
Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix - pook1e
http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2973484/valve-is-developing-steam-for-linux-says-michael-larabel-of-phoronix
======
sho_hn
Even though Steam invites its own problems (it's ultimately a form of DRM, a
closed platform, and a closed-source application), as a FOSS developer I can't
help but feel excited about this prospect. I know many, many people in the
15-35 age bracket who are open to and curious about Linux, even tried it, but
ultimately didn't stick with it because of the lack of high-end native games
and because rebooting or setting up Wine is too much of a hassle. Valve has
tremendous power to change this and legitimize Linux as a platform in their
eyes.

Plus, there's already a lot of games in the Steam catalogue that have native
Linux versions available:

\- Dozens of independent titles, e.g. everything that was in those Humble
Bundles.

\- Everything using the DOSBox emulator to run even on Windows, e.g. id's
Commander Keen, some Lucasarts Star Wars games, etc.

\- Even a bunch of AAA titles: id Software's games (Doom, Quake) and games
that have licensed their engine (e.g. Human Head's Prey), games that were
ported by Linux Game Publishing (e.g. Egosoft's X series of spaceflight
simulators), several games by Epic (e.g. Unreal Tournament) or using an Epic
engine (e.g. Rune and Deus Ex, ported by Loki), Neverwinter Nights,
Civilization: Call to Power, ...

Add Valve's own games and possibly some of the other games using their Source
engine, and you could easily make 100-150 games available on Linux within a
year of launch _just from what's already there_. But even more exciting is the
notion of Steam's availability making more game makers consider adding Linux
to their list of supported platforms _going forward_ because the distribution
problem is solved for them.

~~~
windsurfer
bonch, your account has been hellbanned. All your comments are dead. I'm
replying here hoping you see it.

~~~
burgerbrain
If I recall correctly, he's been told and didn't seem to care.

~~~
jiggy2011
I'm curious, is there a way I can set HN to display hellbanned comments?

~~~
lmkg
In your account settings, the option is named "showdead."

~~~
jiggy2011
Oh cool, thanks.

I never knew there was a feature in HN that immediately turned it into reddit!

------
qxcv
Looks like this is going to be reality, Phoronix just published the promised
article[0] which basically claims that Valve have ported L4D/Source over to
Linux already! Exciting news indeed, AAA-titles for Linux could turn the
desktop OS market upside down.

[0]:
[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_linux_dampfnudeln&num=1)

~~~
danssig
That is interesting news, but turn the OS market upside down? You can't be
serious.

~~~
b0rsuk
"I would use Linux only, but I like game X and Y." is incredibly common
attitude among people who use dual boot. I'm not making this up, the phrase
pops up very often on various forums, especially in context of linux ports for
newly announced games.

You don't see many complaints about GIMP being inadequate (and with the recent
news that will be the end of GIMP complaints), or OpenOffice/LibreOffice
incompatibility. Yes, once in a while someone has issues with very
tricky/advanced spreadsheet or text document, but with minimum goodwill on the
part of the creator it can be worked around.

Gaming is really the last bastion of Windows. I predict a surge in Linux
popularity once Steam is ported, bypassing OSX. And once that happens you are
going to see pressure to use it in workplace. Game developers will be
releasing Linux versions much more often, like in the old days of OpenGL.
Really, there are many people who _want_ to use Linux but hold out because of
games.

