

Notch on Steam, Windows 8, what's next - bookwormAT
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/15/future-talk-notch-on-steam-windows-8-whats-next/

======
officemonkey
If Steam supports Linux, you can count on several new distributions.
Everything from a spare backend to run Steam on, to distributions which
address the fiddly nature of the 1337 gamer (eg: specialty mouse, audio, and
video drivers).

The day Steam supports Linux, you will have _overnight_ the single biggest
influx of new Linux users. Followed quickly by a large group of programmers,
designers, and entrepreneurs who will be interested in working and selling in
the space.

If Linux isn't ready for prime time then, it never will be.

~~~
riffraff
I am not clear, why would someone who owns a working windows running steam,
install a linux distro from scratch to play exactly the same stuff he already
does?

~~~
officemonkey
Articles like this:

<http://www.steamforlinux.com/?q=en/node/74>

Do not underestimate the lengths gamers will go to get to 60 fps.

~~~
FrankBooth
Most gamers couldn't care less, as long as it runs with the minimum of hassle.
And I believe that graph is well outdated - the optimizations can be applied
to the Windows version and reap similar benefits. And, realistically, 16%
improvements are not going to cause a mass exodus from Windows. Additionally,
FPS is a terrible performance measure once the counts are above 60 FPS or so,
frame delay is more important, and in this case we're talking about 3.17ms vs
3.7ms per frame.

------
lambada
"I don’t think Linux is it, because there are a few good distributions that
actually are user-friendly, but at its core it’s made by nerds for nerds. For
people who understand computers, it’s awesome, because you can control the
entire computer. For corporations or families, it’s not really what they want.
They just want to be able to use the computer in an easy way". This sums up my
thoughts on Linux - yes, I consider myself a geek, but at the end of the day,
for >90% of my computing needs I just want something that works. I find the
idea of Linux awesome, and my web-dev work relies on it, but for my general
computer it just isn't what's needed.

~~~
lunarscape
I don't understand this reasoning. No one forces you to compile from source or
even use the terminal. Likewise no one needs to touch the Windows registry or
firewall settings if they don't want to.

There's a distro for almost everything and there's certainly one for the
unassuming family PC - Ubuntu. It passes the "Mom test" for me and keeps my
technology hesitant mother very happy. Email, web browsing, online banking,
photo sharing, printing/scanning just works. If anything it's easier than
"that Windows thing" (as she describes it). The Dash in Unity and the Launcher
'just work' and have made computing a much more pleasant experience for her.
With the exception of very occasional hardware support issues (I change
printers maybe every 2 years) it's more than convinced me Ubuntu is a very
viable family OS.

~~~
danieldk
_There's a distro for almost everything and there's certainly one for the
unassuming family PC - Ubuntu. It passes the "Mom test" for me and keeps my
technology hesitant mother very happy. Email, web browsing, online banking,
photo sharing, printing/scanning just works. If anything it's easier than
"that Windows thing" (as she describes it)._

Even if that were true (which I dispute, even in recent weeks GRUB broke after
an upgrade on my Linux machine, resulting in an unbootable machine). What is
the incentive for the average user? They already have a computer that came
with Windows for 'free'. Tablets are many times simpler than either Ubuntu or
Windows.

~~~
Teckla
"Even if that were true (which I dispute, even in recent weeks GRUB broke
after an upgrade on my Linux machine, resulting in an unbootable machine)."

I'm glad it's not just me.

Last year, I installed Ubuntu Linux via WUBI. After an update, some
GRUB/kernel incompatibility left Ubuntu Linux unbootable. (At least, after far
too much research, my best estimate was that it was a GRUB/kernel
incompatibility.)

I was laughed at for using WUBI at all, and in shame, decided to install
Ubuntu Linux in a dual boot configuration. Which worked... for a while.

At some point, Ubuntu Linux offered to upgrade itself to a newer version. It
failed part way through with some obscure error message, and left Ubuntu
Linux... you guessed it... unbootable.

Once again, I was laughed at. "Everyone knows you shouldn't try to upgrade
Ubuntu Linux; do a fresh install instead." _sigh_

Also, Ubuntu Linux got fat (for lack of a better word). In the past, I could
count on Ubuntu Linux to extend the life of old hardware, but frankly, modern
versions do not appear to perform any better than Windows 7.

