4 ms·

Genuine question. What is in it for Valve ? We are talking an incredible amount of effort for something that benefits a pretty small crowd. The only real mone

by screye 6y ago

Genuine question. What is in it for Valve ? We are talking an incredible amount of effort for something that benefits a pretty small crowd. The only real money making avenue would be that Valve launches its own mature Linux based OS for gamers. Low key tho, they would be trying to be the first real alternative to windows/macs.

Teever 6y ago
Valve is worried that Microsoft is moving towards a model where users can only install programs through the Windows Store which would threaten their business model of selling games through the Steam Platform. By making Linux more compatible with the games that Valve sells through their store it puts Valve in a better situation to survive this possible course of action by Microsoft because they can switch to selling hardware preloaded with their SteamOS.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  It work great last time they attempted it.
  - eitland 6y ago
    Unlike Google whoever Valve seems to be in this for the long haul. They can iterate round after round on this even if it doesn't become a billion dollar revenue stream in 6 months.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      Keep the dream alive, Linux customer base never grew beyond 2%, if they ever try this it will be an epic fail (pun intended).
      - eitland 6y ago
        > Keep the dream alive Happily :-) We haven't conquered the desktop yet, but I see more and more people - including even in sales - voluntarily using Linux at work. And while we haven't conquered the desktop, Linux is huge on mobile - where Microsoft has given up. Even (parts of) Microsoft realizes where this is likely to go as shown by the fact that they are busily positioning themselves for it.
        pjmlp 6y ago
        Where on the mobile? You mean the failed attempts like Purism? If you mean Android, the Linux kernel is an implementation detail, only exposed to device OEMs and Google itself. Userspace is Java based runtime, and in what concerns the NDK, there is nothing Linux specific about the public APIs, https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis Since Android 7, Google has increasingly introduced measures to kill process that try to get dirty with private stuff, like directly calling int Linux stuff. On of the main reasons why termux might not have a bright future, specially since its developers refuse to contaminiate their workarounds with Java/Kotlin code. If you mean ChromeOS tablets, well even less given that Web platform doesn't care what OS it runs on, and Crostini actually runs on top of a virtualized container, WSL v1 style. As for Microsoft, they have been one of the first UNIX vendors for PC with Xenix, had an initial POSIX support on NT due to goverment contracts, and have just reacted to the market of Linux guys that give Apple money instead of sponsoring Linux OEMs, so that they give money to Microsoft instead of Apple. The Linux OEMs still don't see any money from those "Linux" lovers.
qppo 6y ago
Valve doesn't strike me as the organization with well planned or strategic investment, they're kind of famous for letting people work on side projects like this. That said it's an attempt to break the chicken/egg cycle. The crowd is small because the crowd is small, if you offer a way to grow it artificially than you can gain critical mass. The big wrench is DRM/anti cheat though. That's the major thing holding me back from gaming with proton exclusively.
shazow 6y ago
> What is in it for Valve? Aside of political motives regarding Microsoft, the technological problem that Valve is solving with using the flatpak technology is creating a single Linux build target for all Linux game releases. A recurring complaint from gamedevs is that it's difficult to support many different Linux distributions/versions/runtimes. Steam already does a decent job providing its own runtime to link against, but this goes several steps further in abstracting away from the distribution that a user may be running.
gravypod 6y ago
They've wanted to get into the console space for a long time. Their most recent attempt, the Steam Machines, were not very well received mainly because most games wouldn't run on it. I'm assuming Valve is gearing up for one of a few things: 1. Steam Machine 2: VR Pairing a Steam Machine with an "it just works" concept of the Index that can play all of your old PC games (even ones that don't run on Windows 10) and all of your VR games at a decent resolution. 2. Oh shit... Xbox Game Pass is actually a great deal.... They may want to piggy back off of Microsoft's UWP concept to make a game-subscription service for the entire (or most) of the Steam catalog. Valve knows that games industry is going trough a large industry shift. Most consumers don't really care that they're selling out all of their rights for convenience (hell that was Steam's main realization). 3. lol Google thinks people trust them with games haha... but Stadia isn't too bad of an idea... Containerizing games and packaging up their streaming software (Steam Remote Play) and maybe some edge hardware from #1 would be a great value for a PC gamer. The industry has been attempting to push itself to thin client fat server models for quite some time and I wouldn't be surprised if Valve wanted in on the action with some of their existing investments. 4. They may actually think they're a compelling offering to the couch gamer. Steam Machines, Steam Links, and the Steam Controllers were neat but, maybe, the execs at Valve think there's enough traction to beat out the existing competition (Nintendo Switch/WII/Gamecube/..., Xbox Series ..., Sony PS..).
- screye 6y ago
  > but Stadia isn't too bad of an idea I used to think that, but I think computers will get cheaper faster than latencies will get better. Look at Xbox. Anyone who can afford stadia, would much rather just buy a cheap loss-leader Xbox. Unlike industry compute (where the perks of AWS/Azure/GCP far outweigh having on-premises hardware), gaming is incredibly well suited to having on-prem hardware.
  - gravypod 6y ago
    I don't think it's better for the consumer. It's great for the producer since they can keep selling you the things you "own" on standard MRR and have a forever-growing catalog. That's why MS is gobbling up studios. Make them super cost effective (single rendering team/networking team/physics team) and have them churn content into Game Pass and have an impossible to resist offer.
uponcoffee 6y ago
To add to some good answers... Succinctly, it's easier and cheaper to port games wholesale than it is to: build out yet another platform for developers to target, on board them, and on board consumers to this new console. What steam has that consoles don't, are is massive preexisting library. The problem is it mainly targets windows. Their options for bringing this to the console market are either pay for windows licenses (which on top of hardware, would make them more expensive than the alternatives), or port in wholesale. Most console games get a pc (windows) port eventually. So if they can get proton to a mature point, they'll be the defacto winner of the console wars.
- bitwize 6y ago
  APIs are copyrightable within the United States. So they may end up having to pay for a license anyway. I know the issue isn't settled yet, but does anybody expect the SCOTUS to do anything besides rule for Oracle?
  - uponcoffee 6y ago
    There are many different ways that ruling could go, some of which could decide the google vs oracle by itself while not universally ruling on wether APIs can be copyrighted.
    - bitwize 6y ago
      But the way it is likely to go is to affirm the CAFC's copyright rulings, which will become precedent nationwide, if the justices' lines of questioning are any indication. To do otherwise would be to completely undermine the copyrightability of software, if not copyright in general.
pvg 6y ago
Having a viable alternative target platform for their massive catalog (as well as the libraries of the zillions of users) that they control and maintain is very valuable to Valve. It's not really about making Linux enthusiasts happy (as you might think, reading the reactions of happy Linux enthusiasts) - that just happens to be a pleasant side-effect.
flohofwoe 6y ago
Insurance against Microsoft closing up Windows "walled garden" style. Currently this seems to be low-priority for MS again (probably because the Windows Store has tanked and "the cloud" has become the main business focus), but when Valve started investing in Linux as gaming platform the possibility of Windows becoming a closed platform where software can only be installed from the Windows Store looked much more likely than today.

