, performance wise Intel and Nvidia drivers might be OK, but they are not feature complete especially when it comes to power management. I don't believe there is a single problem that has to be fixed to make gaming on linux a massive success - there isn't even a shortlist of 10 incredulous tasks. It has to be a long-term effort and the open source community has to take part in it.
[+] [-] mtgx|8 years ago|reply
I think the prospect of developing a game that "automatically" works on both Windows (and not just 10, but also 7 and 8) and macOS would be quite compelling. Plus the bonus that the games would also work on Linux, and iOS/Android, and eventually the web (at least some of them for these last three).
Besides Apple, Valve should also convince Sony to support Vulkan on the next-gen PS5 console. They should tell both of these companies that they benefit more from being in this larger ecosystem than they do by creating their little walled gardens while Microsoft's gaming ecosystem engulfs and dominates them from outside.
It's also quite imperative for Valve to try to achieve this because they are still at risk of being obsolete by a future version of Windows that restricts Win32 apps by default for consumers (a non-zero chance of that happening over the next 10 years). So Valve should have a big incentive to try to get some kind of "partnership" with both Apple and Sony and get them to support Vulkan.
[+] [-] sametmax|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] megaman22|8 years ago|reply
I suppose it could be a hedge against Microsoft doing something incredibly stupid, like cutting support for Win32 and mandating UWP garbage through their garbage store.
[+] [-] shadowmint|8 years ago|reply
however...
If you release games on a platform, or targeting a hardware spec which has a player base with is too small (like say, VR), and don't make enough money in your 'big bang' release, you're screwed, and your company goes under.
Heck, even if you do make some money, if its not enough to 'wow' investors, your studio will probably still be shut down. The economics of big bang release software are very hard ('Explain to me again why after making a million dollars this month you want another million dollars investment that will not generate any return for the next 2 years?'), and game companies are behind the curve in dealing with it.
The alternative (freemium) is just a race to the bottom, and its happening on steam right now the same way it happened on the app stores.
Incentives to encourage developers to target 'linux first' isn't just not going to work; its actually unethical.
You're basically paying people to target a platform that you know isn't significant enough for them to recoup the significant development costs in making games.
So yeah.
Realistically, you need to do one thing:
Figure out a way to provide a meaningful continuing income stream to developers targeting the platform.
As I understand it, what value is currently doing is attempting to bootstrap the market to consume linux games, by:
- Minimise the cost of developing on the platform by improving the tooling and making it easier to target 'cross platform' to include an additional platform (vulken, steam networking, etc).
- Make a platform that will consistently actually run said games, and push that upstream for other distributions to pick up.
- Work with partners to provide hardware that is configured in a way that can actually run that platform without having to compile the kernel yourself.
So... frankly, that seems like a pretty smart way to tackle the problem.
...but on the other hand, it hasn't been massively successful, to be fair.
Practically speaking, 'linux first' is never going to work; but I don't really know what else they can really do to help it along the way.
[+] [-] jenscow|8 years ago|reply
I completely disagree with that. I don't believe anyone should be forced to use a different platform, when the only reason behind it is a handshake and a piece of paper - even if it's my preferred platform.
Kinda goes against one of the reasons for using Linux.
[+] [-] zelon88|8 years ago|reply
I run UE4 on Linux without errors.
But everything else you mentioned I agree with 100%. I'll also add my opinion that Valve is lazy and hard of hearing.
[+] [-] desireco42|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dleslie|8 years ago|reply
It's been a long while since I launched a game on Steam; I was under the impression that a Windows binary is required.
[+] [-] p0nce|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robert_foss|8 years ago|reply
Vulkan, RadeonSi and VR to name a few. They deserve all the recognition they can get for it.
[+] [-] CodeArtisan|8 years ago|reply
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/GameNetworkingSockets
[+] [-] Aardwolf|8 years ago|reply
It seems that it's even trivial to release Stream games for linux when using any common game engine, and I hope developers will make use of that as much as possible.
Fallout 3 has no linux version in steam unfortunately, but I actually could play it perfectly by running the windows client of steam in wine. Everything just worked (I had to do a memory patch to support 64-bit CPUs, but so do windows users have to so no difference there)
[+] [-] aveao|8 years ago|reply
Playtesting takes time and money and it's entirely possible that just exporting the game for linux won't run perfectly, so I can see why some companies using the common game engines don't do it, I kinda wish they did, though.
Wine runs a lot of Windows games properly.
