12 ms·

Valve Says "Yes" To Steam Linux This Year

223 points by trotsky 14y ago

Anirak 14y ago
Finally, it's the year of the Linux desktop! Just kidding of course. Can anyone see this by the way? I think I've been shadow banned for apparently no reason.
ThePherocity 14y ago
It'll finally a be a three horse race on the desktop.
- ajross 14y ago
  Six. You forgot about the other three horses ("Sony", "Microsoft" and "Nintendo") because they're so far ahead. And there are two little horses coming up fast from behind. Honestly, gaming "on the desktop" is a shrinking market. I'm sure I'll enjoy a few Steam games on my Linux box (which I use basically 100% of the time), but this is hardly a paradigm shift. Consoles and mobile (maybe "web" will persist as a separate sub-market, but I'm not sure about that) are the future of gaming platforms.
  - daenz 14y ago
    > Honestly, gaming "on the desktop" is a shrinking market. Source?
    - ysangkok 14y ago
      http://www.philsteinmeyer.com/153/retail-pc-game-sales-still-on-life-support/ http://www.philsteinmeyer.com/153/retail-pc-game-sales-still...
      - Symmetry 14y ago
        Well of course retail sales are down, I don't remember the last time I bought a PC game in a store. I got a free trial in a box at PAX last year, but everything else I've played has been an internet download.
  - masklinn 14y ago
    > Honestly, gaming "on the desktop" is a shrinking market. Let's throw bullshit in the air, it's not like anybody has numbers or give a flying shit about them anyway. > Consoles [...] are the future of gaming platforms. Consoles have been the future of gaming platforms for 25 years now. And oddly, computers are still there as gaming platforms with developers and distributors making significant amounts of money from them. Hell, computer-based gaming has never been better as far as I'm concerned, the big shitty franchise-based publishers are getting the fuck away from it and indies are coming back to the front of the scene. Consoles are not the future of anything, they're a gaming media amongst others. And mobile is nice, I play a lot on my phone, but let's not kid ourselves: it's the future of killing handled consoles and that's about it.
    - 10098 14y ago
      Also let's not forget that the best, cutting-edge games utilizing the latest technology are pretty much out of console gamers' reach. Consoles have a hard time keeping up with the system requirements of newer games simply because its impossible to replace a video chip (or other piece of hardware) in a console. Case in point: Crytek's new engine with soft body physics simulation will be coming to PCs soon. How long until we see something similar on consoles?
      - klausa 14y ago
        Until new consoles are released? It's not like Crytek is small company that no one ever heard about - they're well known, they have released games on current generations and I'm sure they have preliminary hardware of next-gens.
        10098 14y ago
        Well, yes, but imagine buying a new console vs. just buying a new graphics card or a few additional gigs of ram.
        klausa 14y ago
        Huh? Second-best graphics card (GeForce 680) is $550 these days. Xbox 360 was $300/$400 depending which version you chose. PS3 was $500/$600 and I really can't imagine next generation being significantly more than that. Or were you talking about something else?
  - heretohelp 14y ago
    >Honestly, gaming "on the desktop" is a shrinking market. So we're doing that thing where we just make shit up now about the largest gaming market in the world? Consoles are a primarily American/Japanese phenomenon with some other western countries participating. PC gaming is how the entire world games and it's growing faster than ever.
    - Roybatty 14y ago
      As much as I hate it (I'm a PC gamer..hate not having a mouse), the consoles have taken a big chunk out of the PC gaming market. That's just fact, whether you or like it. The "entire world" doesn't really matter. If some dude in Somalia has money to buy a PC game, he probably has money to buy a console.
      - ekianjo 14y ago
        Consoles are not always distributed everywhere, even if you have the money.
      - greiskul 14y ago
        Well, not really. I'm some dude in Brazil. It's cheaper to play games on PC, because consoles are very expensive here.
  - pessimizer 14y ago
    Gaming on the desktop might be one of the only means of survival for the desktop. Recipe to make desktop into console. 1. plug desktop into tv. 2. buy wireless mini-keyboard and mouse, or install menu system that operates by D-pad to select games. 3. There is no step three.
  - jjcm 14y ago
