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Would the (many, many) games I've already purchased on Steam work on Linux? Will Steam for Linux ship with WINE or something similar? If not, I don't see the re

Would the (many, many) games I've already purchased on Steam work on Linux? Will Steam for Linux ship with WINE or something similar? If not, I don't see the real value for someone like me.

jiggy2011 14y ago
The games will work if there is a Linux port on Steam and you've already bought for Windows/Mac. You don't have to buy twice. However there seems to be a few games with working Linux ports that aren't available in Steam under Linux yet, bastion being one example. I believe most of the Steam Linux games available are native ports and don't use Wine. Maybe there are some that do use Wine, but I don't imagine that they will make them available through Steam unless they are confident that they will actually work. So the real question here is, "what is the real value of this assuming you already have a dedicated Windows PC or a dual boot for gaming?" For myself it is nice to have a few good quality indie games available to play if I fancy a short break from coding on my Linux box without having to power cycle my PC. For serious gaming sessions Windows is still king for now. The real question is about future games. There seems to be increasing interest in cross platform toolkits for game development, this is probably most because people want to target iOS and Android rather than Linux however. However if it gets to the point where Linux just becomes another output format for a cross platform game engine (like unity3d) then perhaps you can expect future game titles to become available on Linux simply because the friction to launch on the platform is so low.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- devcpp 14y ago
  >You don't have to buy twice. How do you know ports will be free? It removes most of the incentive that developers would have to make a good port: money (unless Valve pays for the ports, which would be very expensive).
  - katbyte 14y ago
    As it stands the mac ports on steam have all been free so it stands to reason it would be the same for linux. Some developers still occasionally port to linux as is without any incentive other then a wider (albeit minor) possible audience. Although given gabes apparent hate for windows, i wouldn't put it past value to pay for ports.
    - jcl 14y ago
      FWIW, that's not a hard rule. There is at least one recent game (Call of Duty: Black Ops) that you have to buy separately if you want to play on both Mac and PC.
      - JimmehAH 14y ago
        I think that's because it's a different publisher (i.e. farmed out to Aspyr). It's also the same version that's up on the Mac App Store which has limited multi player functionality.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    The ports are currently free on the beta, assuming you have bought the original. Seems unlikely that they will change that as "buy once, run anywhere" seems to be a big selling point of Steam. I guess in terms of incentives to do ports, if Valve plans to launch a Linux based Steam box they can tempt developers with more prominent placing of games with Linux ports, a larger audience (assuming Steambox has good sales) or even flat out make it a requirement to get onto Steam. There are also current Linux users like myself who are just more tempted to buy a game if it has a Linux port.
    - bluedanieru 14y ago
      >or even make it a requirement to get onto Steam Let's hope not.
      - chii 14y ago
- ekianjo 14y ago
  > However if it gets to the point where Linux just becomes another output format for a cross platform game engine (like unity3d) then perhaps you can expect future game titles to become available on Linux simply because the friction to launch on the platform is so low. That's probably why Valve wants to push Linux through a specific Steam Box hardware: that will drive a larger user base running Linux to play games. Not sure if that strategy will work, however, since it will rely heavily on third party publishers to support the platform.
- eikenberry 14y ago
  > I believe most of the Steam Linux games available are native ports and don't use Wine. Games ported using Wine are native ports. Wine's design goal was as a library that developers would use it to port their applications to run natively on any platform Wine supported. Remember, wine is not an emulator.
- keeperofdakeys 14y ago
  I've read (but can't confirm) that many Mac games run through Wine. Wine's bad reputation mostly comes from the one-size fits all approach normally used. If the developers of each game individually configured, and packaged, their game with Wine, they would all run quite well. This is probably the path many games will take, if at all, due to the cost of trying to redevelop a Windows-only game for Linux.
orionblastar 14y ago
You can run the Steam Windows Client under WINE using PlayonLinux: http://www.playonlinux.com/en/ http://www.playonlinux.com/en/ Just install WINE, Python, WineTricks and then download and install PlayonLinux to configure virtual drives. Civilization V for example has no native Linux port, but the Windows version works fine in WINE. There are 62 games ported to Linux so far in the Steam library.
goggles99 14y ago
only a small percentage of them would work. You will need to double boot or run some VM of windows in the background to play the rest. That is why Steam on Linux will fail. Look at Steam for Mac. OS X has far more desktop penetration, than Linux yet the good games are just not there thus no one uses it. Big games today have millions of dollar budgets. I really do not think they will have a Linux port for an additional <1% increase in sales. Indie games trying to compete on a near empty playing field is all you are likely to see for some time on Linux. Have fun

