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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

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 steam now has a Linux client. So the store will be empty. This is also a move aiming towards the new steam box. But that's also a bad move. Console is the second worse gaming platform now, after desktop. It's days are also numbered. While I love Valve, gaming and Linux. These won't work well together anytime soon. The good news for us Linux gamers is that browser and mobile are on an absurd.fast rise. While we still don't see many AAA titles on the browser, that's much closer to reality than AAA titles on steam for Linux. At the end of the day, w don't need steam for Linux. Gaming in general is moving in our direction. The quality of games in our browser and our phones (the future consoles) are close to make desktop irrelevant. edit: here's some stats that both console and PC game markets are decreasing. From EA's sec filing: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/712515/000119312511186744/dex992.htm http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/712515/00011931251118... I didn't really thought of putting it because I thought this was ubiquitous knowledge everyone would agree with. But maybe that's just because I'm in the industry and always looking for market numbers every month. The industry is moving away from these formats and moving towards mobile. The remaining anecdotes are just a consequence of old incumbents having a hard time adapting. The next dominant gaming consoles will be running Android and iOS. Simply because of the huge size of the app stores and user base.

levesque 14y ago
To me, this is probably the first step to support Linux and Android, not at all a bad move.
tdr 14y ago
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.
- tel 14y ago
  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.
citricsquid 14y ago
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?
codesuela 14y ago
Valve disagrees, here is an excerpt about 2011 Steam statistics: >Valve is celebrating a successful 2011, with its seventh straight year of more than 100% sales increases. The developer also revealed that the recent holiday sale pushed the number of simultaneous users over the five million mark, and a handful of other impressive stats. The service now boasts 1,800 games and 40 million accounts, and in 2011 it pushed out 780 petabytes of data -- double the amount from 2010. 14.5 million copies of Steamworks games were registered, a 67% increase over 2010, and the suite is now included in more than 400 games. http://www.shacknews.com/article/71860/steam-touts-2011-sales-40-million-accounts http://www.shacknews.com/article/71860/steam-touts-2011-sale...
arthurbrown 14y ago
I find this an incredibly narrow view of the gaming ecosystem. Not only are there numerous games that flatly contradict your view, but you're ignoring many facets of games themselves. Mobile games can only provide a limited experience when compared to other platforms. When you move from a mobile device to a console, you gain better controls, deeper gameplay (can you compare Draw Anything to Mario Galaxy?), and a much more reliable and centralized platform backing it in terms of networked play. This comparison repeats itself moving from consoles to the desktop. You gain better controls again, better hardware, and often, deeper gameplay. (Can you compare Mario Galaxy to StarCraft or World of Warcraft?). There's really just no way to compress the amount of complexity involved in the typical MMO onto a console, much less a mobile device. And while it's fair propose that this complexity creates a barrier, I think an argument could be made for the inverse as well. Mobile devices could just as easily act as a gateway to deeper and more complex games and their platforms. I suspect more parents are playing Xbox and Wii with their children than they did NES and Sega Genesis, and perhaps that interest will cross another bridge onto desktop games.
Tuna-Fish 14y 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. This is strictly wrong. Desktop gaming is growing, not shrinking, has done so for the past 4 years, and is projected to do so for the next 4. http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Nvidia-Game-Sales-Data-640x357.jpg http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Nvidia... Desktop gaming wasn't really ever dying, or even significantly contracting. What did happen, and what sparked those news, was that the sales moved from the physical stores to online. In sales charts that tracked existing established sales channels, that looks like a prodigious drop. For gaben, that looks like the the push that put him in the Forbes list.
- vibrunazo 14y ago
  You're confusing 2 different things. Native Desktop apps vs Browser apps. (don't blame you, I do a lot of game market research and it's really hard to tell which reports are talking about what) If you sum them both, the industry is growing. (which is what nvidia is showing in the link you posted). But the native desktop game market alone is decreasing: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PDF http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PD... Which is exactly my point. The industry is moving away from desktop and towards browser and mobile. Both are growing absurdly fast.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Native desktop/console could possibly be dropping possibly due to recession and also the fact that we haven't had any new consoles released for a while. I find it difficult to believe that in the future everyone will want to play all of their games on a phone/tablet. There are huge categories of popular games that really don't fit well to a touchscreen.
    - vibrunazo 14y ago
      > There are huge categories of popular games that really don't fit well to a touchscreen. Then why are you not selling bluetooth gamepads yet? :) This presentation [1] that was just posted explains it better than I possibly could. Mobile is replacing console just like console replaced arcades. Which also had much better hardware and controlers, and games that didn't fit the console style. Until consoles' hardware evolved... and arcades died. Likewise, mobile hardware is evolving. There's nothing stopping you from building a android box with 10x the CPU power of an xbox, plug controllers in it, have instant access to many more games in the Play Store that all consoles together ever had. Then develop games with much better graphics than current AAA titles. And I'm personally betting (literally) that both Apple and Android OEMs are already working on this. [1] http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-what-comes-next http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-wha...
jdkilby 14y ago
Relevant: http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-what-comes-next http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-wha... Essentially, the presenter makes the argument that the same thing that happened to the arcade industry is happening to the console industry. It really made me reconsider what I thought the future had in store for console games.
- vibrunazo 14y ago
  This is great. I had never thought of comparing the shift from arcade to console to the shift of console to mobile. There are really a lot in common. Thanks a lot for sharing.

