Is Valve's Steam Client Bad & Damaging For Linux?

[Alejandro Nova]

I second this. Driver support on Windows sucks monkey fuck for the hardware I have as shocking as this may sound.

CanonScan LiDe 30. Have fun trying to get that thing working with Windows 7. Canon only has Vista Drivers on their page. Windows Update tries do download some shit and it gets recognized as CanonScan LiDE 30 but when you try to configure it Windows says there is no Scanner attached WHAT THE FUCK?!

On Linux just plug that piece of shit in. Done.

NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150. Good luck installing a driver new that what came with my laptop and is available at the HP homepage. You'd think you can just go to NVIDIA.com and download a driver installer for GeForce 6000... No you can't. Well then let's look for N-Force since the Laptop has an N-Force Motherboard. Nope no luck. Well then let's run the piece of shit Java Applet to find the right driver. Nope doesn't work. I'm stuck with the driver from 2007 FOR GODS SAKE!

On Linux i just install the driver from the fucking repos. 304.88 released just a week ago. End of story.

OHH MY GOD WINDOWS HARDWARE SUPPORT IS SO FUCKING GREAT!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! I WANT TO LICK STEVE BALLMARS SWEATY ARMPITS TO SHOW MY APPRECIATION! Stop living in your fucking dreamworld dude.

Two more beauties.

1. Agfa Snapscan 1212u. This scanner is so old that it has the looks of the first iMac (the fruity one). It isn't officially supported beyond Windows 2000 and the driver crashes all the time in Windows 7. In Linux, it's a matter of a) unshielding the Windows 2000 drivers, b) copying the firmware file somewhere SANE sees it, and c) modifying /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf to show the firmware to SANE. After that, it works flawlessly.

2. Sound Blaster Live!. This one is famous. The only Windows 7 official drivers for it were banned by Creative Labs, and the guy who uploaded them was sued to hell. Official drivers don't support the wavetable. There are unofficial drivers, kXProject, but those are undermaintained, crash, and don't support properly all features I need. Working on Linux perfectly to this day, wavetable included.

[jayrulez]

jayrulez, your responses are merely antagonistic and lack any intention of understanding or reasoning.

Nonsense! You are unable to back up your claims so you decide to write that instead. I sincerely want you to answer each of my responses.

From what I can see, all you are doing is inciting unsolicited, unjustifiable and probably unwarranted fear, uncertainty and doubt against Valve and Steam.

The traditional game publisher provides up front funding and takes on huge financial risk. If the project is a dud, they lose their investment.

Steam generally doesn't do that for outside games. They are accepting completed games and are not taking on the role of a high-risk investor. That is completely different.

So the programmers who have ported Steam to Linux were working for free? Who will maintain steam on Linux?

It is the same way as you advocate for Android and Apple app stores where the developer also lose their investment if the app is a dud. They are accepting completed apps and are not taking on the role of a high-risk investor.

It seems to me that developers can get 100% of the sales price or much closer to that rather than some number that Valve has legally hidden but we have inferred to be around ~70%.

Who is this we and what is their methodology used for inferring this split? Can you provide any evidence to support this?

Where did you get this number from? The developer can get 100% of the Sales price if they put their games up for download on their own website. Do you think Valve's servers do not cost money? If all developers make 100% of the sale price of games, how does Valve make money to pay for servers, pay employees, pay taxes and other expenses?

But you clearly don't understand me. Neither does Michael Larabel who stated the primary objection is that Steam isn't open source, which is just completely not the point being made.

I'm saying that Valve does not deserve 30% of the revenue of an indie game that they did not take risk on. That is nuts. I think there is misguided community advocacy that Steam is somehow a greater good and that crowd is simply blind to reason.

Who are you to decide what Valve deserves? Apple and Google take about as much yet you say that is okay when they have no part in the development of the app?

How do you justify this obvious bias?

