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.
The distribution bit is fairly irrelevant -- yes, you have different packages and filesystem standards, but those are trivial and have mostly been solved. The real problem for Linux games is platform fragmentation: every distribution has a specific set of libraries running with a specific set of kernels, they change very quickly, everyone can compile them with whatever flag they feel like... Anyone distributing binary blobs is going to hurt in support terms, or make customers hurt trying to solve library riddles. Just look at how painful it is to try run an old Loki game on a new distro release.
"OK, so we're going to do a Linux version. How are we going to get it into the hands of our customers? What, we need to set up a download infrastructure for that? No, that's way too much overhead for a Linux version. What, we're supposed to partner with a small niche digital distribution platform we've never heard about? No, not worth it, either. Wait, we can just upload the Linux version to Steam, where we already upload our Windows and Mac versions? Sure, why not."
As for distributing binary blobs: You're overstating the issue, IMHO. ABIs in Linux userland are fairly stable these days.
All this supposed stability doesn't seem to be reflected in a growing number of desktop products for Linux, not even ones that don't require a specific "download infrastructure" like recent games (which is really just a way of enforcing DRM, something that might not even be possible in the Linux world), so I'm really not convinced the main obstacle to commercial Linux development for the desktop is the distribution channel.
I think the bottom line is the opportunity price, and it's still way too high for Linux overall -- it's harder to support, harder to develop against, brings a several-orders-of-magnitude-smaller userbase who mostly resents having to pay for software... easy deployment won't change that figure very much, IMHO, but I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong.
> All this supposed stability doesn't seem to be reflected in a growing number of desktop products for Linux
You're shifting the goal posts. Nobody was claiming that ABI stability would lead to an increase in products, I was replying to you claiming ABI instability as a significant obstacle. As for the number of binary-distributed desktop products for Linux not having grown lately, I think you're completely wrong on that: See the Humble Bundle games.
And the userbase being so much smaller is, again, why Steam for Linux is such a big deal: It's an extension to a platform publishers are already familiar with, which makes it easier than ever for them to add the platform.
On top of that, Steam is more than just a distribution platform, it's also an SDK for things like multiplayer lobbies, meta-game systems like achievements and savegame sync. Dozens of titles are using that SDK now, and getting it ported to Linux maikes Steam for Linux also an important middleware port.
Perversely, I grew to like the fact that Linux doesn't really have many games for it. I think we could say that I lost many hours of my life to MMOs and RPGs, though perhaps "lost" should be in scare quotes. It's kind of the same reason that I don't own consoles or a television -- I lost as large a chunk of my life to watching Star Trek as I lost to playing Morrowind, after all.
With hope, I am now mature enough to overcome temptation. So I wish all of my fellow Lingeeks: happy gaming.
I wonder if Valve wants Linux to beat Microsoft?
After all MS are working towards building their own app store into the Windows platform which could be used to muscle Steam out.
Valve actually has a lot of power to play kingmaker here in a way.
Let's suppose that Valve announce HL3 but also announce that it will be a Linux exclusive title for some period (say 1-3 months), what would happen to the Linux desktop market share then?
I could see it easily double to treble within a week, of course many of these would be dual-booters and I wonder what would happen to the increased market share once the game was subsequently released for Windows?
With the recent rumors around the idea of a Steam-based console, is it possible that all this work for a Linux client and native Linux steam engine is setting the framework for an open source (software and hardware) based console.
EDIT: I see other comments state that Valve is not working on any sort of console. Still, it leaves me thinking they may have a longer-term plan than just selling games to Linux users.
I have the unfortunate issue of inspecting URLs I navigate to. This one contains an 'item' called 'valve_linux_dampfnudeln'. What? Searching the page for 'dampf' gives no result. I fear that I won't be able to sleep tonight if no one can tell me what kind of reference this is.
So, when are the jokes about this being the year of linux on the desktop going to start?
Not being negative about the possibility, I do think that games are a large stumbling block to that endgame.
It seems at least necessary to do the classic "Hey, Microsoft, we have a credible alternative, give us good pricing" move, if nothing else. Given that Microsoft is a direct competitor with Games for Windows it's not a great move for Valve to be dependent on them, lest they get Lotus'ed or something.
Yes. It's an urban legend if you really get down to it, or so the official debunkings go, but nevertheless the underlying issue is still true. You don't want to build your Amazon competitor on AWS, you don't want to build your Google competitor on their cloud, etc. Even if you can completely write off true sabotage as a threat, there's other real issues, like the needs of the platform vendor simply diverging from yours over time.
That was a rumor based on people misunderstanding Valve's work on wearable computer hardware (which got telephone gamed into "OMG Valve is working on hardware, I bet it's a console").
Eh, depends on your definition of "forthcoming". Valve stated last month that they won't have a console out in the near future, but this month Gabe Newell clarified that they want to make one, but haven't gotten past the planning stages yet, and they posted a job listing for an engineer to create "platform hardware". (Admittedly that could refer to something like a gaming keyboard specialized for Half-Life 3 or something, but it's definitely a move in the direction of the hypothetical "Steambox".)
That's assuming that just because they're working on wearable computer hardware that they aren't also working on a console. Actually, reading between the lines, I see this linux support news as more proof that they're working on a console.
Here are some possible reasons why Valve might be working on linux:
1) They think win8 is so bad users will leave in droves to OSX and Linux. I doubt this, Windows has made a ton of mistakes before (ME, Vista?) but it's still king of PC. A lot of people were happy with 7. If win9 totally bombs as well, then I'd say the gig is up.
2) The monetization story has changed. The humble indie bundle has shown that linux users will pay for games and play them on their linux boxes. Is this enough for Valve to change their stance since for the longest time they've said it didn't make economic sense?
3) Valve is working on a console and won't (can't) pay to license OSX/Win as the OS and is smart enough not to write one from scratch. This reason makes more sense to me. Getting steam client working on linux desktops is just a secondary benefit of their primary goal: getting the software stack for their console.
It could also be as simple as them hedging their bets.
We are in turbulent times as different form factors , OSes , development methodologies and paradigms are competing for slices of the computing landscape. There will be some winners and losers here.
If you had to pick 1 platform that will still be around in some form or another 10 years from now regardless of what happens then Linux seems like a safe bet.
Putting in the groundwork by porting steam/source to Linux now could serve them well in years to come if they do decide to develop a Linux based console (or someone else does).
Tying yourself to just the Windows or OSX platforms could seem risky for a large developer.
I'm sure they would love to have Steam for iPad too but I can't see Apple letting them do that so they will do Linux instead.
Valve usually doesn't say anything publicly about their projects until they've reached a fairly advanced phase of development(either very late alpha or beta).
There won't be much official word until they're either making a major marketing push, or are basically done with the entire project.
For example, the OSX port of Steam and the Source engine was announced in March 2010, and was released in May of that year.
Maybe he is not allowed to talk yet. I can't wait for the official client and game, because I think when the games start rolling in, the video driver and other problems in Linux will be fixed faster. Then I could use Linux again. It's sad that I currently can't run Linux reliably because of my dual-graphic card (sandy bridge + ati) notebook :(
What I don't like about the article is how he goes into how "great" or "stunning" and "amazing" it all is without, like you said, any details. I can understand if there are limited things that can be said at this time, but I read enough fluff words on the internet as is without any backing to show for it.
Unity has some usability issues, too. I haven't used it regularly since 11.04 but I much prefer Gnome 3's new interface. (Which, on the other hand, many people also hate...)
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.