    Because of the quotes, I'm not sure if you mean that PC gaming is dead, or if you mean that the way we consume PC games is dying. Either way though, PC gaming numbers are on the rise. They overtook console gaming revenues back in 2010, and have continued to grow. http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/97705-pc-gaming-vs-consoles-the-infographic http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/97705-pc-gaming-vs-console...
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
InclinedPlane 14y ago
There are 3 important inflection points here. One is Steam on linux period. Even if it were its own little universe, having the support of Valve and the steam platform opens up a lot of opportunities for gaming on linux. Another is Valve's core games on linux, which would definitely give a big kickstart to linux as a gaming platform. Perhaps the most important could be when the top tier multi-platform game engines begin including linux as a targeted platform as a matter of routine.
- phn 14y ago
  I think valve's core games on linux will be there at the same time the linux steam client arrives to give it that push. It was that way with the mac. However, I think there will still be some time before we start seeing the majority of games ported to the three platforms. Sometimes, mac ports that are done by third parties are not on steam because they can't split the revenue, so you still have to get the mac version separately. But even with all the hurdles, I think this is a great step in the right direction.
  - Scaevolus 14y ago
    Often, the difficulty of bringing a game to OSX is porting DirectX graphics code to OpenGL. Once that's done, the hard part of Linux support is dealing with distribution fragmentation and dependencies. Steam on Linux will probably ship with the audio/graphics/input libraries it needs, so 3rd party developers don't have to worry about environment nearly as much.
    - Orva 14y ago
      Porting is not really so bad issue, problem is that all sound and input port code will not work after year or two because of libraries changing, forgotten and deprecated. What I really do hope that Steam will choose libraries which might concentrate development effort around those. That would be good thing for everyone, not just for game developers.
  - b0rsuk 14y ago
    I think only a fraction of existing games will be ported. However, now there will be a much stronger incentive to use cross-platform engines in the future. It used to be "windows + mac port" for a lot of games. "windows + mac port + linux port" sounds silly, so the obvious solution is to start with something that already is cross-platform. Wasteland 2 chose Unity engine because it's so cross-platform. It even has unpolished Linux support. The Linux port of Unity hasn't been released, because developers were doing that in their spare time and it wasn't up to Unity creators' standards. Now, InExile has been given Unity source for purposes of creating a decent Linux port. It's a single anecdote, but it illustrates what I'm saying above. Makers of Unity will probably want to get the most out of it, so Linux port of Unity will be contributed "upstream" and it's very likely that Unity will support Linux from now on.
StavrosK 14y ago
This is fantastic news! All the games I want to play are available on Linux, but, due the lack of the convenience that Steam offers has been off-putting. I can finally enjoy most of my favorite games right in my favorite environment...
muhfuhkuh 14y ago
So, no more install.sh scripts that you have to chmod +x, no more "undefined symbol" errors from games expecting old library files, no dependency hell (though, admittedly, I don't encounter those as much anymore). That I can definitely get behind!
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Nope , just wait 10 minutes for Steam to load , check DRM and do all updates and your ready to go!
  - muhfuhkuh 14y ago
    Believe me, I'd wait a few more seconds for it to do that than it erroring out to a prompt with "UNDEFINED SYMBOL: GTK_BUILDER_NEW", or worse, crash with a core dump where I'll never find it or know what to do with.
    - sliverstorm 14y ago
      But think of the freedom you get with those UNDEFINED SYMBOL and core dumps! I'll take DRM-free core dumps over playable games, any day!
      - sukuriant 14y ago
        </sarcasm>
      - shmerl 14y ago
        DRM free core dumps surely should be more fun than DRMed ones. ;) But seriously, having or not having DRM is not really directly related to how often it will crash.
        dkersten 14y ago
        In the past I've had games crash because of the DRM. At least, thats what it sounded like from error messages and google searches. Tages and securom how I loathe thee!