[DanLamb]

Nonsense! You are unable to back up your claims so you decide to write that instead. I sincerely want you to answer each of my responses.

ok, I'll attempt to give calm reasoned answers, but I suspect anyone following this thread is probably losing interest:

Don't they? [as in, don't devs have full freedom to choose which service meets their needs]

In one sense, absolutely. There is definitely no formal law requiring Steam support and compliance, but in another sense, there is this sense of critical mass behind Steam and this strong evangelism from a very passionate and vocal minority. That community push is driving Steam adoption more than individual developers choosing Steam on independent merit.

Explain what needs to be justified and to whom!

If Michael Larabel is going to praise Steam as a greater good for the Linux community, as I claim that he has, I would disagree with him, and request that he justify that claim. If you need evidence/proof that Michael Larabel has praised Steam in this manner and assumed a role of a community advocate, I think those things should be obvious, I don't see a reasonable objection to them, and establishing "proof" just seems silly. I don't know if I can prove that water is wet, but a challenge to that assertion seems more argumentative than a reasonable challenge.

Source for this? [that Valve takes a large revenue cut] Are you privy to this?

Well, Valve has legally hidden this info, but even Valve supporters here are assuming a full 30% of revenue. Other major industry insiders like Randy Pitchford and Notch have suggested that Valve is taking a lot of money.

What rights [are Valve asking devs to sign]? How? Your claims lack specifics.

Valve has legally hidden these terms. The developers who have signed away rights have signed away the right to even tell us what rights they have signed away. If you've been reading anything I've written, this was another of my major criticisms: Valve has legally blocked us from the basic knowledge of what rights devs are asked to forfeit so we can't even have a comprehensive armchair analysis of this.

You or anyone else is free to put up a website and sell your game there.

Yes, and I would keep a larger portion of the revenue compared to something like Steam. Community advocates such as ourselves and Michael Larabel should advocate more for this option, where devs keep more of their rights and more of the revenue.

No developers is forced to use Steam as their distribution mechanism. If they find Valve's terms acceptable, they are free to use Steam. If they do not accept the terms then they are free to not use Steam.

Devs can't be legally arrested for not supporting Steam, but an aggregate of voices like Michael Larabel aggressively advocating Steam and only Steam is a form of pressure and coercion.

So the programmers who have ported Steam to Linux were working for free? Who will maintain steam on Linux?

Programmers should have no obligation to write code for free, but the responsibility of earning money is on the management of the company writing the software, not on the customers or the community.

It is the same way as you advocate for Android and Apple app stores where the developer also lose their investment if the app is a dud. They are accepting completed apps and are not taking on the role of a high-risk investor.

Clearly, Apple/Google app stores are similar to Steam in that they are not playing the role of investor, so I completely agree on that, but I was responding to another user who was comparing Steam to a traditional game publisher yet was omitting this disparity in roles.

Who are you to decide what Valve deserves? Apple and Google take about as much yet you say that is okay when they have no part in the development of the app?

This is your best point. Who are any of us to decide what anyone deserves?

One logical basis that I can argue is that game developers can get a much better deal in terms of a higher share of revenue and less hidden rights that they have to sign away. Secondly, I can argue that a marketplace service isn't that hard relative to the amount of money Valve takes in.

The same can be said for Apple/Google of their iOS/Android marketplaces, but I would argue that Apple/Google built more than a marketplace, they built an entire platform, which is a much larger and more valuable endeavor. Valve didn't create Linux and I see no rightful claim of Valve owning the toll collecting marketplace over anyone else.

Do you hear game developers complaining about Valve and steam?

Sure, both Randy Pitchford and Notch have very publically, very clearly said that Steam is not a good for developers the game ecosystem overall.

Why are you complaining? Is Valve and steam causing issues for you? What is your agenda here?

I am advocating my ideals.

I don't think it's fair that Valve takes such a large revenue cut of another developer's game that Valve played no part in funding or creating on Linux OS which they have played a relatively minor role in.

I don't think Valve has a righteous claim to a semi-exclusive monopoly ownership of the games marketplace holder and toll collector.

I think people have got swept up in pro-Steam sentiment and emotion and are not thinking reasonablly about this issue.

