Valve Has Hired Another Open-Source Linux GPU Driver Developer

[schmidtbag]

how did you measure that?

Steam hardware surveys. Before you (or others) get all huffy about how inaccurate it is, best case scenario, the Linux marketshare on Linux might be 3%, which is still very low.
All that being said, you have to account for the fact that:
* Linux is a very small demographic of gamers
* A great majority of Linux gamers are not using AMD hardware
* The majority of AMD Linux gamers already have sufficient driver support to play almost every native title on Steam
* What AMD Linux lacks most in is VR, which doesn't really matter since there aren't really any Linux titles. If you argue "well there won't be any titles until proper driver support comes along" to my knowledge, Nvidia and amdgpu-pro are Linux VR compatible. In the past when AMD driver support was lacking, publishers still released Linux versions and just stated they were Nvidia-only. So in other words, the lack of AMD's open-source driver support is not a reason for VR titles to not be ported. AMD FOSS+Linux+Steam+VR is a very niche market.
* I'm not aware of any AMD Linux users who want to use Steam on Linux but don't/can't due to driver issues. I'm sure there are r600 users who would qualify for this, of which I highly doubt Valve will cater to.

So I stand by my point - I only see this as a financial loss to Valve. But again, I'm certainly not opposed to their decision. As others have stated, Valve has oodles of cash anyway. I'm personally very happy about this new hire and I'm excited to see what they accomplish.

[xorbe]

Funny, I was wondering the same thing. I'm certainly very grateful for Valve's dedication to Linux and I hope they keep it up, but so far *whispering* I don't think their investment is really paying off...

It's also a lever to stop MS from attempting the move. If suddenly half the Win10 gamer base moves over to SteamOS that's not good for MS. Without Steam's preparedness, MS would be a lot more empowered to make the move.

[AlexFonewn]

Also what stops steam from being a windows store app?

A 30% cut for MS on every purchase maybe? So games in Steam have a 30% cut for Valve, and 30% over the total price for MS.

So MS having their own shop is saving the 30% cut of Steam and thus being more profitable or/and more competitive.

[theriddick]

There has been several decent updates to SteamOS lately, probably valve just making themselves a GOOD secondary platform instead of a haphazard one which is what we have now, thought it's ALLOT better so not too bad. I would love it if valve try and make their SteamOS a little more desktop friendly instead of just throwing people in big picture mode, which I have used before and think its terrible! A more standard desktop that lets users USE it like a PC would go a LONG way to promoting it. ATM I use Maui desktop and LOVE KDE!

[audir8]

I'm not sure how much revenue/profit Valve is making from SteamOS/Linux games. I'm pretty sure they're not making a lot from CS:GO or PUBG keys being traded on G2A, and the sales happening through Humble Bundle. I don't think they've released numbers on this, and the stats page is probably a poor estimator of revenue from a particular platform. They might actually be making 20+% of their revenue from Linux games and we wouldn't have any idea.

Generally speaking, of the major game publishers it's the few now that don't have any SteamOS/Linux games (EA, Blizzard, Rockstar, Stardock?...) while even finding a AA or AAA title a decade ago on Linux would've been hard. I wouldn't be surprised if the 411 pages of SteamOS + Linux games are as significant to Steam's revenue/profit as the 626 MacOS, and 1663 pages of Windows games.

[LaeMing]

Funny, I was wondering the same thing. I'm certainly very grateful for Valve's dedication to Linux and I hope they keep it up, but so far *whispering* I don't think their investment is really paying off...

OSS is generally a long-slow-game investment, which doesn't sit well with modern gamblers ... um, 'investors' ... who have an attention span that cuts hard at the end of the current quarter's returns, so many companies that do have long-term plans (of any kind) for ongoing solvency tend to keep them, while not actually secret, a bit on the quiet.

[HenryM]

This is good news.

Valve's strategy here is definitely long-term viability. it was smart to begin Linux work years ago. with MS having always run a monopoly, and now Windows 10 S and Microsoft-games-as-a-service starting up, things can go any which way at any time.

[starshipeleven]

So I stand by my point - I only see this as a financial loss to Valve.

It's a long-term investment, just as Google does, they want to have some redundancy in case their main plan (Windows) starts to fail.

It's something a big company should do to not find itself in the same situation Microsoft is. Valve had this "moment of truth" when Windows 8 launched and Gabe realized that if MS does something wrong (or decides to shaft them on purpose) they sink with their ship too.

[mphuZ]

I don't think their investment is really paying off...

This is called "investing in the future"

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.

We don't need exclusivity. This is the cancer of gaming.

Microsoft will never allow a store app on the store app. And steam is exactly that.

Nonsence. None of them will be the first to speak.
If Microsoft would refuse to accept Steam, users will punish them.
Similarly, with Valve, if they voluntarily abandon Windows.

[LaeMing]

Re above (multiple): Because MS et.al. have never made a stupid decision that seriously bit them on the bum almost immediately afterwards before?