~~~
slowpoke
_> Gaming is really the last bastion of Windows._

For the consumer market, yes. As much as I love GNU/Linux and support Free
Software, the reality is that pretty much all business runs on Word and, even
more so, Excel. Sad, but true.

~~~
bad_user
Not all businesses. I've worked for and with plenty of small businesses where
the norm was OpenOffice, running on top of Linux and Mac OS X, with non-
technical people having no problem using it (after a period of bitching about
it, because people in general are conservative).

For example I helped a local kindergarten switch all their computers to Linux
and OpenOffice (one in every classroom, plus 4 others used for administrative
purposes). They are happy with the results and the BSA is not harassing them
anymore. My wife works there and I'm happy to help out whenever problems occur
and it's a lot better for me to SSH into those machines instead of going over
there (and surely, you can also do that with Remote Desktop on Windows, but
you don't have the same level of control and it's harder to secure, IMHO).

Granted, it's not always easy for a company to make that switch, because as I
said people are pretty conservative and fear change. This is why developers
are so fluid in regards to the technologies used, because developers know how
to learn the basics and build from there instead of rote learning the path
from A to B.

The one problem Linux does have in regards to businesses is integration with
Exchange ... this is actually the deal breaker, as in Office coupled with
Exchange is the real killer app, and there still isn't anything that can
replace it for big organizations. But small businesses are better off going
with services such as Google Apps nowadays.

~~~
sciurus
"The one problem Linux does have in regards to businesses is integration with
Exchange"

You're forgetting active directory and group policy.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_Policy>

~~~
seanp2k2
If you grill people hard on "why do you need all that complex, expensive crap
anyway?" you can switch them over to Google Apps, or Zimbra, or LibreOffice +
Evolution + SLES and have all the same functionality. Share point? What does
share point do that WebDAV + Samba + Apache + some kind of CMS + MediaWiki
can't, besides requiring an expensive share point admin and lots of licensing
fees?

LDAP and kerberos have Linux implementations, but throwing the *nix way of
doing this out the window in favor of the AD route is a really silly idea
unless you need to integrate with existing windows crap. Basically, Windows
perpetuates itself, and the solution is to drop it entirely and across the
board.

~~~
danssig
>but throwing the _nix way of doing this out the window in favor of the AD
route is a really silly idea unless you need to integrate with existing
windows crap.

This betrays a lack of experience with a large organization. The "_nix way" is
every program having their own configuration file with its own syntax and
needing a signal (or restart the process) to change said configuration.
Directories are far superior for this and it isn't a "windows" thing. It was
Novell who first got serious with directory services.

------
m_st
I'm sure one of the reasons for a Linux client (and even a Steam console) is
Windows 8 with its App Store. Soon potential customers are going to buy their
software through these integrated stores rather than using dedicated clients.
And since Microsoft is giving the Desktop a legacy feeling Valve has no choice
but expand the reach of Steam. Which is of course good for us customers.

~~~
ericd
As a longtime PC gamer, any Microsoft store is roughly 0 threat to Steam from
my perspective unless publishers stop publishing on Steam, which would seems
very unlikely unless Microsoft took much less of a cut and Valve refused to
follow suit, or Microsoft decided to pay publishers off for exclusives.
Microsoft's past attempts to make Steam-like services have been completely
laughable/extremely frustrating (see Games for Windows Live, their attempt at
an online community/DRM solution).

I think they're expanding to Linux entirely because they want to expand to and
support Linux, not because of any competitive pressure forcing them to retreat
to Linux. A couple years ago they expanded to Mac, and this is just a natural
extension.

~~~
jiggy2011
IIRC , Windows 8 will only allow "Metro Style" apps to be installed via
Microsoft's own store. I'm not sure whether a game would classify as "Metro
Style" or not and since ARM based Windows tablets will be Metro only that
kills the possibility of Steam to expand in that direction.

So there is the possibility that MS could turn around and say "No, Steam is
banned from Windows" in the same way that apple would with the iPad.

This at least gives Valve the power to threaten MS with "FU, we're going to
Linux and taking HL3 , Portal 3 and CS:GA with us"

------
hedgehog
It will be interesting to see what this does to the state of GL support,
Wayland, scheduler, etc. Steam telemetry will give Valve a lot of data about
how different hardware/software/driver configurations are working but on Linux
they'll be able to actually push patches to distros if need be. I would love
to see Valve profile Source on Linux and start shaving sources of latency and
jitter, it could eventually be better than Windows for competitive gaming.

~~~
firemanx
Hopefully this pushes them to support more variety in the underlying operating
system as well. I still can't get Steam to run on my Mac because I made the
apparently rare decision to format my machine as case sensitive filesystem.