[ninez]

Valve has legally hidden these terms. The developers who have signed away rights have signed away the right to even tell us what rights they have signed away. If you've been reading anything I've written, this was another of my major criticisms: Valve has legally blocked us from the basic knowledge of what rights devs are asked to forfeit so we can't even have a comprehensive armchair analysis of this.

NDAs are a pretty common thing, and i imagine at a company like Valve, you might be exposed to 3rd parties IP, which you would be obligated to not disclose to any other party. (hence a possible reason for the NDA in the first place, one of many).

I think you are getting hung up on something, that is actually pretty standard in business. Sometimes, companies do things internally - and if you work inside of that company- then you are (legally) obligated, in some cases, to follow suit and not disclose anything externally. ie: not unusual stuff.

Generally though, even though i am not a gamer - i am definitely happy to see Valve come to the platform, just like seeing Lightworks, or any other app / company that decides the platform i choose to use, is in fact (in their eyes) also a worthwhile platform.

[jayrulez]

In one sense, absolutely. There is definitely no formal law requiring Steam support and compliance, but in another sense, there is this sense of critical mass behind Steam and this strong evangelism from a very passionate and vocal minority. That community push is driving Steam adoption more than individual developers choosing Steam on independent merit.

There you go making claims again without any evidence to support it. How do you know it is the minority that is promoting Steam?

How do you know the number of people are pro, anti Steam or just indifferent?

Let us take this thread as a small sample (may not be meaningful at all but bear with me), you would be the only person against Steam while everyone else is pro Steam. You would then be the minority.

If Michael Larabel is going to praise Steam as a greater good for the Linux community, as I claim that he has, I would disagree with him, and request that he justify that claim. If you need evidence/proof that Michael Larabel has praised Steam in this manner and assumed a role of a community advocate, I think those things should be obvious, I don't see a reasonable objection to them, and establishing "proof" just seems silly. I don't know if I can prove that water is wet, but a challenge to that assertion seems more argumentative than a reasonable challenge.

You said Michael is a self proclaimed community advocate ("Self-proclaimed community advocates such as Michael Larabel"). I asked you to provide a source for that. Also, just because you disagree with Michael doesn't mean you are right. If you make such controversial claims then you should at least be able to provide evidence to justify your claim. Otherwise you are just a random person saying a whole lot of nothing.

Well, Valve has legally hidden this info, but even Valve supporters here are assuming a full 30% of revenue. Other major industry insiders like Randy Pitchford and Notch have suggested that Valve is taking a lot of money.

There is no basis for this claim. Either you have evidence to support your claim or you don't. For all we know, the NDA might cover terms that requires the developer to do a cartwheel before going to bed at nights. Ludicrous right? So is your claim without any basis.

Valve has legally hidden these terms. The developers who have signed away rights have signed away the right to even tell us what rights they have signed away. If you've been reading anything I've written, this was another of my major criticisms: Valve has legally blocked us from the basic knowledge of what rights devs are asked to forfeit so we can't even have a comprehensive armchair analysis of this.

Why are you making claims about something you cannot comprehensively analyze as if they are facts?

Yes, and I would keep a larger portion of the revenue compared to something like Steam. Community advocates such as ourselves and Michael Larabel should advocate more for this option, where devs keep more of their rights and more of the revenue.

Again, there is no basis for your claims about devs giving up rights by signing Valve's NDA. I can claim that developers are required to offer their first born as a sacrifice to the goat head and that is hidde by NDA. That doesn't make it true.

Devs can't be legally arrested for not supporting Steam, but an aggregate of voices like Michael Larabel aggressively advocating Steam and only Steam is a form of pressure and coercion.

Steam has been on windows for years. I've used both windows and linux. I've never felt any pressure to use Steam on windows. I've never felt any pressure to use Steam on linux. I never used Steam before it came to Linux. I've used it 1 time since and I feel no pressure to use it again.

Again, you are creating an issue where there is none.

Programmers should have no obligation to write code for free, but the responsibility of earning money is on the management of the company writing the software, not on the customers or the community.

Customers pay money for games. Developers pay Valve a share of the price to Valve for hosting their game and providing visibility to their game. You can put your game on your obscure website and it may never be seen by someone who is willing to pay for it. Look at this way, if your game does not sell a copy then you do not pay Valve anything.

