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Steam Machine

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Machine

#891

Post by Hikikomori »

rtkwe wrote: post #862
MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the lack of popular multiplayer titles that require a kernel-level anti-cheat is a heavy downside It's a downside if all you want to do is play those games. But it's an upside if you're hoping they someday ditch all that nonsense. This puts more pressure on those publishers.

More likely is that some linux distro like SteamOS gets a large enough install base that it actually makes sense as a target and these big platforms make their anti-cheat work on at least that distro. As unfortunate as it is not having a very strong anti-cheat or a system like Valve's VAC ban to detect and lock cheaters out leads to really shitty online experiences in public lobbies for PVP games.

Some anti cheat works with proton if the game dev allows it. But anti cheats are generally not effective on Linux because you can just load your cheat as a kernel driver.

Re: Steam Machine

#892

Post by ozten »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #887
lazyfanatic42 wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve respects its customers. It is so insane that this isn't a norm; what a world we would be in if all companies did so.

>> Valve respects its customers. That's the same Valve that doesn't let me play the games I paid it for unless they are running on its platform? That's how it "respects" me?

Name a game distribution platform that doesn't do this. It will be a toy example like a zip file purchased off of itch.io or something.

Re: Steam Machine

#893

Post by okayjustonemore »

This seems to have been targeted especially at someone like me: I don’t like to play on PC, have no interest in building a gaming PC and I only reluctantly buy consoles because of their (kind of) plug-n-play experience.

If this thing can get me a console-like experience and allow me to play my extensive library of games (most of them classic/vintage games you can’t get on modern consoles) hassle-free, then I’m (probably) sold!

And on top of that it runs Linux. Awesome, just absolutely fantastic!

Re: Steam Machine

#894

Post by 0x457 »

neya wrote: post #803
lazyfanatic42 wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve respects its customers. It is so insane that this isn't a norm; what a world we would be in if all companies did so.

Gamers are a passionate bunch. Screwing around with them is a losing game that no one has historically ever won. And also because a lot of their competitors fucked up to pave the road for them (Think Sony's PS fiasco, Microsoft's X-Box clusterfuck from which they're yet to recover from, a decade later). Valve has gotten alot of billion dollar lessons in here that Valve got for free.

> Screwing around with them is a losing game that no one has historically ever won.

What universe do you live in?

- Broken games still pre-ordered

- marginal updates sold at full price

- double/triple-dipping with microtransactions and battle passes

- DRM still [predominant and still hurts performance

- every publisher with more than one game has their own launcher (usually shitty and brings no value)

- rootkit as anti-cheat

- offline game that require online connectivety

- online services get shutdown

- LAN multiplayer is a thing of a past

What did games exactly won?

- Paid skyrim mods? It's back.

- MS game sharing thing that rendered GameStop business model useless? IMO a mistake, MS was onto something there.

Re: Steam Machine

#895

Post by ErroneousBosh »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #887
lazyfanatic42 wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve respects its customers. It is so insane that this isn't a norm; what a world we would be in if all companies did so.

>> Valve respects its customers. That's the same Valve that doesn't let me play the games I paid it for unless they are running on its platform? That's how it "respects" me?

> That's the same Valve that doesn't let me play the games I paid it for unless they are running on its platform?

What exactly does that mean, for you?

Re: Steam Machine

#896

Post by amatecha »

saghm wrote: post #832
BlueTemplar wrote: post #827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Gabe Newell basically confirm 13 years ago already that they were aiming for that ? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18996377

I'd love to be confident that the company's strategy is sound enough to keep the same long-term goals from that far back, but I don't think I'm sure enough to make strong assumptions about what the overall motivations of products launched in 2025 are from his comments in 2012. I do think that it's a plausible explanation, but there's plenty of room for humility in attempting to interpret whether intent has changed in…

2013: "Linux and open source are the future of gaming" https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-linux-and-open-source-ar...

SteamOS was released in that year as well: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/commit/0aad7085a1a9...

All of their hardware released since then seems to be aligned with this concept and they have clearly put a huge amount of R&D and funding into this approach.

Re: Steam Machine

#898

Post by rossy »

ThrowawayB7 wrote: post #883
saghm wrote: post #823

My theory for a bit now has been that Valve is playing the long game in trying to make SteamOS a mainstay gaming platform as an alternative to Windows, and that the hardware products are essentially a way of breaking into that market. Even a few years ago, the idea of a custom Linux distro based on Arch Linux with both a built-in full desktop mode and a lower-powered gaming mode that you could switch between on a han…

> " All of this insulates them from having to worry about the long-term sustainability of making money from game sales on Windows... " The weak link in your theory is that Microsoft is in control of the future of the DirectX API, not Valve, and it is Microsoft who is working with nVidia and AMD and game studios to evolve DirectX to take advantage of the latest GPU features. SteamOS can at best follow closely behind b…

Did you forget about Vulkan? Valve and AMD are Khronos members and active contributors to the Vulkan spec. Games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Civ VII use Vulkan on Deck. There's a complete graphics ecosystem with full participation from the games industry that doesn't have Microsoft as the gatekeeper.

Re: Steam Machine

#899

Post by rossy »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #887
lazyfanatic42 wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve respects its customers. It is so insane that this isn't a norm; what a world we would be in if all companies did so.

>> Valve respects its customers. That's the same Valve that doesn't let me play the games I paid it for unless they are running on its platform? That's how it "respects" me?

To be fair there are a lot of games on Steam that don't have DRM, which means you can just drag them out of the steamapps folder to a computer that doesn't have Steam and they work fine. The decision to add DRM comes from the developer/publisher, not Valve.

Re: Steam Machine

#900

Post by arvinsim »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #897
Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe wrote: post #621

> Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer? I'm so happy to read this

Their "launch trailer" shows the Steam Machine running Windows.

Wasn't that the desktop mode of SteamOS?
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