It's Official: Valve Releasing Steam, Source Engine For Linux!

[V!NCENT]

I guess we'll just have to kidnap some Valve coders instead now >=)

[tux9656]

I don't think Valve will release Steam for GNU/Linux in the near future. It doesn't seem profitable for them. In fact it seems quite the opposite. I would venture a guess that only about five to ten percent of PC gamers run GNU/Linux or have some interest in running GNU/Linux, and of those five or ten percent, I would guess 95% are willing and do dual-boot with Windows in order to play various games that don't run under Wine. I would also guess the gamers that are stubbornly unwilling to dual-boot with Windows do so because they despise DRM which is quite prevalent in Steam. What we are looking at now is Valve may get some of the five percent of ten percent (in other words some of the 0.5 percent) of gamers as new customers, perhaps purchasing on average $30 worth of new game each month. Meanwhile, Valve now has to hire some new developers and pay them five figure salaries. Also, this could slow down development of new games, further reducing profits. Valve would most likely find this to be a losing venture and end up having to abandon the GNU/Linux version and leave a very sour taste in many people's mouths. These people would then tell all their friends to avoid Steam like it's the plague. I'm sorry to burst everyone's bubble.

What I would like to see and would not be a huge loss to Valve profits-wise would be for Valve to contribute code to Wine so that Steam and all Valve titles run flawlessly under Wine. Not only would this cost Valve very little, but would also slightly increase profits for Valve, improve Wine, allow Steam GNU/Linux users to not have to worry about having the proper versions of system libraries, easily allow Steam to run on any platform that will run Wine, finally allows someone to collect actual good data on the number of GNU/Linux gamers and possibly even allow Steam to run on ReactOS. Valve could even test their titles with each release of Wine and put something in the information in the game description like, "This game has been found to work very well under Wine 1.2; however, this is NOT in any way supported by Valve and Valve makes no guarantee that this game will run at all under Wine. You run this game under Wine at your own risk."

Bottom line: Don't ask valve to port Steam to Linux. Instead ask Valve to contribute code to Wine to allow Steam to run better under Wine. In order to help entice Valve to do this, don't play or purchase any games that don't run well under wine.

[the_real_bill]

I don't think Valve will release Steam for GNU/Linux in the near future. It doesn't seem profitable for them. In fact it seems quite the opposite. I would venture a guess that only about five to ten percent of PC gamers run GNU/Linux or have some interest in running GNU/Linux, and of those five or ten percent, I would guess 95% are willing and do dual-boot with Windows in order to play various games that don't run under Wine. I would also guess the gamers that are stubbornly unwilling to dual-boot with Windows do so because they despise DRM which is quite prevalent in Steam. What we are looking at now is Valve may get some of the five percent of ten percent (in other words some of the 0.5 percent) of gamers as new customers, perhaps purchasing on average $30 worth of new game each month. Meanwhile, Valve now has to hire some new developers and pay them five figure salaries. Also, this could slow down development of new games, further reducing profits. Valve would most likely find this to be a losing venture and end up having to abandon the GNU/Linux version and leave a very sour taste in many people's mouths. These people would then tell all their friends to avoid Steam like it's the plague. I'm sorry to burst everyone's bubble.

What I would like to see and would not be a huge loss to Valve profits-wise would be for Valve to contribute code to Wine so that Steam and all Valve titles run flawlessly under Wine. Not only would this cost Valve very little, but would also slightly increase profits for Valve, improve Wine, allow Steam GNU/Linux users to not have to worry about having the proper versions of system libraries, easily allow Steam to run on any platform that will run Wine, finally allows someone to collect actual good data on the number of GNU/Linux gamers and possibly even allow Steam to run on ReactOS. Valve could even test their titles with each release of Wine and put something in the information in the game description like, "This game has been found to work very well under Wine 1.2; however, this is NOT in any way supported by Valve and Valve makes no guarantee that this game will run at all under Wine. You run this game under Wine at your own risk."

Bottom line: Don't ask valve to port Steam to Linux. Instead ask Valve to contribute code to Wine to allow Steam to run better under Wine. In order to help entice Valve to do this, don't play or purchase any games that don't run well under wine.

I suggest we totally boycott Valve. The indie devs and big AAA houses like id software can't predict the future, but they are far more friendly than Valve. Valve is a business at the end of the day. They won't port Steam to Linux to "feel all warm and fuzzy" inside. Valve don't deserve the steam off our piss, whereas the indies and opensource games deserve more positive attention. We can get by without a DRM infested platform such as Steam. We don't "need" Steam.

[the_real_bill]

Also, I can understand why people would play Valve games under WINE, but why should linux users fork over good money for Valve games when there is a constant possibility of not be able to play them due to Valve breaking things with updates. It's far too risky and slow in my opinion.

[the_real_bill]

You guys can't prove it.

