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Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

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Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#101

Post by b0rsuk »

cageface wrote: post #80
b0rsuk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I would use Linux only, but I like game X and Y." is incredibly common attitude among people who use dual boot. I'm not making this up, the phrase pops up very often on various forums, especially in context of linux ports for newly announced games. You don't see many complaints about GIMP being inadequate (and with the recent news that will be the end of GIMP complaints), or OpenOffice/LibreOffice incompatibility. Y…

I know many, many people that would never even consider switching to Linux until Office and the Adobe suite are first-class citizens. As happy as I am to see Steam come to Linux, I don't expect Linux to grow much desktop market share as a result. The future of user-facing Linux is Android.

A common complaint against Linux game development is that it lacks a standarized platform and different distributions have their quirks. While I don't like Steam and don't use it (DRM, no resale, obnoxious pop-ups...) this is going to give game devs/publishers something to target. In my opinion it will be more psychological than practical. Source engine games, one or unrelated two AAA show up - and suddenly minor devs are starting to think "Why not ? Me too !".

I don't delude myself, though: several dozen percent games still won't show up on Linux. But it beats having to rely on the 5% games that are multiplatform.

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#102

Post by danssig »

sciurus wrote: post #79
bad_user wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all businesses. I've worked for and with plenty of small businesses where the norm was OpenOffice, running on top of Linux and Mac OS X, with non-technical people having no problem using it (after a period of bitching about it, because people in general are conservative). For example I helped a local kindergarten switch all their computers to Linux and OpenOffice (one in every classroom, plus 4 others used for ad…

"The one problem Linux does have in regards to businesses is integration with Exchange" You're forgetting active directory and group policy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_Policy

Yes, I'm still hoping some day someone will make a Linux Distro that uses OpenLDAP for configuration as much as possible instead of flat files scattered all over the system, all with different syntax.

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#103

Post by Produce »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #21
Produce wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what we really want is Source for Linux. Hey, buddy, you already got it. Linux is open source.

"Source" is the brand name of Valve's game engine, used in the Portal and Half-Life series, Team Fortress 2, etc. "GoldSrc" refers to the legacy version of the engine used in Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic, etc.

I know, just trying to make someone laugh (:

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#104

Post by danssig »

glassx wrote: post #78
danssig wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting news, but turn the OS market upside down? You can't be serious.

Well, it can help OpenGL and other cross-platform frameworks become even stronger. Studios will have more incentive to make games portable from the get-go, instead of relying on Windows/Direct3D. Even mobile, console and OS X users could benefit from that.

>Studios will have more incentive to make games portable from the get-go

What incentive? 1.5% of the desktop market? If the ~13% Mac market share isn't enough to get most of them to consider it, why would a group nearly 10 times smaller matter suddenly?

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#105

Post by levesque »

vibrunazo wrote: post #99

I would be really excited by this news 3 our so years ago. But it's to late now. Valve missed their chance. Gaming is moving away from desktop. In fact, while gaming is increasing extremely fast overall, desktop is actually setting decrease on revenue. It's the worst time to invest in it. It won't help valve, and it won't help us Linux gamers. Game studios won't suddenly go back to support dying desktop only because…

To me, this is probably the first step to support Linux and Android, not at all a bad move.

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#106

Post by tdr »

vibrunazo wrote: post #99

I would be really excited by this news 3 our so years ago. But it's to late now. Valve missed their chance. Gaming is moving away from desktop. In fact, while gaming is increasing extremely fast overall, desktop is actually setting decrease on revenue. It's the worst time to invest in it. It won't help valve, and it won't help us Linux gamers. Game studios won't suddenly go back to support dying desktop only because…

I would argue that the trend is that gaming is moving away from complex gameplay rather than away from desktop.

