Valve Has Hired Another Open-Source Linux GPU Driver Developer

[PackRat]

Any idea what long game Valve is playing here? They sure must have some ambitions with linux. Obvious guess would be steam machines except they arent doing well at all.

Steamos 3. We all know Valve's long game with the number 3. Gaben said they have 3 full vr games. Steamos has no exclusives. I can only Imagine that Valve has been holding back Half-life 3, it would be the only thing that could turn things around.

I still never played Half-life 2. It took too long to come out. I Lost interest...

[nomadewolf]

Any idea what long game Valve is playing here? They sure must have some ambitions with linux. Obvious guess would be steam machines except they arent doing well at all.

My hope is that they whish to have full compatibility with Linux and encourage more and more devs to support Linux/SteamOS. That way gamers can finally be freed from the yoke of M$!!!

[humbug]

SteamOS is only part of the equation, being a system designed to cater for the living room.
As far as Valve is concerned; they benefit when you use steam. Be that in the form of steamOS or the steam client installed on top of Ubuntu, Fedora etc in a desktop system.
Probably Valve is hoping that at some point the year of the Linux desktop will happen LOL. They probably hope that at some point in the next decade one or two of the major desktop distros will see a big surge in popularity. So valve hopes that by investing now in steam for Linux and in drivers, debuggers and everything else they do that they will be positioned to ride that wave.

[Kavalor]

I don't have a quote currently, but I read this week ( on a news website) that the 10S versions will be the default on new installs from autumn on. I still think you might be able to deactivate it , but who knows with Microsoft.

[humbug]

I meant in the sense that it isn't a profitable effort for Valve.

It's not profitable for them. But the thing is they are privately owned by GabeN, and don't have to prove to share holders or non-technical management staff about the short term ROI on this.

What happened was Gabe and few other senior people who liked Linux decided that the best long term strategy for Steam was to make sure that PC gaming =/= windows gaming. So as a result of their initiatives they hired more people over the next few years who have an affinity for Linux.

So now that there are lots of Linux people inside valve the chances of them deciding to give up on this becomes even slimmer... Because they can afford it, and their employees are choosing to work on it.

[shmerl]

I meant in the sense that it isn't a profitable effort for Valve.

It is profitable in the sense of being independent of MS control.

[bachchain]

I meant in the sense that it isn't a profitable effort for Valve.

They're not directly seeking profits. They're trying to mitigate the potential profit loss should Microsoft decide to make unfavorable changes to Windows in the future. And it's not like Valve is doing anything else with their buttloads of money.

[humbug]

They really are investing a lot in this. AMD too really benefits from it.

Any idea what long game Valve is playing here? They sure must have some ambitions with linux. Obvious guess would be steam machines except they arent doing well at all.

Valve's goal is more long term and strategic. They can afford to keep pumping money into this for the foreseeable future. Steam machines are just one avenue (tactical).

What Valve wants is to eventually bring the PC ecosystem to a place where cross-platform development is the accepted norm in the industry, so that means the distribution channels, the game engines, other tools that devs use, the middlewares, the graphics API (like Vulkan) all make it easier to Linux + Windows simultaneously.

That way Valve figures that they are spreading the risk of their steam business.

[cybertraveler]

I love hearing news like this

The best theory I've heard for what Valve are doing with Steam Machines / Steam OS, is that they're investing in them as a way to send a strong, believable message to Microsoft, that if they lock down their platform, Valve can and will invest its considerable resources in other platforms (namely Mac OS X, Ubuntu and its own Steam OS). For Valve to merely publicly state this intention wouldn't be enough. Microsoft could reasonably call it a bluff. Steam OS, however shows Microsoft that Valve are not only investing considerable resources in alternative platforms, but they are successfully shipping products to market on other platforms.

The fact that Steam on GNU/Linux is relatively unpopular, yet Valve continue to support it gives even more credence to this theory. I think Steam on GNU/Linux is more about influencing the behaviour of Microsoft and Apple than it is an actual practical, entertainment platform that they expect customers to switch to. I think Steam on GNU/Linux may have a secondary goal as Valve taking a stab at entering the entertainment platform market (where they would compete with the huge Nintendo, Playstation, Windows, XBOX, Apple and Neo Geo platforms).

[schmidtbag]

It is paying off in Linux gaming quality rising. That's the end goal - to make and keep Linux gaming competitive technically. Once that's out of the way (and constantly maintained), they can concentrate on marketing stuff.

I meant in the sense that it isn't a profitable effort for Valve.