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Thank You, Valve

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Re: Thank You, Valve

#21

Post by thomaslangston »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #8
raxxorrax wrote: post #2

Indeed. Valve established DRM to a degree many previously hoped it would get rejected. But they offered a decent service and proved that piracy is a service problem. What they did for Linux as a gaming platform is spectacular. Not many people use it yet, but Windows does look less and less like a dependable long term solution, especially with Microsofts other ambitions in that industry.

>What they did for Linux as a gaming platform is spectacular. Definitely yes, but let's not kid ourselves. Valve is not doing this from the generosity of their hearts or love for the Linux community, or the gaming community, but Proton and the Steam Deck are their future insurance policy against Microsoft coming after their profits in the future. The writing was on the wall, they saw how much money Epic was giving to…

And by extension our future insurance as consumers against Microsoft and X-Box as well.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#22

Post by kroltan »

vietvu wrote: post #9
regnerba wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does them being private make what they have done impressive?

Money. By being private, they might have the freedom to do whatever they see fit, but without money, it must be tough sometimes.

It hasn't been tough since they made Steam. In fact, the biggest productivity issue at Valve seems to be exactly due to the fact that they don't _really_ need to do anything beyond maintaining Steam as the primary intermediary for computer games.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#23

Post by KptMarchewa »

I think the killer feature of the Steam Deck is that it makes Linux gaming desirable. In contrast to their earlier approach with Steam Machines, which made it merely approachable.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#24

Post by emersion »

To add on this: Valve works with upstream developers on upstream code, so their work benefits the whole FOSS ecosystem. They are funding a lot of kernel, Mesa, Wayland, Wine and KDE developers.

(Disclaimer: I'm a Valve contractor.)

Re: Thank You, Valve

#25

Post by Ekaros »

chrisseaton wrote: post #13
vietvu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money. By being private, they might have the freedom to do whatever they see fit, but without money, it must be tough sometimes.

> but without money They do have money. They made tons from Half-Life etc. Then they now have a huge continual income stream from Steam.

And I believe the amount the made from Half-Lifes is peanuts compared to amount they are making with TF2, CS:GO and Dota 2...

Re: Thank You, Valve

#26

Post by Aeolun »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #17
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What they did for Linux as a gaming platform is spectacular. Definitely yes, but let's not kid ourselves. Valve is not doing this from the generosity of their hearts or love for the Linux community, or the gaming community, but Proton and the Steam Deck are their future insurance policy against Microsoft coming after their profits in the future. The writing was on the wall, they saw how much money Epic was giving to…

Oh please. Any time a company does something good. "Let's not kid ourselves. It's all for the money, honey!" Well yeah. That's what a company is. Companies are also people, and people make decisions, and those decisions are sometimes influenced by more than the mere bottom line. You can't read their minds, and it's the opposite of charitable to assume the worst. Fully agree about the rest though. It certainly makes b…

I mean, Valve is still privately owned as far as I know, so wherever it’s going is entirely up to the mind of it’s founders.

Edit: Tring to do good, and they made Dota 2?

Re: Thank You, Valve

#27

Post by Xelbair »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #8
raxxorrax wrote: post #2

Indeed. Valve established DRM to a degree many previously hoped it would get rejected. But they offered a decent service and proved that piracy is a service problem. What they did for Linux as a gaming platform is spectacular. Not many people use it yet, but Windows does look less and less like a dependable long term solution, especially with Microsofts other ambitions in that industry.

>What they did for Linux as a gaming platform is spectacular. Definitely yes, but let's not kid ourselves. Valve is not doing this from the generosity of their hearts or love for the Linux community, or the gaming community, but Proton and the Steam Deck are their future insurance policy against Microsoft coming after their profits in the future. The writing was on the wall, they saw how much money Epic was giving to…

I don't care for underlying motives as long as the results are aligned with mine. The end result is that landscape is better for the customer.

I seriously do not get why people think that companies do 'good' for any other reason than money.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#28

Post by Rooster61 »

I dig most of this article, and I do applaud the work Valve is doing for the Linux gaming ecosystem, but I draw a line at supporting kernel level anti-cheat drivers. That trend in gaming bothers me to no end, and I refuse to knowingly install a game that features one.

The presence of 15 year old script kiddies using aimbots does NOT IN ANY WAY justify having kernel level control over my machine, Linux or otherwise. Valve, and every other company that contributes to gaming in general, kindly stay the fuck out of our kernels.

EDIT: I feel a few folks in the comments are getting mixed up between the concepts of DRM and kernel-level anti-cheat drivers. DRM is what keeps folks from pirating software, as well as diminishing the freedom of where and how you can install the software. It sucks, but I understand why it exists, and that isn't what I'm talking about here

Kernel-level drivers, on the other hand, are drivers that run outside your sphere of influence (so-called user-space) and exist outside the checks and balances of your operating system that keep programs from doing whatever the hell they please.

Add on the fact that these programs are black boxes by design, and all of the sudden a company essentially has free reign to do whatever they want with your machine under your nose. This is dangerous and unacceptable.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#29

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #17
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What they did for Linux as a gaming platform is spectacular. Definitely yes, but let's not kid ourselves. Valve is not doing this from the generosity of their hearts or love for the Linux community, or the gaming community, but Proton and the Steam Deck are their future insurance policy against Microsoft coming after their profits in the future. The writing was on the wall, they saw how much money Epic was giving to…

Oh please. Any time a company does something good. "Let's not kid ourselves. It's all for the money, honey!" Well yeah. That's what a company is. Companies are also people, and people make decisions, and those decisions are sometimes influenced by more than the mere bottom line. You can't read their minds, and it's the opposite of charitable to assume the worst. Fully agree about the rest though. It certainly makes b…

>Oh please. Any time a company does something good. "Let's not kid ourselves. It's all for the money, honey!"

I didn't say that I'm not happy for what Valve is doing, but I don't trust any billion dollar tech megacorp like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Nintendo, Valve, etc. to have the best interest of the consumer in mind, regardless of how fun their IP is for my entertainment.

Pro-consumer actions on their end are always motivated by their internal Embrace-Extend-Extinguish strategy against their competitors, but ultimately they're not your friends, they're just fighting for your money and marketshare.

In the end, you're still just a dollar sign that pads their stocks or bottom line, regardless of some of how pro-consumer some of their actions seem.

Yes, everyone here knows a company does things for money, and I'm not knocking Valve for wanting to make money, I'm just saying it's good to be paranoid when billion dollar tech companies are being too generous and benevolent with consumers, and try to think of what their end-game is, as that might turn out to be not be very consumer-friendly in the long run if they become a monopoly.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#30

Post by tapoxi »

Is it too little, too late? Microsoft now owns a lot of the biggest game franchises through the Activision and Bethesda acquisitions, and I wouldn't be surprised if they actively block Proton support by using UWP or Windows-specific anticheat.
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