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

[Remco]

The Mac/PC thing is just stupid marketing invented by Apple. Valve can't exactly change that. I am definitely interested in how they will spin the Linux release. Linux has never had marketing before. Maybe it will be completely cool, just a link to the Linux version, no announcements...

[elanthis]

Regarding Unigine and free/hobbyist developers...

Unfortunate but true. I'm glad I asked them though.

He's both right and wrong. Open Source is incapable of producing viable triple-A commercial games. Literally impossible for them to do so. A commercial game of today's standards requires a large team of people working 40-60 hours a week for a year or three on end. It requires a massive amount of skill and talent that goes far beyond what your average hobbyist has accumulated. Quite frankly, just the coding portion of a modern game is amongst the most difficult avenues of computer science that exist: "Any problem you have to solve in other fields of programming you have to solve in games, but you've got to make it run at 60 frames per second, too."

The art and content portion of an Open Source triple-A game is the other big problem, and it's also unsolvable. Open Source artwork doesn't work for a game because a game literally needs to have a real identity. It needs to have a cohesive art style. It needs to have review. It needs to have people who don't mind getting told to scrap 3 months of work (at 40 hours a week on a single character + animations) because the game design changed and went in a different direction, and it needs to have someone who can actually make those calls. It needs to sustain a development pace that will allow it to release a finished product before the technology becomes horrendously out-dated.

Commercial games aren't like Wesnoth where you can take 6 years to get a 80% consistent theme out of a bunch of super-simplistic low-resolution bitmap art. Wesnoth is beautiful... for a hobby game. Commercial games aren't like Nexuiz or Alien Arena where you can tinker for years and years (starting from an existing engine, no less) on nothing more complex than Quake-style FPS gameplay, because Quake got old and tired and boring and unmarketable years ago when people realized how lame the brainless, meatless, twitch-shooter gameplay is.

That said, Open Source CAN PRODUCE GREAT GAMES! They just need to aim for the proper scope. Go look at the IGF or IGC. Look at the student showcase games at the IGF or the student category at IGC.

Gear, the winner of the student category at IGC (with a $100,000 prize) was written entirely by 5 students in under a year while going to class full time at DigiPen. Gear is a very high quality game. What differentiates Gear (and other exemplary student games) from the titles like Mass Effect or Modern Warfare or Fallout is the scope of the game.

Look at Geometry Wars. That's a very popular game, It doesn't even HAVE any art! It's just geometric shapes! It's a great example of how "programmer art" can actually look really freaking good when you apply enough particle effects and simple shaders (if any).

Look at World of Goo, which has a very unique art style and fantastic gameplay. It was made by only two guys. It's a 2D game, has only one single core gameplay mechanic, and its appeal relied primarily on level content; the high quality art was really just a bonus.

Unigine is totally out of scope for what a hobbyist can ever produce. It'd be neat to be able to play around with it but you'll never manage to actually accomplish anything with it. If you're interested in hobbyist or Open Source game development then you're far better off coming up with a unique and fun small-scope game. Something that doesn't need Unigine in the first place.

Most Open Source games blow chunks because they have a complete lack of unique game design, not because of technological or even artistic limitations. Making the 9,847th clone of Tetris is just ****ing lame. Making a completely new and creative puzzle game, however, is totally awesome. How much time and effort do you think Bejeweled took to make? Not much, but it's insanely popular and has literally made a fortune. Look at all the totally innovative puzzle games that come up at IGF. Open Source and hobbyists can totally do that level of work, so long as they stop trying to mindlessly clone tired and unoriginal game ideas (be it Tetris, Bubble Bobble, or Quake).

Small scope, innovative design, polished gameplay. That is what you need for a hobby game. You do not need Unigine. You need to be creative and realistic about what you can accomplish.

For those people who are offended by the idea that Open Source developers can't accomplish something that proprietary developers can, ask yourself this: for all the advancements and all the talents in the world of hobbyist film making, do you honestly expect a community film project to recreate the Lord of the Rings trilogy with anything remotely close to the same level of production quality? Of course you don't.

Open Source excels at the kinds of project where time is not a factor. Apache isn't in a race to get finished. Apache will never BE finished. Apache can just keep trucking along, improving piece by piece, forever and ever. That's a great way to develop most software, and it's something that Open Source can do very well. Games aren't like that. They have to be developed FAST. They have an actual, real, "this is finished and done and over" milestone. Even most commercial games get canceled, and usually for the same reason that Open Source games fail: the developers aim for something far beyond their reach, promise the producers Mass Effect 3, but end up making Rogue Warrior.