[+] [-] opensourcenews|8 years ago|reply
The two major commercial producers of proprietary operating systems are basically giving away their operating system at this point. Free Linux distributions offer basically the same functionality for most users; the only things preventing migration from one OS to another are existing applications. For non-gamers, that's often moot, because the world exists in a web browser now. Yes, there are other applications causing OS lock-in too, but they're mostly on the business side, not the consumer side.
There is still plenty of money to be made from enterprise operating systems, but the innovation there is in a totally different direction than what consumers would find valuable.
Example: Linux containers are great! But who's spending the R&D money to make them a viable way to distribute games? There's plenty of work being done on containers and graphics chipsets for ML applications, but not for consumer use.
[+] [-] e12e|8 years ago|reply
Huh? Windows 10 home and pro aren't free? It's true that Apple doesn't charge for upgrades, but they do charge a significant markup - and they will happily sell you a licence to run Os X on a hackintosh although they'll forbid you from doing it in their licence ("non apple hardware").
> Until a business model emerges which challenges this
Appstores. Windows, and Os X have app stores. Steam is an appstore. Microsoft and Apple bundle a competitor to steam with the Os.
Just because both apple and Ms suck at making/marketing/developing their App stores... Doesn't mean valve don't want to stay in the business...
They can't get in on ios, Xbox, ps4, etc. They could probably make an appstore for Android - but I'm guessing they'll just focus on streaming games from the cloud to Android (esp Android TV).
With hw support for virtualization, Linux could be the universal runtime - allowing the same game to run on Mac, Windows and Linux...
[+] [-] tomc1985|8 years ago|reply
AppImage, snapcraft, etc
[+] [-] z3t4|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] julioneander|8 years ago|reply
I've been playing older titles that now have official Linux versions, like Bioshock, Metro 2033. Let me tell you, I would never have predicted I'd be playing AAA titles natively on Linux.
[+] [-] erikpukinskis|8 years ago|reply
Valve’s hardware team has been very busy, designing the Vive in 2016 and the knuckles controller in 2017.
They’ve said they are working on multiple full length VR games, but that they wanted to be able to design the hardware (knuckles) and the games together a la Nintendo.
This is public knowledge.
It’s also known that Oculus is releasing two standalone VR devices in the next couple years.
Valve has a headset, controllers, and a Linux OS. It seems obvious to me where this is all going: a stand-alone Valve VR device running SteamOS.
Of course they’re not investing in screen-based games and desktop Linux boxes. They’re perfectly positioned to release a medium-defining device in a green field new computing paradigm.
They are at least as well positioned in this fight as Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple. That’s the big leagues. Valve makes good money on Steam, but not that kind of money.
And you know Apple and Microsoft aren’t going to use Linux. So having Valve means there’s a Linux horse in the VR race.
[+] [-] wink|8 years ago|reply
I personally have been using Linux on work computers and personal laptops (almost) exclusively for.. I don't know, 10 years? - but my "gaming pc" is still on Windows and I'm not in the mood for experiments with WINE or grasping at the games that run on Linux.
Does anyone play major games on Windows and Linux? I'm really excited for the idea of Linux gaming, but it's not a thing I'm willing to compromise and fiddling if the games I want to play really work.
[+] [-] woolvalley|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yAnonymous|8 years ago|reply
>While it's true Steam Machines aren't exactly flying off the shelves
I hope they didn't expect anything else. Steam already has a limited choice of games and a console that is even more limited is a niche product at best.
To make it succeed, they need a lot of resources to get GPU manufacturers and game publishers on board (also those who took their games off Steam and created their own launchers). They need both of that only to have a chance to attack regular consoles.
[+] [-] p0nce|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goodroot|8 years ago|reply
I have been a proponent of gaming on Linux most of my adult life, but I can't help but think that Valve might be missing the boat by sinking resources into gaming on Linux local hardware. Times are a-changin'.
[+] [-] ionised|8 years ago|reply
There is absolutely no reason for me to have a Windows machine except the games I play that don't work on Linux/Wine.
[+] [-] nukeop|8 years ago|reply
But it has the first mover advantage and that is really everything. Even platforms that are infinitely better, have better tools, support, and pricing (such as itch.io that doesn't require a cent to publish your games) are heavily disadvantaged just because it takes extra work for developers and gamers to adopt them. There's no easy way out of this and Valve can continue being lazy and make major slip-ups every year and there's very little others can do to endanger their heavily entrenched position on the gaming market.
As far as PC (or GNU/Linux in particular) gaming is considered, Steam is everything, and it's not going to change any time soon.
[+] [-] ahartmetz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _pmf_|8 years ago|reply
We'd have an open handheld platform for indie games.