~~~
chrismsnz
It's not just Steam, I had a CS filesystem and could not install Starcraft 2
either.

------
jiggy2011
I see a few things to think about here:

Will "Steam for Linux" be something that you can just apt-get into your free
as in freedom Distro and start running AAA games, or will it in fact be
something highly proprietary which is designed for a specific subset of
devices which happen to run Linux kernels?

I see a lot of people here discussing "market share" but as has been proved by
Apple market share is certainly not everything. In reality the computer market
is broken into a number of distinct markets that have overlap and some of
these are more lucrative than others.

Pricing structure will make a difference here, I wonder if the Linux games
will be the same price as their Windows counterparts? I remember a few years
ago there were a number of companies that tried to break into Linux gaming but
the prices for the games were astronomical. Many 5 year old games that could
have had for Windows for about $10 were selling for $40+ on Linux.

Linux Steam could also focus on other styles of games too, perhaps there is
more demand amongst Linux users for highly cerebral RTS & RPG games rather
than the latest COD that could be sold at a higher price? All you would really
need is one or two "killer" titles that were Linux exclusive (think XBoX and
Halo) to make whole categories of gamers take it seriously. Of course it is
both a blessing and a curse in the sense that stuff developed for Linux is
often easier to port to other platforms than the other way around.

As a Desktop Linux user myself I am not too concerned with "market share" , to
an extent I couldn't care less if I am the only the person that uses it. What
I really care about is being able to use Linux for all of my day to day tasks
(I have a Windows dual boot but I would rather skip the step of having to
power cycle my computer at least once a day).

~~~
apl

      > As a Desktop Linux user myself I am not too concerned
      > with "market share" , to an extent I couldn't care less
      > if I am the only the person that uses it.
    

That's rather shortsighted. After all, you being able to "just apt-get"
depends on a large number of people sacrificing a lot of time.

    
    
      > Will "Steam for Linux" be something that you can just
      > apt-get into your free as in freedom Distro and start
      > running AAA games
    

Obviously not going to happen.

~~~
jiggy2011
_That's rather shortsighted. After all, you being able to "just apt-get"
depends on a large number of people sacrificing a lot of time._

Of course it does, I do not deny this. My point is that I don't think in terms
of "Great, now there is X for Linux this will cause 1000 people to switch
over" I only really care if it helps me in someway. Of course I understand
that there are network effects at work.

 _Obviously not going to happen._

Why not? This is obviously going to incur some significant cost to Valve, I
doubt they would do it just so they can run a store with a handful of $5 indie
games or free games.

Either they imagine there will be a significant enough untapped market for
Linux games now/in the near future or they have some other plan (such as a
Linux based Steam Console).

If the latter is the case, then what will this mean for "traditional" Linux
users? Will they be locked out of Steam or will they be able to ride the
bandwagon and get access to all/most/some of the games that the console does?

~~~
LeafStorm
>> Obviously not going to happen.

> Why not? This is obviously going to incur some significant cost to Valve, I
> doubt they would do it just so they can run a store with a handful of $5
> indie games or free games.

No, they will definitely have AAA games. (Or at least AA games...not sure how
many A's Left 4 Dead rates.) The thing that's obviously not going to happen is
sudo apt-get install steam -- at least, not from the official repositories.
They'll probably provide their own debs and rpms, or maybe a straight binary
download like they do for the Steam dedicated server.

~~~
jiggy2011
I didn't necessarily mean to suggest that it would necessarily be available
directly from official repos (although perhaps it could be, being able to
easily install steam would be a good selling point of a distro that was not
intended to be 100% free software). I wonder how ubuntu would feel as this
could be competition for their own app store.

What I meant was will this be targeting the traditional distributions
(Fedora/Ubuntu) and be installed in a relatively normal "Linux way" (like
dropbox or spotify).

