What's Your Hopes From Valve's SteamOS?

[DebianLinuxero]

Yes I fear that you are right as far as big publishers go atleast, indie games have something of a tradition to offer games DRM free on the PC platform. [...]

Well again Valve doesn't force DRM onto publishers, they merely offer it, so hopefully indie game developers atleast will continue to release games DRM-free (they are typically DRM free on windows aswell).

[...]

So it's both good and bad, Steam will bring new games to Linux, but it will also provide game publishers with an easy option for DRM on the Linux distro platform.

Not only of indie games live the gamer.

I understand your point that Steam is only an option. And as an option, the choice is done by the publishers. So you state that if they release with DRM it's their fault.

But understand mine :

If the option "Steam" didn't happen, then games would be DRM free for a long time, even AAA. At least until a publisher do its DRM app, thing that for the past events in the Linux gaming history I think would be very unlikely.

---

As for the hopes that I have for this SteamOs :

Are wishes allowed too ?


What I really like to happen is that GoG.com take good note of what Valve is doing and begin to support Linux.
Among digital distributors, the GOG philosofy is with Desura's the one that best matches with the Linux philosofy.

I understand the breaking compatibility concerns that Trevor Longino posted in GamingOnLinux. At least for supporting modern games.

But I don't buy that they see difficult supporting old DOS games through dosbox or scumvm. That is a thing a lot easier than what Valve is doing now.
As it's easy and they already have a vaste catalog of DOS games it would be a very good start point for them in supporting Linux.

When I think about it, I remember a spanish basket commentator's quote, that was something like

They lost because they feared to win.

Pitiful that it seems so.

[mrugiero]

If the option "Steam" didn't happen, then games would be DRM free for a long time, even AAA. At least until a publisher do its DRM app, thing that for the past events in the Linux gaming history I think would be very unlikely.

Or games will just not see a port to Linux, like it happened for the last ten years.

[IanS]

Not only of indie games live the gamer.

I understand your point that Steam is only an option. And as an option, the choice is done by the publishers. So you state that if they release with DRM it's their fault.

But understand mine :

If the option "Steam" didn't happen, then games would be DRM free for a long time, even AAA. At least until a publisher do its DRM app, thing that for the past events in the Linux gaming history I think would be very unlikely.

---

As for the hopes that I have for this SteamOs :

Are wishes allowed too ?


What I really like to happen is that GoG.com take good note of what Valve is doing and begin to support Linux.
Among digital distributors, the GOG philosofy is with Desura's the one that best matches with the Linux philosofy.

I understand the breaking compatibility concerns that Trevor Longino posted in GamingOnLinux. At least for supporting modern games.

But I don't buy that they see difficult supporting old DOS games through dosbox or scumvm. That is a thing a lot easier than what Valve is doing now.
As it's easy and they already have a vaste catalog of DOS games it would be a very good start point for them in supporting Linux.

When I think about it, I remember a spanish basket commentator's quote, that was something like



Pitiful that it seems so.

I say screw GOG, if they don't want to support us then we shouldn't support them. I was joking with a friend recently that someone should start a new project called FYG which could mean either F*** You GOG or Free Your Games, which ever people prefer, and have it basically be the POL of DOSBox and SCUMMVM games. A nice little library/installer/launcher app with installer scripts being added by the community over time for all the old classic games that work with these emulators.

[mrugiero]

I don't think GOG has access to the source code of most games they sell. I mean, some of those games' source is probably completely lost. This means supporting Linux would be a pain in the ass, as giving any kind of support anywhere.

[IanS]

I don't think GOG has access to the source code of most games they sell. I mean, some of those games' source is probably completely lost. This means supporting Linux would be a pain in the ass, as giving any kind of support anywhere.

For the majority of the games they sell, they would be doing basically the same thing they do on Windows and Mac, taking the games files and dropping them into a custom installer that includes DOSBox or SCUMMVM as needed. They do some work to fine tune the settings to use with those emulators but that is about it. They claim that Linux is too fragmented but that is a load of bull, as those emulators can be setup to run standalone and they don't need to rely on anything system related except perhaps drivers and even the open source ones ought to be plenty to handle the limited features of such old games.