All of these problems, and Ubuntu Linux is supposed to be the _easy_
distribution? For now, I've given up, and I'm back on Windows 7, which hasn't
caused me any trouble.

~~~
biomechanica
This is one of the reasons I stick to LTS releases (Long Term Support). The
releases between LTS are sort of "unstable" in comparison (for a lack of a
better way of putting it).

Personally, I have had no issues upgrading from one LTS to another LTS system.

I agree, however, that there should be more work done on the upgrade system.
It is a sort 50/50 in a lot of peoples eyes.

With that said: Ubuntu is not the only distro out there that is easy to use.
There are other distro's out there that are built on Ubuntu - Linux Mint,
Xubuntu, Kubuntu etc. etc. etc. - that may be more suitable for some people.
With Ubuntu 12.04, things are really starting to look up. It is becoming a
rather nice, usable system, regardless of the controversy of Unity. Yes, there
are issues with 12.04 right now. For instance OpenGL performance under Unity
is bad. With Steam coming on board, I will bet it will be fixed in due time.

Anyway, yes issues are still around. Though, really, it isn't as bad as your
luck, I guess? I don't mean that in any condescending way, of course. I just
think perhaps you might want to take another gander at it some time.

------
arthurbrown
I get it that he's uneasy about Steam's dominance; but there's not a whole lot
of reasoning behind it. There is competition, every publisher is trying to
push their own marketplace. The problem is that they're all complete crap,
look no further than Ubisoft's UPlay rootkit incident.

The last bit honestly left me reeling. As a Linux user, I feel like we're very
close to turning a huge corner if Valve gets Steam/Source running well on
Linux. This could be the nudge that starts an avalanche, and it's really
disheartening to see such an influential figure dismissing it as though it's
nothing; especially considering he's released his own game on Linux. Not to
mention his reasoning makes no sense to boot - If anyone is capable of dealing
with getting their hands dirty, it will be gamers who are accustomed to fixing
buggy console ports and editing configuration files. For most others (Families
and Corporations as he mentions), a browser and OpenOffice is already more
than enough.

~~~
danieldk
But what's the difference with ca. 1999-2002 when Loki ported popular games to
Linux, Corel released Wordperfect for Linux and their own Linux distribution,
Red Hat was the darling of the Linux world, and VA Systems IPOed?

That window of opportunity is gone. Home users are moving to tablets for most
of their computing. For businesses there is little incentive to move to Linux,
Windows licenses are relatively cheap and come with hardware. Retraining
personel is more expensive.

The traditional Linux desktop provides a fine UNIX workstation and if the
crazy desktop experiments stop, it could compete with OS X. Linux for the
average home user has already succeeded as Android.

~~~
Gravityloss
I tried red hat in 2002. The experience was very uncomfortable and I quickly
went back to windows. I tried linux again in 2008 and everything was great and
i moved onto it immediately. Also installed it for my mom...

What happened? Debian apt-get and Ubuntu.

~~~
danieldk
Some user-friendly distributions at the time had apt-get, such as Corel Linux.
Some other distributions, such as Caldera OpenLinux and SUSE were of a very
good quality. At that time, you could install Linux on most computers without
much effort. During that hype, I helped installing Linux a lot on friend and
family's machines. The primary problem were Winmodems and some printers. These
days we have Wifi, fan control, and such instead ;).

------
mattmaroon
"Yeah, I think it’s very dangerous territory. In the case of EA and Zynga,
those games are deceivingly similar. It looks like they’re trying to almost
trick the customer into thinking it’s the same game. That’s when I think you
should be able to stop people. I don’t want them to be able to trick people
into thinking it’s the same game. If it’s the same idea, fine, but if you’re
trying to move into the concept space of what Minecraft is, for example… It’s
hard to express the exact difference. But trademarks fine, patents bad. That’s
kind of the short summary."

I don't see anything dangerous because it works pretty much exactly how he
hopes it does. Games are one area where the patent system actually works well.
You can more or less clone a game legally. You cannot, however, copy their
trade dress, in much the same way you can make ketchup that tastes like Heinz
but can't call it Shmeinz and package it similarly.