They could of course create their own Distro which would essentially be
minimal WM + Steam + Other basic apps (Chrome,thunderbird,openoffice).

~~~
StavrosK
As I see it, it will be an app (if it ever happens, I'm not sure how much I
can trust these "omg Steam is coming to Linux!" posts any more) that you can
just install, exactly like Dropbox or Spotify.

It will then download your games whenever you tell it to and you can play
them, just like Steam on any other plaform. Of course, _which_ games those are
will depend on availability of each individual game.

~~~
frio
I'd actually really like it if it was a repo. Add
"<http://steampowered.com/fedora/username/securitytoken> or /debian/ (etc.) to
your list of repos, then apt-get install steam. The username/security token
stuff is provided so that you get a dynamically generated repo, which includes
access to the games you've bought. You could then install games via apt/yum
(and I'm going to go ahead and assume they're all statically linked and
include all needed binaries, because traditionally, closed-source games on
Linux have forced users into dependency hell).

Steam then becomes a marketplace and apt/yum frontend :).

(Of course, I doubt very much that this is realistic; it'd just be awesome)

~~~
jiggy2011
That would be quite cool , even if not I hope they provide a command line
tool.

The steam GUI always feels sluggish to me.

'steam offers -genre=fps -orderby=price'

'steam buy halflife3 -cc=saved'

'steam install -all'

'steam showfriends -online'

'steam playwith myfriend'

------
stefanve
I can imagine that the steam box is going to run on Linux. Would be the only
valid reason to port Steam to Linux. And it would make sens why develop your
own OS... It did work out quite well for Apple (BSD -> OSX)

~~~
abrahamsen
Not the only reason: [http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Linux-users-contribute-
twice...](http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Linux-users-contribute-twice-as-
much-as-Windows-users)

Linux users seem (or seemed in 2010) to have money to burn on games (and
charity).

~~~
kmm
I notice this too every time with the Humble Bundle. I mean, go to
humblebundle.com right now and Linux wins again.

Can anyone explain this?

~~~
icebraining
Unsupported guesses:

Fewer games means they're willing to spend more per game;

They want to create an incentive for game devs to port their games;

Linux users are older on average, therefore have more disposable income.

------
frunc
See also:

It's Official: Valve Releasing Steam, Source Engine For Linux! - Published on
May 12, 2010

[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_steam_announcement&num=1)

~~~
jasonlotito
FTA: "The released Linux client should be available by the end of summer."

Keep in mind, we are talking about Valve Time[1] here, so Phoronix wasn't
wrong. =)

1\. <https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time>

------
tdr
Lack of gaming support was (and still is) in my opinion the main reason Linux
didn't get properly accepted into the consumer sector. (every gamer had to
keep Windows dual-boot )

Because of that there were problems with the drivers and snowballed to other
areas.

~~~
idleloops
As well as:

* Poor web browser (not an issue now)

* Poor flash support (better than it has been)

* No Microsoft Office (partially surmountable)

* Video and sound configuration issues (sound is still hit and miss for me)

* Inconsistent desktop UIs and administration tools

* Lack of simple point and click system control panel

And that you couldn't easily find consumer hardware pre-installed with a Linux
desktop (which could have got around some of the driver issues.)

~~~
FreeFull
I thought SuSE had a simple control panel thing for many years now (unless
they changed that)

~~~
km3k
They have, just like Ubuntu and others. I think that post is referring to
things that have typically been seen as problems, not necessarily things that
are still big problems.