This is your best point. Who are any of us to decide what anyone deserves?

One logical basis that I can argue is that game developers can get a much better deal in terms of a higher share of revenue and less hidden rights that they have to sign away. Secondly, I can argue that a marketplace service isn't that hard relative to the amount of money Valve takes in.

The same can be said for Apple/Google of their iOS/Android marketplaces, but I would argue that Apple/Google built more than a marketplace, they built an entire platform, which is a much larger and more valuable endeavor. Valve didn't create Linux and I see no rightful claim of Valve owning the toll collecting marketplace over anyone else.

First: You do not know if game developers are getting 70% or 99% and if you claim it is otherwise then you are just being dubious.
It doesn't matter whether it is hard or easy, it is the value it brings that matters. For example, Facebooks service is not hard to duplicate, but wish good luck to anyone trying to build another social network competing with facebook. Similarly, anyone can create a Steam clone but the value will be very different.
Android is also built on Linux and Google did not create Linux either. Steam is a platform similarly as Android is a platform. Steam is also available on Windows and Valve did not create Windows either. You are free to set up your alternative and collect your toll too. Noone is stopping you or anyone else.

[quote]Sure, both Randy Pitchford and Notch have very publically, very clearly said that Steam is not a good for developers the game ecosystem overall.[/quot]
Do they publish games on Steam? And if it's just the two of them then they are just the vocal minority and if their jutification is the same as yours then their claims do not stand.

I am advocating my ideals.

I don't think it's fair that Valve takes such a large revenue cut of another developer's game that Valve played no part in funding or creating on Linux OS which they have played a relatively minor role in.

I don't think Valve has a righteous claim to a semi-exclusive monopoly ownership of the games marketplace holder and toll collector.

I think people have got swept up in pro-Steam sentiment and emotion and are not thinking reasonablly about this issue.

You are free to advocate your ideals man but do not pretend that you are presenting facts when you have no justification for your claims. You do not know whether the sum that Valve gets is hefty or small so why even bother to speak to it?

________________

Here's something you can do.

Do a survey targeting Steam developers to ascertain whether they are unhappy with the deals they are getting. That results will give you a base for your analysis and allow you to ascertain whether your worries are warranted or not.

Do a survey targeting steam users to ascertain the perceived value of Steam.

________________

My experience with games on Linux is hunting down games on obscure websites, no game rating system, ugly graphics, horrible gameplay, lots of garbage games (no offence to the developers), games I have to compile from source and they may or may not work, games freezing up or crashing at startup. I had a much better experience when I tried Steam games and I applaud them ad the game developers.

If steam is such a big problem then the community advocates can create their GNU Steam clone where game developers get 100% of the funds and everyone will be GNU Happy?

[DanLamb]

NDAs are a pretty common thing, and i imagine at a company like Valve, you might be exposed to 3rd parties IP, which you would be obligated to not disclose to any other party. (hence a possible reason for the NDA in the first place, one of many).

Salaried employees must generally sign an NDA, which makes total sense. Apps store marketplaces like Apple and Google make you agree to terms, but the terms themselves are completely public and open to public scrutiny. If you want to make and sell software for Mac/Windows/Linux, you don't have to sign anything, you can just do it.

I don't think NDA's are normal for a broad marketplace conduit like Steam aims to be.

Generally though, even though i am not a gamer - i am definitely happy to see Valve come to the platform, just like seeing Lightworks, or any other app / company that decides the platform i choose to use, is in fact (in their eyes) also a worthwhile platform.

It makes sense to welcome more apps/games to Linux even we personally don't like them. Most other apps, don't have this platform wide critical mass effect. Steam however does. I suspect Steam take a very large cut of revenue from Windows gaming today and I don't believe that is reasonable.

[Kivada]

You are obviously not an open source game player. I've got at least a dozen beautifull oss games on my hdd and none of them is an FPS game. And of course they wont have graphics like their $20M and $100M commercial counterparts. This are pretty much hobbyist projects and often even 1-3 man projects driven by pure passion. Shitting on them they way Michael and You do is just sad and doesn't help in any way.

