Even though Steam invites its own problems (it's ultimately a form of DRM, a closed platform, and a closed-source application), as a FOSS developer I can't help but feel excited about this prospect. I know many, many people in the 15-35 age bracket who are open to and curious about Linux, even tried it, but ultimately didn't stick with it because of the lack of high-end native games and because rebooting or setting up Wine is too much of a hassle. Valve has tremendous power to change this and legitimize Linux as a platform in their eyes.
Plus, there's already a lot of games in the Steam catalogue that have native Linux versions available:
- Dozens of independent titles, e.g. everything that was in those Humble Bundles.
- Everything using the DOSBox emulator to run even on Windows, e.g. id's Commander Keen, some Lucasarts Star Wars games, etc.
- Even a bunch of AAA titles: id Software's games (Doom, Quake) and games that have licensed their engine (e.g. Human Head's Prey), games that were ported by Linux Game Publishing (e.g. Egosoft's X series of spaceflight simulators), several games by Epic (e.g. Unreal Tournament) or using an Epic engine (e.g. Rune and Deus Ex, ported by Loki), Neverwinter Nights, Civilization: Call to Power, ...
Add Valve's own games and possibly some of the other games using their Source engine, and you could easily make 100-150 games available on Linux within a year of launch just from what's already there. But even more exciting is the notion of Steam's availability making more game makers consider adding Linux to their list of supported platforms going forward because the distribution problem is solved for them.
The distribution bit is fairly irrelevant -- yes, you have different packages and filesystem standards, but those are trivial and have mostly been solved. The real problem for Linux games is platform fragmentation: every distribution has a specific set of libraries running with a specific set of kernels, they change very quickly, everyone can compile them with whatever flag they feel like... Anyone distributing binary blobs is going to hurt in support terms, or make customers hurt trying to solve library riddles. Just look at how painful it is to try run an old Loki game on a new distro release.
Perversely, I grew to like the fact that Linux doesn't really have many games for it. I think we could say that I lost many hours of my life to MMOs and RPGs, though perhaps "lost" should be in scare quotes. It's kind of the same reason that I don't own consoles or a television -- I lost as large a chunk of my life to watching Star Trek as I lost to playing Morrowind, after all.
With hope, I am now mature enough to overcome temptation. So I wish all of my fellow Lingeeks: happy gaming.
I wonder if Valve wants Linux to beat Microsoft?
After all MS are working towards building their own app store into the Windows platform which could be used to muscle Steam out.
Valve actually has a lot of power to play kingmaker here in a way.
Let's suppose that Valve announce HL3 but also announce that it will be a Linux exclusive title for some period (say 1-3 months), what would happen to the Linux desktop market share then?
I could see it easily double to treble within a week, of course many of these would be dual-booters and I wonder what would happen to the increased market share once the game was subsequently released for Windows?
With the recent rumors around the idea of a Steam-based console, is it possible that all this work for a Linux client and native Linux steam engine is setting the framework for an open source (software and hardware) based console.
EDIT: I see other comments state that Valve is not working on any sort of console. Still, it leaves me thinking they may have a longer-term plan than just selling games to Linux users.
I have the unfortunate issue of inspecting URLs I navigate to. This one contains an 'item' called 'valve_linux_dampfnudeln'. What? Searching the page for 'dampf' gives no result. I fear that I won't be able to sleep tonight if no one can tell me what kind of reference this is.
So, when are the jokes about this being the year of linux on the desktop going to start?
Not being negative about the possibility, I do think that games are a large stumbling block to that endgame.
It seems at least necessary to do the classic "Hey, Microsoft, we have a credible alternative, give us good pricing" move, if nothing else. Given that Microsoft is a direct competitor with Games for Windows it's not a great move for Valve to be dependent on them, lest they get Lotus'ed or something.
That was a rumor based on people misunderstanding Valve's work on wearable computer hardware (which got telephone gamed into "OMG Valve is working on hardware, I bet it's a console").
Valve usually doesn't say anything publicly about their projects until they've reached a fairly advanced phase of development(either very late alpha or beta).