------
seclorum
I really wish Valve would get behind the Open Pandora gaming console:
<http://openpandora.org/>

Its a fantastic machine, with a great community, and an awesome technology for
single-file game distribution, or PND-files (Pandora .pnd files are self-
contained applications), along with a fantastic repository already in place:
<http://repo.openpandora.org/>

With Valve behind them, the OpenPandora guys could really do something neat in
terms of creating a Linux-based gaming hardware series. Imagine the Valve
"Pandora" console, either in handheld or desktop/TV-side form .. this could
really happen, and Valve would gain a lot from getting involved in this.

~~~
aw3c2
the pandora does not have the polish nor is it too well designed. it is a
handheld for a tiny niche of people. (i had an early one, sold it as it just
was not what I expected nor good enough to justify the price with all the
drawbacks)

~~~
seclorum
I have two, and I fail to see any of your points. Its awesome!

~~~
aw3c2
The screen is resistive touchscreen, cannot hold a 135° angle open, the
keyboard is weird, the analog sticks too, the buttons are tiny, the pandora is
super heavy and bulky.

~~~
seclorum
Resistive touchscreen? Big deal, it works great for most games. Nintendo have
a patent on anything that holds open at a 135° angle, blame them. The keyboard
is _great_ for what its supposed to do - give you keys that you can use with
all the 8-bit emulated machines. Analog sticks = Among the best joysticks I've
ever used, bar none. Buttons, tiny? Not for these fat fingers. Heavy and
bulky? Hmm .. you got me there, but then again: 12 hours battery life.

~~~
aw3c2
I am fully aware that the Pandora is good for some people, I am just saying
that is nowhere near something that would appeal to/work for the masses.

~~~
seclorum
Maybe that would be different if Valve got behind the project. As it stands,
the Pandora guys haven't done such a bad job for a grass-roots, community-led
effort with no funding and all the problems of a hardware manufacturer,
starting with nothing, already solved..

------
guard-of-terra
Desura is already out for linux and it works for some time. I play Dungeons of
Dredmor and Braid via it.

It's slightly buggy but delivers.

------
patricklynch
That would be cool.

Video games are the only reason I even have a Windows partition.

~~~
Splines
Makes me wonder if this is too little, too late. Anyone who is an avid steam
user already has a Windows partition for their games, and probably has a large
library of games that will not work in Linux.

It's great that Valve games will work on Linux, and it'll likely unify the
Linux gaming experience, but Windows is the #1 OS for PC gaming and that isn't
going to change anytime soon.

Heck, look at OS X. They've been a gaming-capable platform for far longer than
Linux and they're still in single-digit Steam adoption rates.

It's a positive feedback loop - gamers choose Windows because developers
support it the most, and developers support Windows the most because there are
more gamers on it.

~~~
StavrosK
Nope, I think Steam will be the best thing to happen to gaming on Linux.
Ostensibly, people will get Linux versions of their games (even their old
games) for free (didn't they do that with the Mac version?), and developers
can get up-to-date statistics of how many Linux users they have exactly.

I know I sure would like Steam on Linux so I can stop having to reboot to play
a short game. I'd play quite a bit more if Steam were available.

------
mattbee
Brilliant news. Of course Valve wouldn't want their own console to be tied to
Windows, and there are definitely enough Mac-ported games (e.g. including
Assassins Creed, not just their own stuff) that Linux ports must be do-able in
short order.

I'd hope there's some "trickle-down" effect of Steam ports- an push to sort
out the knotty ball of Linux sound configuration, 3D drivers and other
grimness. Alternatively it could be that you need to enable pulseaudio for
title A, ALSA for title B, OSS for title C - ARRRGGHHH. Fingers crossed.

~~~
guard-of-terra
OSS is dead for five years or more. These days you either have a direct ALSA,
or Pulse, which ALSA can stream to transparently.

If you have a SDL+ALSA game you will see exactly zero problems and that's what
everybody does. OpenGL support is pretty solid too.

~~~
exDM69
> OSS is dead for five years or more.

OSS on Linux may be dead but OSS is still the API on other free unixes like
*BSD's and the API has been developed forwards.

> If you have a SDL+ALSA game you will see exactly zero problems and that's
> what everybody does.

With SDL, you're stuck with the lowest common denominator of all audio API's.
I've had more than my share of problems when doing audio with SDL. If you want
3d audio (doppler effects, etc), SDL audio is out of the question.