What we see is less complex titles released every year both on PC and console. The reason is probably because development cost is increasing super-linearly (exponentially) both as money and time. See Battlefield, CoD, Assassin's Creed, NFS... I can't imagine how much they spend on all those details (gameplay & visual)

It's easier, faster and cheaper to move towards we/mobile where the market is hot (many new people, not only fans) and the gameplay involves simple actions.

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#107

Post by naitbit »

darkstalker wrote: post #77
qznc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with Steam, important games like those Blizzard titles are not available on Linux.

WoW runs fine on linux with wine

Actually most Blizzard games run fine on wine. I've played games like: Diablo 3 beta(game run out of the box, but there are problems with installing), Starcraft 2 http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&#38... Starcraft http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&#38... Warcraft 3 http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application... I guess that porting to Mac made them fix most of hard coded system assumptions.

Wine is amazing but it still is not the same as native support, because of small performance hit or possibility that game that you bought will stop working in the future (ie: because some game patch or anticheat protection that will detect wine as modification). Because of that Steam and Source games are very welcome. Probably I'll buy them and don't play them because of lack of time(just like all HIBs).

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#108

Post by citricsquid »

vibrunazo wrote: post #99

I would be really excited by this news 3 our so years ago. But it's to late now. Valve missed their chance. Gaming is moving away from desktop. In fact, while gaming is increasing extremely fast overall, desktop is actually setting decrease on revenue. It's the worst time to invest in it. It won't help valve, and it won't help us Linux gamers. Game studios won't suddenly go back to support dying desktop only because…

I don't agree, do you have any statistics or sources to back up your assertions?

Mobile gaming is on the rise, it is most definitely going to grow a lot over the next 5 years, but unless the technology evolves at an incredible rate it cannot compete with desktop computers and consoles as a proper gaming experience. Mobile is creating a bigger market by converting those that don't care for games into those that do through "casual" gaming, it isn't turning console/desktop gamers into solely mobile gamers: it could easily be argued that mobile gaming rising in popularity will positively affect desktop/console games, it will serve as a gateway to gaming as it becomes more "accepted".

Didn't Call of Duty MW3 a couple of months back become the fastest selling game of all time pushing billions of dollars of revenue in the first few days (edit: $775m in the first 5 days)? That's not the sign of a dying platform; is it?

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#109

Post by tel »

tdr wrote: post #106
vibrunazo wrote: post #99

I would be really excited by this news 3 our so years ago. But it's to late now. Valve missed their chance. Gaming is moving away from desktop. In fact, while gaming is increasing extremely fast overall, desktop is actually setting decrease on revenue. It's the worst time to invest in it. It won't help valve, and it won't help us Linux gamers. Game studios won't suddenly go back to support dying desktop only because…

I would argue that the trend is that gaming is moving away from complex gameplay rather than away from desktop . What we see is less complex titles released every year both on PC and console. The reason is probably because development cost is increasing super-linearly (exponentially) both as money and time. See Battlefield, CoD, Assassin's Creed, NFS... I can't imagine how much they spend on all those details (gamepl…

Agreed, also I don't think Valve has as much interest in the simplified mobile gaming market. There is value in a high production value game done correctly. I don't think they have so much to fear.

Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix

#110

Post by tomflack »

idleloops wrote: post #43
m_st wrote: post #15

I'm sure one of the reasons for a Linux client (and even a Steam console) is Windows 8 with its App Store. Soon potential customers are going to buy their software through these integrated stores rather than using dedicated clients. And since Microsoft is giving the Desktop a legacy feeling Valve has no choice but expand the reach of Steam. Which is of course good for us customers.

Will MS take a slice of the pie, through their distribution channel? I can see that as being an instant turn off. It's an opportunity to produce a Gamers Distro based on a solid Distro. They could piggy back a Ubuntu LTS, and focus on a subset of well supported hardware.

> Will MS take a slice of the pie, through their distribution channel? I can see that as being an instant turn off.

Valve already do, but it's not disclosed to the public how much. So I can't see how MS doing so would make any difference.

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