oscilloscope 14y ago
For anyone looking to get some excellent games on their Linux box, don't miss out on the current Humble Indie Bundle. Amnesia, Psychonauts, LIMBO, Sword & Sworcery, and Bastion. Pay more than $1: get codes to unlock on Steam. http://www.humblebundle.com/ http://www.humblebundle.com/ Credit to Humble Bundle for showing that DRM-free can be profitable, and Linux can make up a substantial slice of the revenue pie.
- Kronopath 14y ago
  To be clear you have to pay over the average (which at the moment is $7.86) to get Bastion. Still, this is probably the best Humble Bundle since the first one. Every game here is great.
- EtienneK 14y ago
  The games can also be unlocked from the Ubuntu Software Centre: http://blog.canonical.com/2012/05/31/humble-indie-bundle-5-comes-to-the-ubuntu-software-centre/ http://blog.canonical.com/2012/05/31/humble-indie-bundle-5-c...
- liljimmytables 14y ago
  Humble Bundles have been my primary source of linux games for a while. They deserve much kudos for upping the game, as it were.
jiggy2011 14y ago
I wonder if this will stop at games? If Valve manage to deliver a platform with an easy-install that works cross distro it would seem a very good place for developers who want to port to Linux but are scared of distro fragmentation issues. I hope that I will be able to run games under Linux that I have already bought for windows without having to re-buy them.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  It would be cool, but one thing about games that makes this much less painful- they usually don't depend on twenty system libraries. In other words, I doubt Valve is going to create a hyper-robust platform that can intelligently install any package; that's completely unnecessary for their purposes.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if Steam for Linux just created it's own chrooted environment and user account and then simply installed it's own set of libraries which would then be shared amongst steam programs but not with the system in general. X11 might be complicated of course (because Steam would have to run in the same X11 session as other software), but perhaps Valve are planning this around Wayland? What this would provide is a "distro within a distro" where only things like the kernel version would vary. This would potentially allow anything within steam to sidestep a load of the distro compatibility issues. Instead of creating a .deb and a .rpm you just package for Steam.
10098 14y ago
Can't wait to do a steam install halflife2episode2 that is, if they provide a command line interface :-)
- loboman 14y ago
  not sure about episode2, but Half Life 2 works perfectly with Steam, through Wine (if you are using ubuntu, install wine, then download Steam and run it... it should work just out of the box)
- parfe 14y ago
  Can't wait to do a steam install halflife2episode3
ysangkok 14y ago
Remember how Phoronix insinuated it was just around the corner two years ago: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_steam_announcement&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve... I doubt Valve need two years to port it to Linux. With Gabe's track record of taking his time developing software, I don't think we should get our hopes up too soon.
- aidenn0 14y ago
  If they want to support more than just a single version of a single linuxdistro, two years would be an incredibly fast port. Ask anyone who has done commercial software shipped binary-only for linux.
- chalst 14y ago
  That was an unsourced claim which Valve denied ("There's no Linux version that we're working on right now. ", Aug 2010). http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-08-12-valve-on-steam-part-two-interview?page=2 http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-08-12-valve-on-st...
  - joestringer 14y ago
    Has Valve actually confirmed the rumour this time around?
    - bionsuba 14y ago
      Gabe's email doesn't count?
TheGateKeeper 14y ago
I hope they have a CLI only version available for simpler server management on both local and remote systems. Having it as a desktop UI for gaming would be absolutely fantastic.
vibrunazo 14y ago
Desktop and console gaming are shrinking. [1] Mobile and browser games are growing absurdly fast. The industry is shifting to mobile. [2] Steam is about 1 decade too late. [1] http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf [2] http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/video-game-industry-shifting-focus-to-mobile-devices-nasdaq-atvi-1641243.htm http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/video-game-industry-...
- Tuna-Fish 14y ago