OpenAL has been pretty popular with games too, but the implementations
available are not rock solid.

> OpenGL support is pretty solid too.

OpenGL support is pretty solid given you have a GPU that has sane drivers,
which is not always the case. In particular with consumer laptops and
integrated graphics on desktops.

But still, OpenGL is in pretty much every way inferior to D3D if portability
doesn't count. It's an awful API for the programmer and the implementer and
there are plenty of pitfalls that may cause bad performance or corruptions on
crappy drivers.

I regret to say this, but Linux is not a very ideal platform to run games. The
biggest problem, by far, is the quality of OpenGL API and implementations.
Audio is not at all that bad but it's still kinda hairy.

~~~
guard-of-terra
If I'm offered a proprietary technology and an open one, I'll pick the latter
1000 times of 1000.

You'll find no sympathy for D3D in me. It's a 3D technology second, a monopoly
tool first (as almost everything MS ever did).

~~~
jamesgeck0
Ok, that's your choice. But that's not very useful for game developers. The
open technology stays inferior to the closed one, and the closed technology
stays extremely popular because it's easier to work with.

------
readme
Developers - Management = Linux Support

[http://boingboing.net/2012/04/22/valve-employee-manual-
descr...](http://boingboing.net/2012/04/22/valve-employee-manual-
describe.html)

------
gouranga
That's a great idea. If you consider the potential for a "gaming appliance"
(Valve console without all the commercial OS licensing costs then it really
makes sense.

------
gipsyking
Could this have anything to do with the rumor about the Valve console?

------
meisterbrendan
When I switched from using mostly windows to a lot of Linux, I celebrated the
lack of distractions on Linux. Goodbye, productivity.

------
IsTom
Steam for Linux is one thing, but how many games will you be able to run?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It's not Steam we should care about, what we really want is Source for Linux.
And GoldSrc for that matter, I'm sure some people would like to play Counter-
Strike.

~~~
heretohelp
CS 1.6, CS:S, and CS:GO for Linux would keep me happy for awhile :)

Add Quake Live, and I'm good for a _long_ time.

Make it a lot easier to switch between gaming and coding.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
In my case, TF2 and Half-Life are the only things stopping me switching to
Linux as my main OS. I can agree with you there, I want to be able to code and
game on the same OS.

~~~
usaar333
Both run very well in wine/crossover.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I have an ATI card D:

Then again, no amount of engineering by Valve will fix that.

------
octotoad
I can understand the argument regarding the slow uptake of OS X Steam games,
but I can't help thinking hardware plays a small role mainly in relation to
more 'hardcore' gamers.

One big advantage a Linux Steam box would have over a Mac is the ability to
swap out critical components such as video cards and CPUs.

Even if Valve or others go to the effort of supporting OS X with their latest,
whiz-bang AAA title, what's the point if you're on Apple hardware that's
limited to a particular GPU that can't be replaced? (with the exception of a
super-duper Mac Pro, and even then I can't see it being very easy to just go
out and buy a new GTX 650-OMGTHEPIXELS-Edition card and expect it to work the
way you would with a 'PC').

------
hkarthik
Part of the problem is that the dev tools most game developers use are still
centered around Windows. Visual Studio is still the hallmark IDE for Game
developers everywhere. In addition, the tools developers in gaming studios
still build mostly Windows tools that augment the IDEs the engine programmers
are already using.

That ecosystem has to be disrupted substantially with viable dev tools for
game developers on Linux before gaming on Linux can really become a first
class citizen.

------
baq
what valve's doing:

\- hiring linux devs

\- hiring hardware devs

this points to a linux/x86 gaming console - but x86 is only relevant if they
want to sell existing games for it.