My company (YC S07) did exactly this. We saw a game (Ogame) that had great
mechanics, but poor art and execution on many levels. We made it social and
built what might have been the first hardcore Facebook game (Starfleet
Commander). We took a game that appealed mainly to Germans and tweaked it to
appeal to Americans and other cultures where aesthetics and ease of use are
valued as much as raw functionality. Everyone benefited, even the original
game which probably got more new customers from people who found out about it
through our game than they lost to us. Even though ours rapidly eclipsed
theirs, I suspect they made more as a result.

~~~
Ogre
"Games are one area where the patent system actually works well."

I have to disagree here. Games have all the same patent issues as other kinds
of software.

See for example: [http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/9/15/3337632/hearing-
dat...](http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/9/15/3337632/hearing-date-set-for-
worlds-inc-vs-activision-blizzard-patent-suit)

In which Worlds Inc. sues Blizzard for having "a system and method for
enabling users to interact in a virtual space." Not a similar game, just a
general system.

Is this working well?

An earlier case:
[http://www.stellardawncentral.com/forums/index.php?showtopic...](http://www.stellardawncentral.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=18781)

Which was dropped in the remaining cases after Jagex (makers of Runescape) won
a dismissal in their case, but it still took time and money to defend it for
all of the companies involved.

Larger game makers will settle these because it's cheaper than going to court,
even if they win. Who exactly does that benefit?

If you are making the argument that "the patent system actually works well"
because it prevents companies from copying others' trade dress, I'd like to
see your source for that. All of the game-related patent lawsuits I know about
were not over similar games, but rather core technologies.

~~~
mattmaroon
Well, someone bringing a lawsuit doesn't mean the system is failing. Anyone
can file a lawsuit for anything. If I had a good lawyer, I could drum up
something to sue almost any company for, patent-related or otherwise. I
probably wouldn't win, but I'd force them to spend a lot of money defending
themselves. If anything that's more an indictment of the broader legal system
than patents.

Regardless this is more of a software patent issue (an area of patent law I
don't think anyone would argue is working) than one relating to game
mechanics. The patents in both cases could easily be applied to non-game
software. To my knowledge, nothing like this happens in non-software gaming.

~~~
aristidb
I think the point is that utility patents - as opposed to the design patents
which you seemed to refer to - apply to games as well, and also do damage
there.

------
trotsky
In case anyone else was interested, proteus: <http://www.visitproteus.com/>

------
goggles99
There sure seems to be a lot of confusion here on HN about what Steam is.

 _There are a lot of people that say the only reason why they ever run Windows
is to play games on Steam_

It seems like a lot of people hear that there will be a Steam client for Linux
and somehow think that all these games will now run on Linux. Sorry to
disappoint you.

It seems that there is a misunderstanding of what Steam actually is. Steam is
merely a marketplace, updater, and launcher for over 1500 games. Less than 5%
of those games run on Linux. Valve only has 25 games that it produced in-
house. Only 6 of these have been released since 2007 (their games alone hardly
dictate how the industry will move. They are not a dominant player in this
respect). Most of valve's titles have been mission-packs, or variants of Half-
Life, TFS, or Counter Strike.

If gamers can boot into Linux tomorrow and run Steam, will they? Would they
really do it for the 100 games that are available (most of them dated and
washed up games)? Then new titles come out or they want to play their current
favorite (non Valve) game, they have to boot back into Windows to play those?
Why would they do that? (besides geeks/hackers with too much time on their
hands).

I know that the majority of hackers love the openness of Linux and the smug
"hipness" or "superiority" (or being in-vogue) of Apple, but I think that
people tend to self dilute themselves with wishful thinking that Microsoft and
Windows will somehow go away any time soon.

It is comical to me how people can berate one closed platform - Windows (and
list being closed as the reason why) and yet love other, even more closed
platforms (Apple products, Steam...)

Steam holds a monopoly on digital sales of Games in the PC market. Suddenly
Microsoft wants to compete with them and they start ranting like lunatics
(publicly calling windows 8 a catastrophe). Any company who does business with
the public should expect competition. And the public should welcome it. It
keeps prices lower and forces competitors to produce better software.

------
goggles99
Funny - Apple releases an app-store built into OS X and you hear faint
applause (Yes, Steam already had a client for OS X at the time), Microsoft
follows suit and you hear loud curses and wide spread disapproval. This shows
1. the illegitimacy of Apple and 2. the double standard that Microsoft faces.