  "2000-2008 figures are sales of new physical content at retail exclusively" Desktop gaming is not shrinking. It's rapidly shifting from physical retail to digital delivery, and it's very likely growing very rapidly. Most of that "other delivery formats" column is Steam, not mobile and browser games. Of course, no-one outside Valve actually knows that, because they choose do not publish sales data, and they were estimated to have 70% of the digital delivery market in 2009, and probably much more of it now.
- koeselitz 14y ago
  Well, this seems wrong on a couple of counts. For one thing, Steam has iOS and Android clients as of January of this year. For another, Steam was released a decade ago in 2002 - and if that's "1 decade too late," I'd like to see a prototype for a game distribution client that would work on the 1992 internet with 1992 hardware. (Seriously, that would be kind of neat. Very different, I suspect, but interesting nonetheless.)
  - Aqua_Geek 14y ago
    > For one thing, Steam has iOS and Android clients[…] Are you referring to the Steam Mobile app? (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/steam-mobile/id495369748?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/steam-mobile/id495369748?mt=8) That's a pretty far cry from being a real client. Granted, I'm sure it's been hell trying to figure out how to play in Apple's garden - not to mention porting their engine to iOS/Android. But still, they've got a ways to go before I think we can call them a real player in the mobile gaming market. EDIT: > For another, Steam was released a decade ago in 2002 - and if that's "1 decade too late," […] Good point. Steam was a huge game changer and still continues to impress me. But I think the parent was referring to being a decade too late in the sense that the industry is shifting to mobile (though I'm not sure I completely agree - not for the AAA titles on Steam, anyway).
shangrila 14y ago
Linux has finally grown up. It's getting DRM!
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  When has it not had DRM? There is boatloads of corporate software that runs on Linux that interfaces with a license manager, for example.
phazmatis 14y ago
Hopefully they don't bite off more than they can chew and try to run on more than one flavor of linux. Ubuntu AMD64 LTS ought to be enough for anyone.
jiggy2011 14y ago
Another thing to think about here: It very interesting to me to think about Valve's motivations for doing this. One theory is that they want to develop a console (which I have heard denounced as a far fetches rumour on here). So if we assume that this is not the case, and that you have a smart and well established company like Valve porting their flagship products to the Linux platform; what does that say about how they see the future for Linux in the consumer space? In other threads we have people worried that the coming UEFIgate will leave the majority of devices locked out of running a Linux OS. If this is the case then why would Valve now be deciding to take on the task of porting everything over to a platform that was as good as dead to the consumer?
- dkersten 14y ago
  Maybe they're preparing in case Windows 8 doesn't do so well?
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    In which case are they predicting a mass exodus of PC users from Windows to desktop Linux? Or are they more interested in creating a Linux port as a step towards porting it to future Linux based platforms (ChromeBook/Box?)? If the future is ARM based devices and UEFI then people won't be able to install Linux even Windows 8 sucks to an obscene degree.
    - EthanHeilman 14y ago
      Think about what happens to PC hardware vendors if windows8 tanks. Windows8 could destroy the PC and PC gaming by forcing everyone to consoles, mobiles or Macs.
  - regularfry 14y ago
    I think they're preparing in case Windows 8 does do well. If Microsoft can put a working app store into Windows 8, and require it for delivering everything signable to run on Windows 9, Steam's toast.
jebblue 14y ago
Ok Valve is starting to rock. If it works they will start receiving my money again. Time to upgrade my hardware - when it happens!
shadowmint 14y ago
Well, since android is basically a posix compliant linux system with a ui layer on top, this seems like an obvious step in the direction of having a full android steam client, which will be a massive win for them, especially since I imagine much of osx code base ports across relatively easily. (Yes, I know there are differences, but the point is that the same base code can be ported easy if they do it right)
plq 14y ago
I guess this means I should start looking at BSD as my primary desktop OS :)