by screye 6y ago

Teever 6y ago

Valve is worried that Microsoft is moving towards a model where users can only install programs through the Windows Store which would threaten their business model of selling games through the Steam Platform. By making Linux more compatible with the games that Valve sells through their store it puts Valve in a better situation to survive this possible course of action by Microsoft because they can switch to selling hardware preloaded with their SteamOS.

pjmlp 6y ago
It work great last time they attempted it.
- eitland 6y ago
  Unlike Google whoever Valve seems to be in this for the long haul. They can iterate round after round on this even if it doesn't become a billion dollar revenue stream in 6 months.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Keep the dream alive, Linux customer base never grew beyond 2%, if they ever try this it will be an epic fail (pun intended).
    - eitland 6y ago
      > Keep the dream alive Happily :-) We haven't conquered the desktop yet, but I see more and more people - including even in sales - voluntarily using Linux at work. And while we haven't conquered the desktop, Linux is huge on mobile - where Microsoft has given up. Even (parts of) Microsoft realizes where this is likely to go as shown by the fact that they are busily positioning themselves for it.
      - pjmlp 6y ago
        Where on the mobile? You mean the failed attempts like Purism? If you mean Android, the Linux kernel is an implementation detail, only exposed to device OEMs and Google itself. Userspace is Java based runtime, and in what concerns the NDK, there is nothing Linux specific about the public APIs, https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis Since Android 7, Google has increasingly introduced measures to kill process that try to get dirty with private stuff, like directly calling int Linux stuff. On of the main reasons why termux might not have a bright future, specially since its developers refuse to contaminiate their workarounds with Java/Kotlin code. If you mean ChromeOS tablets, well even less given that Web platform doesn't care what OS it runs on, and Crostini actually runs on top of a virtualized container, WSL v1 style. As for Microsoft, they have been one of the first UNIX vendors for PC with Xenix, had an initial POSIX support on NT due to goverment contracts, and have just reacted to the market of Linux guys that give Apple money instead of sponsoring Linux OEMs, so that they give money to Microsoft instead of Apple. The Linux OEMs still don't see any money from those "Linux" lovers.