There won't be much official word until they're either making a major marketing push, or are basically done with the entire project.
For example, the OSX port of Steam and the Source engine was announced in March 2010, and was released in May of that year.
Maybe he is not allowed to talk yet. I can't wait for the official client and game, because I think when the games start rolling in, the video driver and other problems in Linux will be fixed faster. Then I could use Linux again. It's sad that I currently can't run Linux reliably because of my dual-graphic card (sandy bridge + ati) notebook :(
What I don't like about the article is how he goes into how "great" or "stunning" and "amazing" it all is without, like you said, any details. I can understand if there are limited things that can be said at this time, but I read enough fluff words on the internet as is without any backing to show for it.
[+] [-] sho_hn|14 years ago|reply
Plus, there's already a lot of games in the Steam catalogue that have native Linux versions available:
- Dozens of independent titles, e.g. everything that was in those Humble Bundles.
- Everything using the DOSBox emulator to run even on Windows, e.g. id's Commander Keen, some Lucasarts Star Wars games, etc.
- Even a bunch of AAA titles: id Software's games (Doom, Quake) and games that have licensed their engine (e.g. Human Head's Prey), games that were ported by Linux Game Publishing (e.g. Egosoft's X series of spaceflight simulators), several games by Epic (e.g. Unreal Tournament) or using an Epic engine (e.g. Rune and Deus Ex, ported by Loki), Neverwinter Nights, Civilization: Call to Power, ...
Add Valve's own games and possibly some of the other games using their Source engine, and you could easily make 100-150 games available on Linux within a year of launch just from what's already there. But even more exciting is the notion of Steam's availability making more game makers consider adding Linux to their list of supported platforms going forward because the distribution problem is solved for them.
[+] [-] toyg|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drostie|14 years ago|reply
With hope, I am now mature enough to overcome temptation. So I wish all of my fellow Lingeeks: happy gaming.
[+] [-] ch0wn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jiggy2011|14 years ago|reply
Valve actually has a lot of power to play kingmaker here in a way.
Let's suppose that Valve announce HL3 but also announce that it will be a Linux exclusive title for some period (say 1-3 months), what would happen to the Linux desktop market share then?
I could see it easily double to treble within a week, of course many of these would be dual-booters and I wonder what would happen to the increased market share once the game was subsequently released for Windows?
[+] [-] Osiris|14 years ago|reply
EDIT: I see other comments state that Valve is not working on any sort of console. Still, it leaves me thinking they may have a longer-term plan than just selling games to Linux users.
[+] [-] Angostura|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darklajid|14 years ago|reply
Having said that: This is the URL:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve...
I have the unfortunate issue of inspecting URLs I navigate to. This one contains an 'item' called 'valve_linux_dampfnudeln'. What? Searching the page for 'dampf' gives no result. I fear that I won't be able to sleep tonight if no one can tell me what kind of reference this is.
Why am I deeply confused? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dampfnudel
[+] [-] Havoc|14 years ago|reply
>the land of beer and wonderful Bayerischen Frauen and delicious food
The author appears to have picked Germany as a bit of an overall theme (Beer, Prost, Dampfnudel, Bayern etc). Not sure why.
[+] [-] Lockyy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Smotko|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AndrewDucker|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jerf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ch0wn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|14 years ago|reply
Full stop.
That was a rumor based on people misunderstanding Valve's work on wearable computer hardware (which got telephone gamed into "OMG Valve is working on hardware, I bet it's a console").
[+] [-] nsomaru|14 years ago|reply
Frustrating to read.
[+] [-] cube13|14 years ago|reply
There won't be much official word until they're either making a major marketing push, or are basically done with the entire project.
For example, the OSX port of Steam and the Source engine was announced in March 2010, and was released in May of that year.
[+] [-] bertzzie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crowbar|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] larrik|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beedogs|14 years ago|reply
Oh, dear God, yes, it is.
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|14 years ago|reply
...in the Desktop mode, all the time. Never touching start screen if possible. Going to install Ubuntu.
[+] [-] notjustanymike|14 years ago|reply