The onus isn't on use to disprove that it is coming, the onus is on you to prove that it actually is coming.
Taking the religious stance will do you no good here. I don't like crushing hope, but it's better than false hope.

[benmoran]

To say it again clearly for a second time: I don't know if it's coming or not, and never claimed to. I'm on the fence, with a wait and see attitude. I only responded to this thread because I think the naysayers are so damn ridiculous.


That said:
There are some hints that it might possibly show up, such as the binary. There is no confirmation. On the naysayers side however, there is absolutely nothing whatsoever that proves it's not coming. That link you tried passing off was a hilarious attempt, but obviously proves nothing.

To sum up:
Steam is coming people: a hint of proof
Steam is not coming people: nothing
Therefore, yes, it is up to the naysayers to prove it's not coming. That, or just let people have their hope.

[the_real_bill]

To say it again clearly for a second time: I don't know if it's coming or not, and never claimed to. I'm on the fence, with a wait and see attitude. I only responded to this thread because I think the naysayers are so damn ridiculous.


That said:
There are some hints that it might possibly show up, such as the binary. There is no confirmation. On the naysayers side however, there is absolutely nothing whatsoever that proves it's not coming. That link you tried passing off was a hilarious attempt, but obviously proves nothing.

To sum up:
Steam is coming people: a hint of proof
Steam is not coming people: nothing
Therefore, yes, it is up to the naysayers to prove it's not coming. That, or just let people have their hope.

Delusion won't do anyone here any good...

[crispy]

Delusion won't do anyone here any good...

Exactly, which its why its deluded to say its NOT coming.

[Dragonlord]

To say it again clearly for a second time: I don't know if it's coming or not, and never claimed to. I'm on the fence, with a wait and see attitude. I only responded to this thread because I think the naysayers are so damn ridiculous.


That said:
There are some hints that it might possibly show up, such as the binary. There is no confirmation. On the naysayers side however, there is absolutely nothing whatsoever that proves it's not coming. That link you tried passing off was a hilarious attempt, but obviously proves nothing.

To sum up:
Steam is coming people: a hint of proof
Steam is not coming people: nothing
Therefore, yes, it is up to the naysayers to prove it's not coming. That, or just let people have their hope.

Sorry but such broken logic just makes me puke.

The binary vanished. It's a non-proof since they pulled it and the binary had not been working at all. And no, getting a window showing on screen with some hacking on the binary is not a "functioning binary", it's a GUI test at best. On the other side the article is on a Valve maintained place, namely their support place and it states clearly and unmissunderstandably: "There are no plans to create a native Linux Steam Client at this time." That's quite a proof over there. And if you claim this to be old, look at the modification time: "Wed, 12th May 2010". This is clearly a lot later in time than the binary. So if they say "after" the binary incident that there are no plans then the binary is nothing else than a little mockup of somebody at valve but nothing which convinced them to go any further. It's not unusual to allow enthusiastic employees to cook something up. And it's also not unusual for such work to not get far as it doesn't convince the management. That's called business life.

So to sum it up your statement should be correctly like this:

Steam is coming people: no proof (rumor about a non-working binary)
Steam is not coming people: hard fact article by valve itself modified in May.
Therefore, it is up to the yes-sayers to prove it's coming.

[christian_frank]

Sorry but such broken logic just makes me puke.

The binary vanished. It's a non-proof since they pulled it and the binary had not been working at all. And no, getting a window showing on screen with some hacking on the binary is not a "functioning binary", it's a GUI test at best. On the other side the article is on a Valve maintained place, namely their support place and it states clearly and unmissunderstandably: "There are no plans to create a native Linux Steam Client at this time." That's quite a proof over there. And if you claim this to be old, look at the modification time: "Wed, 12th May 2010". This is clearly a lot later in time than the binary. So if they say "after" the binary incident that there are no plans then the binary is nothing else than a little mockup of somebody at valve but nothing which convinced them to go any further. It's not unusual to allow enthusiastic employees to cook something up. And it's also not unusual for such work to not get far as it doesn't convince the management. That's called business life.

So to sum it up your statement should be correctly like this:

Steam is coming people: no proof (rumor about a non-working binary)
Steam is not coming people: hard fact article by valve itself modified in May.
Therefore, it is up to the yes-sayers to prove it's coming.

Just one comment to that (which is a good sign imho):

I searched the steam forum in the past (before the hype) a lot of times for questions about linux and so on. Every thread in the forum i found was closed down by the forum admins within days with the notice->we have no plan to support it, therfore thread closed !

now take a look at the steam forum..the post about linux is huge.
If valve would have no interest in this rumors and would have no plans to bring the client they could shut down all the rumors within a second with a single forum post. But they don't. So, why let all the rumors, the article on this uk newspage etc.. uncommented when i would take only 1 second to say "No interest in Linux for the near future/never" ?

And that is for me the best sign !