223 points by trotsky 14y ago

Finally, it's the year of the Linux desktop! Just kidding of course. Can anyone see this by the way? I think I've been shadow banned for apparently no reason.

ThePherocity 14y ago

It'll finally a be a three horse race on the desktop.

ajross 14y ago
Six. You forgot about the other three horses ("Sony", "Microsoft" and "Nintendo") because they're so far ahead. And there are two little horses coming up fast from behind. Honestly, gaming "on the desktop" is a shrinking market. I'm sure I'll enjoy a few Steam games on my Linux box (which I use basically 100% of the time), but this is hardly a paradigm shift. Consoles and mobile (maybe "web" will persist as a separate sub-market, but I'm not sure about that) are the future of gaming platforms.
- daenz 14y ago
  > Honestly, gaming "on the desktop" is a shrinking market. Source?
  - ysangkok 14y ago
    http://www.philsteinmeyer.com/153/retail-pc-game-sales-still-on-life-support/ http://www.philsteinmeyer.com/153/retail-pc-game-sales-still...
    - Symmetry 14y ago
      Well of course retail sales are down, I don't remember the last time I bought a PC game in a store. I got a free trial in a box at PAX last year, but everything else I've played has been an internet download.
- masklinn 14y ago
  > Honestly, gaming "on the desktop" is a shrinking market. Let's throw bullshit in the air, it's not like anybody has numbers or give a flying shit about them anyway. > Consoles [...] are the future of gaming platforms. Consoles have been the future of gaming platforms for 25 years now. And oddly, computers are still there as gaming platforms with developers and distributors making significant amounts of money from them. Hell, computer-based gaming has never been better as far as I'm concerned, the big shitty franchise-based publishers are getting the fuck away from it and indies are coming back to the front of the scene. Consoles are not the future of anything, they're a gaming media amongst others. And mobile is nice, I play a lot on my phone, but let's not kid ourselves: it's the future of killing handled consoles and that's about it.
  - 10098 14y ago
    Also let's not forget that the best, cutting-edge games utilizing the latest technology are pretty much out of console gamers' reach. Consoles have a hard time keeping up with the system requirements of newer games simply because its impossible to replace a video chip (or other piece of hardware) in a console. Case in point: Crytek's new engine with soft body physics simulation will be coming to PCs soon. How long until we see something similar on consoles?
    - klausa 14y ago
      Until new consoles are released? It's not like Crytek is small company that no one ever heard about - they're well known, they have released games on current generations and I'm sure they have preliminary hardware of next-gens.
      - 10098 14y ago
        Well, yes, but imagine buying a new console vs. just buying a new graphics card or a few additional gigs of ram.
        klausa 14y ago
        Huh? Second-best graphics card (GeForce 680) is $550 these days. Xbox 360 was $300/$400 depending which version you chose. PS3 was $500/$600 and I really can't imagine next generation being significantly more than that. Or were you talking about something else?
- heretohelp 14y ago
  >Honestly, gaming "on the desktop" is a shrinking market. So we're doing that thing where we just make shit up now about the largest gaming market in the world? Consoles are a primarily American/Japanese phenomenon with some other western countries participating. PC gaming is how the entire world games and it's growing faster than ever.
  - Roybatty 14y ago
    As much as I hate it (I'm a PC gamer..hate not having a mouse), the consoles have taken a big chunk out of the PC gaming market. That's just fact, whether you or like it. The "entire world" doesn't really matter. If some dude in Somalia has money to buy a PC game, he probably has money to buy a console.
    - ekianjo 14y ago
      Consoles are not always distributed everywhere, even if you have the money.
    - greiskul 14y ago
      Well, not really. I'm some dude in Brazil. It's cheaper to play games on PC, because consoles are very expensive here.
- pessimizer 14y ago
  Gaming on the desktop might be one of the only means of survival for the desktop. Recipe to make desktop into console. 1. plug desktop into tv. 2. buy wireless mini-keyboard and mouse, or install menu system that operates by D-pad to select games. 3. There is no step three.
- jjcm 14y ago
  Because of the quotes, I'm not sure if you mean that PC gaming is dead, or if you mean that the way we consume PC games is dying. Either way though, PC gaming numbers are on the rise. They overtook console gaming revenues back in 2010, and have continued to grow. http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/97705-pc-gaming-vs-consoles-the-infographic http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/97705-pc-gaming-vs-console...