------
vibrunazo
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/712515/00011931251118...](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/712515/000119312511186744/dex992.htm)

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.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
> 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...](http://www.extremetech.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/09/Nvidia-Game-Sales-Data-640x357.jpg)

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
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.PD...](http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_Essential_Facts_2010.PDF)

Which is exactly my point. The industry is moving away from desktop and
towards browser and mobile. Both are growing absurdly fast.

~~~
jiggy2011
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
> 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-
wha...](http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/when-the-consoles-die-what-comes-
next)

~~~
jiggy2011
True, but at the point what you've just built is basically a console. In fact
you may as well plug it into your HD TV too and you now have your "TV tablet"
that you leave next to your TV (in the same way that you have a dedicated HTPC
instead of plugging your laptop in every time). Then somebody else comes along
and says "hey all of these people are buying tablets _just_ to plug into their
TV, I wonder if they would buy a tablet without a screen" and thus the whole
cycle starts over.

I'm not sure that the console/arcade analogy holds, Arcade games had a bigger
barrier to play. You had to physically move yourself to a place that contained
arcade machines (whilst dodging teenage drugdealers) and stick money into the
machine every time you died because the arcade owner had to cover the rent on
this massive building (this meant the games were usually designed so that you
died _a lot_ ). With a console or PC you can sit in the comfort of your own
home and play for free (once you have bought the game).You can also save the
game and resume from where you left off last time, a feature critical for
longer, more complex games and missing from arcade machines.

The real issue here is whether the platform providers store (play store, app
store, windows store etc) will do away with the need for Steam altogether and
if it only had temporary value because MS did not have a compelling
alternative at the time.

~~~
vibrunazo
I agree the evolution of mobile will be basically a console. In fact, I said
in my original post that the next popular consoles will run iOS/Android. And
these tablets without the screen already exist. They're called Google TV and
Apple TV (tho Apple TV would still need app store). Put more power, a
controller, a game friendly UI and you got a real console competitor. Expect
that to happen, at most by 2013.

Mobile does have big advantages over console, just as these had over arcade.
A) The ecosystem lock is huge. Having all your existing apps, games and
settings, instantly transfer seamlessly to your living room is something
current consoles cannot reproduce (yet, tho msft is working on it). B) they're
mobile after all. Playing an AAA game on your living room is nice, but what
about when you're out? You can bring your tablet with you.

I agree with you that the real issue for steam is whether current stores are
gonna need them. Unfortunately for them, I don't think they got much leverage
in this negotiation. They don't have any games that work on iOS, Android or
WP. Even if they partner with MS (whose got a week ecosystem right now). The
combination of both of them would still be weak compared to iOS and Android. I
honestly don't know what they could do. They'd have to pull off something
brilliant. But choosing to work on linux this late in the game, gives me a
hint they might be out of brilliant ideas.

~~~
jiggy2011
If you are talking about something that is basically a set top box like
apple/google TV then I'm not sure it fits the definition of "mobile" just
because it runs android/iOS.

It is possible that Apple/Google could try to muscle in on gaming. I could
imagine this to a certain extent with Apple but with Google it would seem to a
huge swing from their core competencies and I think they are spread thinly
enough as it is. It would be more realistic for Sony to announce that the PS4
would be an android device with a Sony UI and games running on top (probably +
a load of proprietary APIs so you couldn't just install your games on a
competitors device).

Another advantage that console games have is that they have to go through a
brutal QA/Acceptance cycle before they are allowed to be released for the
console. If you dig through play store game reviews you will see huge numbers
of 1 star reviews because people found the games to be buggy.

In terms of having something that can transfer your apps/games/settings, Steam
pretty much already does this (although in terms of instant you are throttled
by bandwidth on that one). I'm sure the next gen consoles will have this
functionality too and most purchases of games will be made online.

There is a case to be made for gaming when out and about but this is quite a
different experience to actually sitting down for games therefor the games are
likely to be different and have different input methods etc. When you are out
and about there is fair chance that you are either: driving, working or doing
some other activity. If you wanted to play games you would stay at home, the
times when mobile games are useful is for killing short waiting times or for
the occasional flight/train ride. So what you want in that case is short fun
games like angry birds rather than AAA epics. This suggest there will be 2
markets for mobile and non-mobile games, in the same way that the gameboy was
popular at the same time that the SNES etc were, it does not suggest one will
kill the other.