qppo 6y ago

Valve doesn't strike me as the organization with well planned or strategic investment, they're kind of famous for letting people work on side projects like this. That said it's an attempt to break the chicken/egg cycle. The crowd is small because the crowd is small, if you offer a way to grow it artificially than you can gain critical mass. The big wrench is DRM/anti cheat though. That's the major thing holding me back from gaming with proton exclusively.

shazow 6y ago

> What is in it for Valve? Aside of political motives regarding Microsoft, the technological problem that Valve is solving with using the flatpak technology is creating a single Linux build target for all Linux game releases. A recurring complaint from gamedevs is that it's difficult to support many different Linux distributions/versions/runtimes. Steam already does a decent job providing its own runtime to link against, but this goes several steps further in abstracting away from the distribution that a user may be running.

gravypod 6y ago

They've wanted to get into the console space for a long time. Their most recent attempt, the Steam Machines, were not very well received mainly because most games wouldn't run on it. I'm assuming Valve is gearing up for one of a few things: 1. Steam Machine 2: VR Pairing a Steam Machine with an "it just works" concept of the Index that can play all of your old PC games (even ones that don't run on Windows 10) and all of your VR games at a decent resolution. 2. Oh shit... Xbox Game Pass is actually a great deal.... They may want to piggy back off of Microsoft's UWP concept to make a game-subscription service for the entire (or most) of the Steam catalog. Valve knows that games industry is going trough a large industry shift. Most consumers don't really care that they're selling out all of their rights for convenience (hell that was Steam's main realization). 3. lol Google thinks people trust them with games haha... but Stadia isn't too bad of an idea... Containerizing games and packaging up their streaming software (Steam Remote Play) and maybe some edge hardware from #1 would be a great value for a PC gamer. The industry has been attempting to push itself to thin client fat server models for quite some time and I wouldn't be surprised if Valve wanted in on the action with some of their existing investments. 4. They may actually think they're a compelling offering to the couch gamer. Steam Machines, Steam Links, and the Steam Controllers were neat but, maybe, the execs at Valve think there's enough traction to beat out the existing competition (Nintendo Switch/WII/Gamecube/..., Xbox Series ..., Sony PS..).

screye 6y ago
> but Stadia isn't too bad of an idea I used to think that, but I think computers will get cheaper faster than latencies will get better. Look at Xbox. Anyone who can afford stadia, would much rather just buy a cheap loss-leader Xbox. Unlike industry compute (where the perks of AWS/Azure/GCP far outweigh having on-premises hardware), gaming is incredibly well suited to having on-prem hardware.
- gravypod 6y ago
  I don't think it's better for the consumer. It's great for the producer since they can keep selling you the things you "own" on standard MRR and have a forever-growing catalog. That's why MS is gobbling up studios. Make them super cost effective (single rendering team/networking team/physics team) and have them churn content into Game Pass and have an impossible to resist offer.

uponcoffee 6y ago

To add to some good answers... Succinctly, it's easier and cheaper to port games wholesale than it is to: build out yet another platform for developers to target, on board them, and on board consumers to this new console. What steam has that consoles don't, are is massive preexisting library. The problem is it mainly targets windows. Their options for bringing this to the console market are either pay for windows licenses (which on top of hardware, would make them more expensive than the alternatives), or port in wholesale. Most console games get a pc (windows) port eventually. So if they can get proton to a mature point, they'll be the defacto winner of the console wars.

bitwize 6y ago
APIs are copyrightable within the United States. So they may end up having to pay for a license anyway. I know the issue isn't settled yet, but does anybody expect the SCOTUS to do anything besides rule for Oracle?
- uponcoffee 6y ago
  There are many different ways that ruling could go, some of which could decide the google vs oracle by itself while not universally ruling on wether APIs can be copyrighted.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    But the way it is likely to go is to affirm the CAFC's copyright rulings, which will become precedent nationwide, if the justices' lines of questioning are any indication. To do otherwise would be to completely undermine the copyrightability of software, if not copyright in general.

pvg 6y ago

Having a viable alternative target platform for their massive catalog (as well as the libraries of the zillions of users) that they control and maintain is very valuable to Valve. It's not really about making Linux enthusiasts happy (as you might think, reading the reactions of happy Linux enthusiasts) - that just happens to be a pleasant side-effect.

flohofwoe 6y ago

Insurance against Microsoft closing up Windows "walled garden" style. Currently this seems to be low-priority for MS again (probably because the Windows Store has tanked and "the cloud" has become the main business focus), but when Valve started investing in Linux as gaming platform the possibility of Windows becoming a closed platform where software can only be installed from the Windows Store looked much more likely than today.