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

InclinedPlane 14y ago

There are 3 important inflection points here. One is Steam on linux period. Even if it were its own little universe, having the support of Valve and the steam platform opens up a lot of opportunities for gaming on linux. Another is Valve's core games on linux, which would definitely give a big kickstart to linux as a gaming platform. Perhaps the most important could be when the top tier multi-platform game engines begin including linux as a targeted platform as a matter of routine.

phn 14y ago
I think valve's core games on linux will be there at the same time the linux steam client arrives to give it that push. It was that way with the mac. However, I think there will still be some time before we start seeing the majority of games ported to the three platforms. Sometimes, mac ports that are done by third parties are not on steam because they can't split the revenue, so you still have to get the mac version separately. But even with all the hurdles, I think this is a great step in the right direction.
- Scaevolus 14y ago
  Often, the difficulty of bringing a game to OSX is porting DirectX graphics code to OpenGL. Once that's done, the hard part of Linux support is dealing with distribution fragmentation and dependencies. Steam on Linux will probably ship with the audio/graphics/input libraries it needs, so 3rd party developers don't have to worry about environment nearly as much.
  - Orva 14y ago
    Porting is not really so bad issue, problem is that all sound and input port code will not work after year or two because of libraries changing, forgotten and deprecated. What I really do hope that Steam will choose libraries which might concentrate development effort around those. That would be good thing for everyone, not just for game developers.
- b0rsuk 14y ago
  I think only a fraction of existing games will be ported. However, now there will be a much stronger incentive to use cross-platform engines in the future. It used to be "windows + mac port" for a lot of games. "windows + mac port + linux port" sounds silly, so the obvious solution is to start with something that already is cross-platform. Wasteland 2 chose Unity engine because it's so cross-platform. It even has unpolished Linux support. The Linux port of Unity hasn't been released, because developers were doing that in their spare time and it wasn't up to Unity creators' standards. Now, InExile has been given Unity source for purposes of creating a decent Linux port. It's a single anecdote, but it illustrates what I'm saying above. Makers of Unity will probably want to get the most out of it, so Linux port of Unity will be contributed "upstream" and it's very likely that Unity will support Linux from now on.

StavrosK 14y ago

This is fantastic news! All the games I want to play are available on Linux, but, due the lack of the convenience that Steam offers has been off-putting. I can finally enjoy most of my favorite games right in my favorite environment...

muhfuhkuh 14y ago

So, no more install.sh scripts that you have to chmod +x, no more "undefined symbol" errors from games expecting old library files, no dependency hell (though, admittedly, I don't encounter those as much anymore). That I can definitely get behind!

jiggy2011 14y ago
Nope , just wait 10 minutes for Steam to load , check DRM and do all updates and your ready to go!
- muhfuhkuh 14y ago
  Believe me, I'd wait a few more seconds for it to do that than it erroring out to a prompt with "UNDEFINED SYMBOL: GTK_BUILDER_NEW", or worse, crash with a core dump where I'll never find it or know what to do with.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    But think of the freedom you get with those UNDEFINED SYMBOL and core dumps! I'll take DRM-free core dumps over playable games, any day!
    - sukuriant 14y ago
      </sarcasm>
    - shmerl 14y ago
      DRM free core dumps surely should be more fun than DRMed ones. ;) But seriously, having or not having DRM is not really directly related to how often it will crash.
      - dkersten 14y ago
        In the past I've had games crash because of the DRM. At least, thats what it sounded like from error messages and google searches. Tages and securom how I loathe thee!