Also when you have a system and games designed to run off mains power and
without the same constraints for weight etc you can have much more beefy
hardware and create a different level of experience. As it is my android phone
burns battery running even relatively simple games.

I imagine the Steam for Linux is part of a bigger play, either trying to get
in on Android or a precursor to launching their own hardware. Either that or
they just want to show MS that they have other options.

------
seanp2k2
Two things:

First thing, HELL YES

Second thing, it's about damn time.

Long time Quake 3 player here. Always loved playing it on Linux :)

------
Andaith
After reading their handbook, I'm not that surprised. I do wonder how long
it's been a one-man project though...

Also, I wonder if the Humble Bundles have had anything to do with convincing
Valve that Steam for Linux is worth the effort?

~~~
loganfsmyth
The handbook was the first thing I thought of after seeing the headline too.
It definitely seems like a project someone would want to put there time into,
though maybe more as a side project.

------
Tomis02
It was about time. And if there's going to be a Linux Steam Box I can see
indie PC gamedev shifting towards Linux - the entry costs would be practically
non-existent.

------
martindale
If I could get a dependable distro-managed version of Steam on Ubuntu, I would
_certainly_ buy and play more games. I've stopped playing games (mostly)
because I've switched to Linux as my primary desktop, and what I play is
limited to my time (in general, and to fiddle with things to get them
_working_ on Linux, e.g., EVE Online in Wine).

------
mladenkovacevic
I don't know if Valve is capable of getting into hardware at all, but from a
market-clout point of view at least, they might also have success in selling a
Linux-based Steam console. If anyone can disrupt the Xbox dynasty, it's them.
Making the dedicated console interact with the Steam clients on desktop and
mobile would be a win.

------
cabirum
Like Adobe Flash with Linux, Valve's effort will suffocate on the need to
support hundreds different linux distributions and configurations complete
with crappy drivers and audio/video subsystems.

Three years is my estimate.

~~~
kmm
That's more the distributors' problem. An Ubuntu package (well, .deb) and an
RPM for Fedora are the only necessities and the other distributions will do
the hard work themselves.

------
jebblue
We've heard this before...if it happens, Linux wins and Valve wins, I still
have an account and would love to buy games once again from Steam only on my
platform, Linux.

------
rmATinnovafy
This seems like the kind of thing the Ubuntu software center was made for.

I'm glad gamers will have the option to play their games. Now, about those GPU
drivers...

------
binarycrusader
Maybe this will finally motivate one of the distributions to start providing
things like stable ABIs like Windows developers have had for years.

~~~
dfox
Actually, most of this "Linux does not have stable ABI" was maybe true 10
years ago.

In general you are going to have mostly same compatibility problems as on
Windows with mostly same solution for proprietary software: package known
versions of your dependencies together with your application. When done in
this way, distributing of binary-only software for Linux is often even easier
than on windows, because you don't have to deal with windows-specific ABI
compatibility issues (like multiple instances of C runtime in same address
space or interactions between SEH and C++ exceptions)

~~~
binarycrusader
Sorry, but that's simply not true. I used to maintain the Linux port of
adventure game studio (among other projects). Even when I statically linked
all dependencies it often wouldn't run on one of the Linux distributions
because of changes in glibc or how x libraries had been compiled on that
platform.

Ask Ryan C. Gordon (icculus) what he thinks of those supposedly stable ABIs.
Ask nVidia and AMD users about how thrilled they are to have to get new
drivers every time the Xorg ABI changes.

I've been developing on Unix and Linux platforms for almost fifteen years now.
Linux distributions (and the kernel) still don't have stable interfaces. The
kind that lets users run games and applications made 10 years ago on other
platforms while Linux distros some times can't use binaries from just a few
years ago.