levesque 14y ago

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

tdr 14y ago

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.

tel 14y ago
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.

citricsquid 14y ago

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?

codesuela 14y ago

Valve disagrees, here is an excerpt about 2011 Steam statistics: >Valve is celebrating a successful 2011, with its seventh straight year of more than 100% sales increases. The developer also revealed that the recent holiday sale pushed the number of simultaneous users over the five million mark, and a handful of other impressive stats. The service now boasts 1,800 games and 40 million accounts, and in 2011 it pushed out 780 petabytes of data -- double the amount from 2010. 14.5 million copies of Steamworks games were registered, a 67% increase over 2010, and the suite is now included in more than 400 games. http://www.shacknews.com/article/71860/steam-touts-2011-sales-40-million-accounts http://www.shacknews.com/article/71860/steam-touts-2011-sale...

arthurbrown 14y ago

I find this an incredibly narrow view of the gaming ecosystem. Not only are there numerous games that flatly contradict your view, but you're ignoring many facets of games themselves. Mobile games can only provide a limited experience when compared to other platforms. When you move from a mobile device to a console, you gain better controls, deeper gameplay (can you compare Draw Anything to Mario Galaxy?), and a much more reliable and centralized platform backing it in terms of networked play. This comparison repeats itself moving from consoles to the desktop. You gain better controls again, better hardware, and often, deeper gameplay. (Can you compare Mario Galaxy to StarCraft or World of Warcraft?). There's really just no way to compress the amount of complexity involved in the typical MMO onto a console, much less a mobile device. And while it's fair propose that this complexity creates a barrier, I think an argument could be made for the inverse as well. Mobile devices could just as easily act as a gateway to deeper and more complex games and their platforms. I suspect more parents are playing Xbox and Wii with their children than they did NES and Sega Genesis, and perhaps that interest will cross another bridge onto desktop games.

Tuna-Fish 14y 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. This is strictly wrong. Desktop gaming is growing, not shrinking, has done so for the past 4 years, and is projected to do so for the next 4. http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Nvidia-Game-Sales-Data-640x357.jpg http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Nvidia... Desktop gaming wasn't really ever dying, or even significantly contracting. What did happen, and what sparked those news, was that the sales moved from the physical stores to online. In sales charts that tracked existing established sales channels, that looks like a prodigious drop. For gaben, that looks like the the push that put him in the Forbes list.

vibrunazo 14y ago
You're confusing 2 different things. Native Desktop apps vs Browser apps. (don't blame you, I do a lot of game market research and it's really hard to tell which reports are talking about what) If you sum them both, the industry is growing. (which is what nvidia is showing in the link you posted). But the native desktop game market alone is decreasing: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PDF http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PD... Which is exactly my point. The industry is moving away from desktop and towards browser and mobile. Both are growing absurdly fast.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Native desktop/console could possibly be dropping possibly due to recession and also the fact that we haven't had any new consoles released for a while. I find it difficult to believe that in the future everyone will want to play all of their games on a phone/tablet. There are huge categories of popular games that really don't fit well to a touchscreen.
  - vibrunazo 14y ago
    > There are huge categories of popular games that really don't fit well to a touchscreen. Then why are you not selling bluetooth gamepads yet? :) This presentation [1] that was just posted explains it better than I possibly could. Mobile is replacing console just like console replaced arcades. Which also had much better hardware and controlers, and games that didn't fit the console style. Until consoles' hardware evolved... and arcades died. Likewise, mobile hardware is evolving. There's nothing stopping you from building a android box with 10x the CPU power of an xbox, plug controllers in it, have instant access to many more games in the Play Store that all consoles together ever had. Then develop games with much better graphics than current AAA titles. And I'm personally betting (literally) that both Apple and Android OEMs are already working on this. [1] http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-what-comes-next http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-wha...

jdkilby 14y ago

Relevant: http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-what-comes-next http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-wha... Essentially, the presenter makes the argument that the same thing that happened to the arcade industry is happening to the console industry. It really made me reconsider what I thought the future had in store for console games.

vibrunazo 14y ago
This is great. I had never thought of comparing the shift from arcade to console to the shift of console to mobile. There are really a lot in common. Thanks a lot for sharing.