oscilloscope 14y ago

For anyone looking to get some excellent games on their Linux box, don't miss out on the current Humble Indie Bundle. Amnesia, Psychonauts, LIMBO, Sword & Sworcery, and Bastion. Pay more than $1: get codes to unlock on Steam. http://www.humblebundle.com/ http://www.humblebundle.com/ Credit to Humble Bundle for showing that DRM-free can be profitable, and Linux can make up a substantial slice of the revenue pie.

Kronopath 14y ago
To be clear you have to pay over the average (which at the moment is $7.86) to get Bastion. Still, this is probably the best Humble Bundle since the first one. Every game here is great.
EtienneK 14y ago
The games can also be unlocked from the Ubuntu Software Centre: http://blog.canonical.com/2012/05/31/humble-indie-bundle-5-comes-to-the-ubuntu-software-centre/ http://blog.canonical.com/2012/05/31/humble-indie-bundle-5-c...
liljimmytables 14y ago
Humble Bundles have been my primary source of linux games for a while. They deserve much kudos for upping the game, as it were.

jiggy2011 14y ago

I wonder if this will stop at games? If Valve manage to deliver a platform with an easy-install that works cross distro it would seem a very good place for developers who want to port to Linux but are scared of distro fragmentation issues. I hope that I will be able to run games under Linux that I have already bought for windows without having to re-buy them.

sliverstorm 14y ago
It would be cool, but one thing about games that makes this much less painful- they usually don't depend on twenty system libraries. In other words, I doubt Valve is going to create a hyper-robust platform that can intelligently install any package; that's completely unnecessary for their purposes.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if Steam for Linux just created it's own chrooted environment and user account and then simply installed it's own set of libraries which would then be shared amongst steam programs but not with the system in general. X11 might be complicated of course (because Steam would have to run in the same X11 session as other software), but perhaps Valve are planning this around Wayland? What this would provide is a "distro within a distro" where only things like the kernel version would vary. This would potentially allow anything within steam to sidestep a load of the distro compatibility issues. Instead of creating a .deb and a .rpm you just package for Steam.

10098 14y ago

Can't wait to do a steam install halflife2episode2 that is, if they provide a command line interface :-)

loboman 14y ago
not sure about episode2, but Half Life 2 works perfectly with Steam, through Wine (if you are using ubuntu, install wine, then download Steam and run it... it should work just out of the box)
parfe 14y ago
Can't wait to do a steam install halflife2episode3

ysangkok 14y ago

Remember how Phoronix insinuated it was just around the corner two years ago: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_steam_announcement&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve... I doubt Valve need two years to port it to Linux. With Gabe's track record of taking his time developing software, I don't think we should get our hopes up too soon.

aidenn0 14y ago
If they want to support more than just a single version of a single linuxdistro, two years would be an incredibly fast port. Ask anyone who has done commercial software shipped binary-only for linux.
chalst 14y ago
That was an unsourced claim which Valve denied ("There's no Linux version that we're working on right now. ", Aug 2010). http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-08-12-valve-on-steam-part-two-interview?page=2 http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-08-12-valve-on-st...
- joestringer 14y ago
  Has Valve actually confirmed the rumour this time around?
  - bionsuba 14y ago
    Gabe's email doesn't count?

TheGateKeeper 14y ago

I hope they have a CLI only version available for simpler server management on both local and remote systems. Having it as a desktop UI for gaming would be absolutely fantastic.

vibrunazo 14y ago

Desktop and console gaming are shrinking. [1] Mobile and browser games are growing absurdly fast. The industry is shifting to mobile. [2] Steam is about 1 decade too late. [1] http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf [2] http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/video-game-industry-shifting-focus-to-mobile-devices-nasdaq-atvi-1641243.htm http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/video-game-industry-...