[Yfrwlf]

One of the reasons I like Steam is that Valve, through their hardware surveys etc., have an accurate picture of who's running wine, and I believe this was pivotal in giving them the evidence they needed to develop Mac and Linux clients.

Just create an account and add Portal to it using a Linux browser that reports OS in the user-agent string. Firefox on a default Ubuntu install will do just that, and show support for Source on Linux

While that may be so, no thanks, not buying a Windows game without even "Wine support". Once they start saying Linux, loud and clear, then we'll do business. Even if they wrap Wine up internally like they do for many Mac games and could easily do for Linux too, unless they utter the dirty "L" word they won't get my support. It's bad enough buying hardware with Winblows tatooed all over it. Yes, it's a god damn hard drive, of COURSE it will work with Windows and ALL OSes.

In other words, it's not 100% confirmed, but probably around 75%.

It's not confirmed at all, and is certainly not official by any stretch. It will happen most likely I would say, but Phoronix grasping for ways to say "OMG IT MUST BE COMING!" by instead saying "it's official" is a flat-out lie. Confirmed for them maybe, confirmed internally at Phoronix and other places maybe, but without sharing that information publicly for some actual proof it's just a theory. Well-founded, but still a theory and not "official proof".

Even the release date is something that apparently was whispered to them internally, or just speculation on their part, no way to know.

Two or three months from now, when/if it does pop onto Valve's site and Linux sees the rare limelight via public money-centric mass-media-centric places like Steam, then you can pop your champagne for a better Linux future sooner.

[Yfrwlf]

Read it again. An the news sites which Phoronix linked to, it says:


"Valve has also confirmed that it will make Steam available to Linux users in the coming months."


So, unless I can't read anymore, VALVe is the one to blame for announcing Steam for Linux. NOT PHORONIX.


Now, quit whining. We already ran the Steam binary natively on Linux. This is just like Macs going to Intel. Apple had for years been testing intel macs. Nobody really believed in the rumors and some pretty concrete evidences. But it happened.

Wait until the announcemente and we will all fell good!

Valve may have confirmed it privately to them, but that's not confirmation for everyone else. Let me say this again, using your methods.

Official ≠ Hearsay

Official Of*fi"cial, a. [L. officialis: cf. F. officiel. n.] Derived from the proper office or officer, or from the proper authority; made or communicated by virtue of authority; as, an official statement or report.

Let me know when you have that official report from Valve for us, feel free to post the conversation or letter between you and Valve where you got this confirmation, then you can use the term "official" as it will be from them. Phoronix and those other sites are not Valve's officially designated spokespersons.

[elanthis]

Read it again. An the news sites which Phoronix linked to, it says:

"Valve has also confirmed that it will make Steam available to Linux users in the coming months."

Valve officially says you're a silly chicken-butt who believes anything put on the Internet by random people on fringe websites you've never heard of before.

In a few hours from now, Google will see that Valve says that Adriano is a silly chicken-butt. Doesn't matter that's only according to Phoronix.com. Totally official now.

Maybe tomorrow I'll put up a wordpress blog and publish an article saying that Valve confirmed that Steam is coming to the Gameboy Color. That'll be wicked cool and totally blow the gaming industry's mind. Man, I'm so glad Valve is doing that! Thank you, Valve, for making my GBC relevant again! I can't believe it's official already and everything!

[elect]

[Dragonlord]

Open Source is incapable of producing viable triple-A commercial games. Literally impossible for them to do so. A commercial game of today's standards requires a large team of people working 40-60 hours a week for a year or three on end. It requires a massive amount of skill and talent that goes far beyond what your average hobbyist has accumulated. Quite frankly, just the coding portion of a modern game is amongst the most difficult avenues of computer science that exist: "Any problem you have to solve in other fields of programming you have to solve in games, but you've got to make it run at 60 frames per second, too."

I disagree. AAA engine coders are hackers like others too. They cook with water too. They had been hobbyists too. An open or free software AAA standard engine is very well possible. People just approached it incorrectly so far :P

An on topic: Nothing is official here. It's infos pulled out of the ass of some website and called official by Phoronix. This is not journalism, this is sensationalisms.

[deanjo]

So what, when the Linux version comes out it will be PC, Mac, and Linux? Ugh. Just say Windows already and drop the silly "PC" crap. Computers are still personal regardless of OS. Windows is Windows.

Don't worry, when the client comes out I'm sure they will change it to PC, Mac, and Android.

[byteframe]

http://media.steampowered.com/apps/mac/MacSteam_AlfredJasonGabe.jpg

Hint, Hint...

[GNU/Blind]

http://media.steampowered.com/apps/m...dJasonGabe.jpg

Hint, Hint...

You referring to the tiny little stuffed penguin? in amongst iPods, iPads and other iFaggotry?