Valve Is Not Commenting On Steam, Source Engine For Linux

[bugmenot]

Well he has given his speech and there is no mention of Steam for Linux. Time to bury this issue once and for all. Please Michael no more Steam for Linux articles, they aren't even worth more than toilet paper.

[Svartalf]

I've news for you then. Valve can, with a flick of their finger, take all your games away. Isn't that great? Some corrupt company can simply steal all the games you have bought with your hard earned cash because they can't fucking stand your face or your name?

Only the ones that have the Steam DRM implemented... Several indies I work with or working at working with use Steam as one of their download venues for their titles on the Windows side of things- and they don't do DRM and they definitely don't use Steam's.

Now, having said this, that aspect of Steam, along with the other aspects of your rant...I'd have to agree with you on that score.

[Svartalf]

I truly do hope that Valve comes aboard the Linux platform, because then the door will be open for other gaming companies to do the same. The Linux platform desperately needs a solid gaming scene to attract more "Windoze" users to make the switch.

One more thing, checkout this web site:

http://www.onlive.com/

I encourage all Linux users to check this out and to send in e-mails to encourage support for the Linux platform. It sounds amazing and so far they seem to be only supporting Windows and Mac OS X. From what I've read they use a browser plugin to transfer the latest 3D games to PC's.

And they're never going to get anywhere with the other stuff.

If you go through the actual math on what they're attempting to do, it will become crystal clear that they're selling an IPO snake-oil play to the development industry.

The bandwidth requirements are actually astronomical per user and claims of "having solved the latency problem" not withstanding, they've not gotten it as magic as they claim. You can get away with a couple thousand per location, maybe. Not the hundreds of thousands that you will honestly need to make it work with the numbers the industry's used to.

It doesn't scale because it takes vastly more bandwidth than any prior answer- and you can't go and say they'll put it at the ISP's, the ISP's are already bitching about the load we're all already putting on the oversold infrastructure. This will make it hundreds of times worse.

It doesn't scale because as you add people with bandwidth, the latencies they claim to have "fixed" get vastly worse becasue of TCP congestion algorithms built into each and every server and router throughout the entire internet.

[daveerickson]

Ok, to me there are really 2 different pieces that are getting collapsed into one in most of this discussion, Steam and Source Engine.

Steam will be ported when those desiring to distribute content to Linux through Steam demand that ability. Valve could use all the work that has been done to Wine to make Steam run if they had to. Maybe now there would be even less work with the ditching IE and going with Webkit.

Source, to me, is more interesting to be ported to Linux due to all the games/mods that run on it. The engine seems portable enough, and others with inside information assert that it already does run on Linux. So I think source will be released when (Cost of Development + Cost of Support + Profit > Net Sales) is met.

Linux seems to be experiencing steady growth. As long as that continues the likelihood of proprietary closed source apps coming to the platform increases. So at some point in the future it is almost inevitable that Linux will have Steam and Source.

As far as DRM is concerned there will always be a way to crack it. It is absurd to think that Steam DRM coming to Linux will cause all hell to break loose. Linux is about choice and some people feel the trade off of some DRM is acceptable. I will personally always welcome more options than less.

[whizse]

Source, to me, is more interesting to be ported to Linux due to all the games/mods that run on it. The engine seems portable enough, and others with inside information assert that it already does run on Linux. So I think source will be released when (Cost of Development + Cost of Support + Profit > Net Sales) is met.

The word is Running With Scissors have ported Source to Linux for use in Postal 3.

So it is/will be ported, but that does not mean that all other titles using Source will magically appear for Linux.

[deanjo]

The word is Running With Scissors have ported Source to Linux for use in Postal 3.

So it is/will be ported, but that does not mean that all other titles using Source will magically appear for Linux.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that. A few months ago they removed all references of a linux port on their forums and recently the forums have been taken offline " indefinitely".

[Joe Sixpack]

It's funny to hear so many people mention DRM. I take it very few people actually use steam.

1) None of Valve's games use DRM. Your games are tied to a steam account - completely removing the need for any such measure. In fact, only a small portion of games available on steam have DRM. If I had to guess I'd probably say less than 5%

2) Even if a lost of games did have DRM it still wouldn't matter. The story is about Valve porting their games to Linux. Just because you port the distribution system (steam) to Linux doesn't mean every game will work. Each game would have to be porter over by their respective company. I know this is obvious but it seems a lot of people are forgetting this.

[deanjo]

1) None of Valve's games use DRM. Your games are tied to a steam account

That is DRM.

[Remco]

That is DRM.

Then any subscription service involving a computer is DRM. That's true, but I think we need to separate unwanted DRM that restricts your choices from subscription services that provide additional value. It's possible to put all your Steam games in offline mode, but if you want Steam's additional services, you can get them.

[deanjo]

Then any subscription service involving a computer is DRM. That's true, but I think we need to separate unwanted DRM that restricts your choices from subscription services that provide additional value. It's possible to put all your Steam games in offline mode, but if you want Steam's additional services, you can get them.

Any subscription service is DRM.

Digital rights management (DRM) is a generic term for access control technologies that can be used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals to try to impose limitations on the usage of digital content and devices.

The term is used to describe any technology which inhibits uses (legitimate or otherwise) of digital content that were not desired or foreseen by the content provider.