Tuna-Fish 14y ago
"2000-2008 figures are sales of new physical content at retail exclusively" Desktop gaming is not shrinking. It's rapidly shifting from physical retail to digital delivery, and it's very likely growing very rapidly. Most of that "other delivery formats" column is Steam, not mobile and browser games. Of course, no-one outside Valve actually knows that, because they choose do not publish sales data, and they were estimated to have 70% of the digital delivery market in 2009, and probably much more of it now.
koeselitz 14y ago
Well, this seems wrong on a couple of counts. For one thing, Steam has iOS and Android clients as of January of this year. For another, Steam was released a decade ago in 2002 - and if that's "1 decade too late," I'd like to see a prototype for a game distribution client that would work on the 1992 internet with 1992 hardware. (Seriously, that would be kind of neat. Very different, I suspect, but interesting nonetheless.)
- Aqua_Geek 14y ago
  > For one thing, Steam has iOS and Android clients[…] Are you referring to the Steam Mobile app? (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/steam-mobile/id495369748?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/steam-mobile/id495369748?mt=8) That's a pretty far cry from being a real client. Granted, I'm sure it's been hell trying to figure out how to play in Apple's garden - not to mention porting their engine to iOS/Android. But still, they've got a ways to go before I think we can call them a real player in the mobile gaming market. EDIT: > For another, Steam was released a decade ago in 2002 - and if that's "1 decade too late," […] Good point. Steam was a huge game changer and still continues to impress me. But I think the parent was referring to being a decade too late in the sense that the industry is shifting to mobile (though I'm not sure I completely agree - not for the AAA titles on Steam, anyway).

shangrila 14y ago

Linux has finally grown up. It's getting DRM!

sliverstorm 14y ago
When has it not had DRM? There is boatloads of corporate software that runs on Linux that interfaces with a license manager, for example.

phazmatis 14y ago

Hopefully they don't bite off more than they can chew and try to run on more than one flavor of linux. Ubuntu AMD64 LTS ought to be enough for anyone.

jiggy2011 14y ago

Another thing to think about here: It very interesting to me to think about Valve's motivations for doing this. One theory is that they want to develop a console (which I have heard denounced as a far fetches rumour on here). So if we assume that this is not the case, and that you have a smart and well established company like Valve porting their flagship products to the Linux platform; what does that say about how they see the future for Linux in the consumer space? In other threads we have people worried that the coming UEFIgate will leave the majority of devices locked out of running a Linux OS. If this is the case then why would Valve now be deciding to take on the task of porting everything over to a platform that was as good as dead to the consumer?

dkersten 14y ago
Maybe they're preparing in case Windows 8 doesn't do so well?
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  In which case are they predicting a mass exodus of PC users from Windows to desktop Linux? Or are they more interested in creating a Linux port as a step towards porting it to future Linux based platforms (ChromeBook/Box?)? If the future is ARM based devices and UEFI then people won't be able to install Linux even Windows 8 sucks to an obscene degree.
  - EthanHeilman 14y ago
    Think about what happens to PC hardware vendors if windows8 tanks. Windows8 could destroy the PC and PC gaming by forcing everyone to consoles, mobiles or Macs.
- regularfry 14y ago
  I think they're preparing in case Windows 8 does do well. If Microsoft can put a working app store into Windows 8, and require it for delivering everything signable to run on Windows 9, Steam's toast.

jebblue 14y ago

Ok Valve is starting to rock. If it works they will start receiving my money again. Time to upgrade my hardware - when it happens!

shadowmint 14y ago

Well, since android is basically a posix compliant linux system with a ui layer on top, this seems like an obvious step in the direction of having a full android steam client, which will be a massive win for them, especially since I imagine much of osx code base ports across relatively easily. (Yes, I know there are differences, but the point is that the same base code can be ported easy if they do it right)

plq 14y ago

I guess this means I should start looking at BSD as my primary desktop OS :)