The other sort of games they carry are newer indie games, the majority of which are already on Steam or Desura so those aren't even that important and/or what most of us would be going to them for. There are some other games that fall somewhere in between, but no one says they should port their entire catalog, all most of us want is for them to make games available that we all know already work great on Linux via DOSBox and SCUMMVM but are a pain in the ass to aquire legitimately outside of GOG these days.

[mrugiero]

For the majority of the games they sell, they would be doing basically the same thing they do on Windows and Mac, taking the games files and dropping them into a custom installer that includes DOSBox or SCUMMVM as needed. They do some work to fine tune the settings to use with those emulators but that is about it. They claim that Linux is too fragmented but that is a load of bull, as those emulators can be setup to run standalone and they don't need to rely on anything system related except perhaps drivers and even the open source ones ought to be plenty to handle the limited features of such old games.

The other sort of games they carry are newer indie games, the majority of which are already on Steam or Desura so those aren't even that important and/or what most of us would be going to them for. There are some other games that fall somewhere in between, but no one says they should port their entire catalog, all most of us want is for them to make games available that we all know already work great on Linux via DOSBox and SCUMMVM but are a pain in the ass to aquire legitimately outside of GOG these days.

Oh, well, if that's all they do, then I agree, supporting Linux is trivial and they should do it. It would actually be easier, assuming they'd use the usual channels for distributions, since they don't need to ship DOSBox and SCUMMVM, but just make it a dependency.

[yogi_berra]

Steam DRM is weak, and many Steam games don't even use it. Fallout 3, for example, doesn't appear to have any DRM under Steam.

The biggest 'DRM' on Linux for proprietary apps is OS upgrades which break old binaries so they can't run any more. Steam seems an acceptable tradeoff if it means Valve will ensure the games continue running in the next Ubuntu/Mint LTS release.

Fallout 3 comes with Games for Windows Live under Steam, Bethesda Game Studios choice of DRM at the time of that release, it still remains to be seen if the Linux DRM can be broken.

[movieman]

Fallout 3 comes with Games for Windows Live under Steam, Bethesda Game Studios choice of DRM at the time of that release, it still remains to be seen if the Linux DRM can be broken.

People keep telling me that Fallout 3 uses GFWL, but I never had to set up a GFWL account, I never had to register the game anywhere, and it just runs. It runs on my Linux Steam install in Wine, too.

The only game I own that required me to do anything with GFWL is GTA4, and it's the reason I've never bought any other game that did. What retard at Microsoft thought that forcing you to reboot your computer when you start a game because GFWL wants to update was acceptable behaviour?

[yogi_berra]

People keep telling me that Fallout 3 uses GFWL, but I never had to set up a GFWL account, I never had to register the game anywhere, and it just runs. It runs on my Linux Steam install in Wine, too.

The only game I own that required me to do anything with GFWL is GTA4, and it's the reason I've never bought any other game that did. What retard at Microsoft thought that forcing you to reboot your computer when you start a game because GFWL wants to update was acceptable behaviour?

Yes, but you are talking about Bethesda Game Studios. The same game studio that didn't add a conditional to a a script to prevent starting a quest before another quest was completed, shipped DLC with missing textures, didn't bother with compiler optimizations, didn't bother with threading, and has had a string format error in their game engine since Morrowind.

Do you really expect them to set up GFWL properly in their game?

[cynyr]

I hope it will be a real Linux OS with real userland tools which will be able to run all Linux software, not just Steam games. I hope it will use Wayland, a real display protocol developed by professionals. I hope you'll be able to use different DE's and GUIs on it. I hope Valve will work with the upstream to improve code for everyone, not patch everything downstream.

Almost forgot: NON-XBOX CONTROLLER!

I know this isn't a wayland thread, but the lack of "remote rendering" is a no go for me... I like being able to use gvim from my headless server.

Given Valve's involvement thusfar in testing GPU drivers i expect that they will push code back upstream. Why bother maintaining it yourself when you can have the community do it for you. I just hope they don't go the way of google with respect to the kernel and android. As far as i know you still can't run Android on a vanilla kernel.