Would the (many, many) games I've already purchased on Steam work on Linux? Will Steam for Linux ship with WINE or something similar? If not, I don't see the real value for someone like me.

jiggy2011 14y ago

The games will work if there is a Linux port on Steam and you've already bought for Windows/Mac. You don't have to buy twice. However there seems to be a few games with working Linux ports that aren't available in Steam under Linux yet, bastion being one example. I believe most of the Steam Linux games available are native ports and don't use Wine. Maybe there are some that do use Wine, but I don't imagine that they will make them available through Steam unless they are confident that they will actually work. So the real question here is, "what is the real value of this assuming you already have a dedicated Windows PC or a dual boot for gaming?" For myself it is nice to have a few good quality indie games available to play if I fancy a short break from coding on my Linux box without having to power cycle my PC. For serious gaming sessions Windows is still king for now. The real question is about future games. There seems to be increasing interest in cross platform toolkits for game development, this is probably most because people want to target iOS and Android rather than Linux however. However if it gets to the point where Linux just becomes another output format for a cross platform game engine (like unity3d) then perhaps you can expect future game titles to become available on Linux simply because the friction to launch on the platform is so low.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
devcpp 14y ago
>You don't have to buy twice. How do you know ports will be free? It removes most of the incentive that developers would have to make a good port: money (unless Valve pays for the ports, which would be very expensive).
- katbyte 14y ago
  As it stands the mac ports on steam have all been free so it stands to reason it would be the same for linux. Some developers still occasionally port to linux as is without any incentive other then a wider (albeit minor) possible audience. Although given gabes apparent hate for windows, i wouldn't put it past value to pay for ports.
  - jcl 14y ago
    FWIW, that's not a hard rule. There is at least one recent game (Call of Duty: Black Ops) that you have to buy separately if you want to play on both Mac and PC.
    - JimmehAH 14y ago
      I think that's because it's a different publisher (i.e. farmed out to Aspyr). It's also the same version that's up on the Mac App Store which has limited multi player functionality.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  The ports are currently free on the beta, assuming you have bought the original. Seems unlikely that they will change that as "buy once, run anywhere" seems to be a big selling point of Steam. I guess in terms of incentives to do ports, if Valve plans to launch a Linux based Steam box they can tempt developers with more prominent placing of games with Linux ports, a larger audience (assuming Steambox has good sales) or even flat out make it a requirement to get onto Steam. There are also current Linux users like myself who are just more tempted to buy a game if it has a Linux port.
  - bluedanieru 14y ago
    >or even make it a requirement to get onto Steam Let's hope not.
    - chii 14y ago
ekianjo 14y ago
> However if it gets to the point where Linux just becomes another output format for a cross platform game engine (like unity3d) then perhaps you can expect future game titles to become available on Linux simply because the friction to launch on the platform is so low. That's probably why Valve wants to push Linux through a specific Steam Box hardware: that will drive a larger user base running Linux to play games. Not sure if that strategy will work, however, since it will rely heavily on third party publishers to support the platform.
eikenberry 14y ago
> I believe most of the Steam Linux games available are native ports and don't use Wine. Games ported using Wine are native ports. Wine's design goal was as a library that developers would use it to port their applications to run natively on any platform Wine supported. Remember, wine is not an emulator.
keeperofdakeys 14y ago
I've read (but can't confirm) that many Mac games run through Wine. Wine's bad reputation mostly comes from the one-size fits all approach normally used. If the developers of each game individually configured, and packaged, their game with Wine, they would all run quite well. This is probably the path many games will take, if at all, due to the cost of trying to redevelop a Windows-only game for Linux.

orionblastar 14y ago

You can run the Steam Windows Client under WINE using PlayonLinux: http://www.playonlinux.com/en/ http://www.playonlinux.com/en/ Just install WINE, Python, WineTricks and then download and install PlayonLinux to configure virtual drives. Civilization V for example has no native Linux port, but the Windows version works fine in WINE. There are 62 games ported to Linux so far in the Steam library.

goggles99 14y ago

only a small percentage of them would work. You will need to double boot or run some VM of windows in the background to play the rest. That is why Steam on Linux will fail. Look at Steam for Mac. OS X has far more desktop penetration, than Linux yet the good games are just not there thus no one uses it. Big games today have millions of dollar budgets. I really do not think they will have a Linux port for an additional <1% increase in sales. Indie games trying to compete on a near empty playing field is all you are likely to see for some time on Linux. Have fun