Valve Funded Development Of Xrdesktop - Lets GNOME & KDE Work In VR

[leech]

I keep asking myself WHY.

Could it simply be because Gabe hates exclusives SO much, that he doesn't even want things to be exclusive to a single OS, and wants all major computer computer operating systems to be able to play the games? I know he's stated many many times how much he hates exclusive game titles.

Can't say I disagree with him, everyone should be able to play the games the love on the system / interface they love to use the most. Maybe some people like the xbox controller more than the playstation's, but still wants to play Horizon: Zero Dawn. I totally get that.

[humbug]

Could it simply be because Gabe hates exclusives SO much, that he doesn't even want things to be exclusive to a single OS, and wants all major computer computer operating systems to be able to play the games? I know he's stated many many times how much he hates exclusive game titles.

In terms of operating systems Gabe is against ones which have a single gatekeeper. It's easy to understand why with Valve's history.

Valve became rich because of steam. And Steam was only possible because there is nobody blocking independent software distribution on Windows. It not only allowed valve to flourish but it allowed the PC gaming renaissance thanks to one company's ingenuity. Before that everybody was saying PC gaming is dead as retail sales were way down. Now Gabe fears that Microsoft has a longterm plan to move in the other direction where they control not only the OS but distribution of software too. In that environment Steam, GOG and other stores are dead.

So he wants to push PC gaming in a direction where PC gaming =/= windows gaming. He figures that on Linux independent stores like steam will have the freedom to operate and nobody is going to come up with arbitrary restrictions. That's why they keep investing in cross platform tools, APIs, kernel, open source drivers etc. They think that improving the Linux gaming ecosystem and bringing gamers over to this side is the best way to not be reliant on Microsoft.

[humbug]

If Valve were to move towards a gaming system product or compete with the likes of Stadia perhaps with a cloud service, perhaps one of the big reasons is costs saved by avoiding licenses? Avoiding any lock-in or terms that may be involved to base your product off Windows would seem like a pretty good incentive.

The problem is Gabe Newell is against cloud gaming. Even John Carmack said that each time he meets Gabe he tries to push him towards it since Steam has the userbase, connectivity and server infrastructure to begin to work on it. But he is not a believer.

I saw an interview with him a few years ago where he said that cloud gaming is not desirable. He was arguing that if we had cloud gaming today we would be pushing in the opposite direction and we would see the utopian future as pushing more powerful devices to the edge of the network with processing in the user's hands.

Can't find that video, but found the below link. Unless he has changed his mind in recent years... but I doubt it because he wants to push stuff like VR which is extremely latency sensitive.

https://www.shacknews.com/article/77747/valve-ceo-cloud-gaming-best-for-demos-spectating

[polarathene]

Can't find that video, but found the below link. Unless he has changed his mind in recent years... but I doubt it because he wants to push stuff like VR which is extremely latency sensitive.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/77...mos-spectating

It doesn't have to be all cloud, or all games. Plenty of other alternatives I mentioned beyond just using the cloud.

Thanks for sharing though, I wasn't aware of that stance.

[aksdb]

It doesn't have to be all cloud, or all games. Plenty of other alternatives I mentioned beyond just using the cloud.

Thanks for sharing though, I wasn't aware of that stance.

For that attitude I love Gabe. Now I have less trouble spending all that money on games ... I don't even have time to play ... (Those sales ... I can't resist ...)

[Vistaus]

That has to be very dangerous and a real thing to invest so much money in Linux gaming.
But it does not seems to me that any competitor (epic, microsoft), can be a worry for them.
(sorry for my english)

If no one took risks, we wouldn't even be discussing this as computers wouldn't have been invented, let alone the WWW

[LoveRPi]

Compute costs at the edge is getting lower and lower. It's a battle of utilization rate vs upfront cost vs latency. Within a year, Valve can lease Stadia level hardware to customers as part of a subscription less than $20 a month.