Especially on a website which claims to be:
"Phoronix is the leading technology website for Linux hardware reviews, open-source news, Linux benchmarks, open-source benchmarks..."

You'd be wrong there, I really like Metal Blob Solid as it reminds me of the old 2d Duke Nukem games I used to play on my old 286. I'm a NAEV junkie, it's probably the best OSS game created thus far, and it's proof that the OSS community can in fact create a game with a story line and good artwork. I've donated quite a bit to the project over the last 2 years.

I liked S.C.O.U.R.G.E. but it was always crash happy for me, so these days I play Dungeons Of Dredmor and Legend Of Grimrock. I fully believe that an OSS team could have done DoD just as well as Gaslamp did if only someone had some drive to do it. LoG, not so much, level design too elaborate and artwork too well refined.

I've always wanted to try Yo Frankie! but it's never run for me on any setup. Likewise for other interesting sounding 3D games like that submarine warfare game project that seemed to have died years ago, I forget the name.

But as we all know, the vast majority of the work on OSS games goes into the craptacular FPS titles.

...I think you mean Quake 3.

It doesn't matter, both games where equally shallow affairs that got just as boring just as fast.

[Kivada]

Except that Aliens: Colonial Marines is not an OSS game, it uses a modified Unreal Engine 3 that has nothing to do with Unreal Tournament 3. And there is only one game that runs on Linux that is on UE3 to begin with. And it's not an arena shooter, too.

So what you are saying is that the OSS game dev teams will never be able to advance further then what they have? Prettying up a very old and very beaten to death game type? The only OSS FPS shooter that tries anything even remotely different is Tremulous/Unvanquished. All the rest are quite literally the same damn game with different graphics. And don't give me that shit about "but this one has a rocket launcher" or "but this one is in space" or "but this one uses a different engine" it's the same damn game when you play them and thats what matters more then anything else.

What you and every other OSS game apologist doesn't seem to understand is that the game engines they currently have are capable of making much more interesting games then what they are currently making, they just aren't trying to make anything remotely interesting. Outside of the Stallman idealists, anyone that wants to spend 5 mins mindlessly playing an arena shooter is going to go something people actually play like QuakeLive or Team Fortress 2.

OSS FPS game should have many more players then they ever had, simply because they are 100% free and work on every OS out there. But they don't because the games are completely uninteresting.

[log0]

You'd be wrong there, I really like Metal Blob Solid as it reminds me of the old 2d Duke Nukem games I used to play on my old 286. I'm a NAEV junkie, it's probably the best OSS game created thus far, and it's proof that the OSS community can in fact create a game with a story line and good artwork. I've donated quite a bit to the project over the last 2 years.

I liked S.C.O.U.R.G.E. but it was always crash happy for me, so these days I play Dungeons Of Dredmor and Legend Of Grimrock. I fully believe that an OSS team could have done DoD just as well as Gaslamp did if only someone had some drive to do it. LoG, not so much, level design too elaborate and artwork too well refined.

I've always wanted to try Yo Frankie! but it's never run for me on any setup. Likewise for other interesting sounding 3D games like that submarine warfare game project that seemed to have died years ago, I forget the name.

But as we all know, the vast majority of the work on OSS games goes into the craptacular FPS titles.



It doesn't matter, both games where equally shallow affairs that got just as boring just as fast.

Oh right, so there are like ten fps/arena shooters? And that is what you call majority? Stop trolling dude!

Did it ever come to your mind, that this games are there because their creators and contributors enjoy playing them? And that they might see fancy artwork and story as secondary?

You don't like them? Don't fscking play them. But shitting on foss games in general just because they don't serve your taste is just sad. At the very least show some respect to the work of others, that they are sharing with you for free btw.

[curaga]

OSS FPS game should have many more players then they ever had, simply because they are 100% free and work on every OS out there. But they don't because the games are completely uninteresting.

If you clearly know what would be more interesting, why aren't you:
a) making it, or
b) writing it out explicitly and then showing your doc around