Valve Is Making All Their Games Free To Debian Developers

[Kivada]

Do you know any other sites similar to GamingOnLinux?
Not an outdated catalog of junk+free and good+payware, but actually with Linux gaming community that builds upon actuality and involvement?


Yet, its their right as a publisher to decide which distribution way they prefer...
I agree it'd be cool to see current free to play games packaged outside of Steam as .deb or similar, but I guess they refuse primary because they use them as an attraction to the Steam platform.

https://steamlug.org/ - http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamlug is probably what you are looking for, their podcast is quite good and they regularly interview game devs.

Most F2P games are MMOs and are in fact Pay2Win.

[shmerl]

If publisher doesn't object - get them from publisher. If publisher works over Steam, then its Steam packages.
Or I am misinterpreting something?..

I said simply - Steam doesn't offer DRM free distribution even when developers don't object, so the argument that it's "up to developers" is false in the context of Steam being DRMed.

Fact is Valve's DRM is actually quite agreeable unlike everyone else's.

No DRM should ever be agreeable.

[GreatEmerald]

Hah, I do wonder whether many Debian developers will make use of the offer. Steam and its DRM is rather far away from the Debian guidelines, and those developing Debian are probably not very interested in supporting proprietary, DRM'ed software, even if it's provided to them as freeware.

Um, Valve is both the developer and the publisher. Valve is the company that made and maintains Steam. Therefore, Valve is the publisher of both their own games released through Steam, and the games others publishers/developers sell through Steam.

Exactly ? that's why they have the power to release their own games DRM-free. But they don't. Quite the opposite, they *added* DRM to games like Half-Life, which initially didn't have any. So Valve clearly endorses DRM. And no, the "benefits" of Steam integration are absolutely not worth it. Especially since DRM is no part of those benefits, they could exist much better if they used a FOSS framework for that.

[shmerl]

Honestly, DRM-free is nonsense as you lose all the wonderful benefits of Steamworks and revert back to an older, colder era of gaming -- minus the CD keys.

No, Steamworks is nonsense, because it locks the developer into one distributor. It's not better than any other type of lock-in (such as Windows API or DirectX for example).

[Alliancemd]

Re

And here is where the work on software from the Debian developers stops... At least for a week...
This will definitely impact the productivity of those that accept the offer

[pandev92]

No, Steamworks is nonsense, because it locks the developer into one distributor. It's not better than any other type of lock-in (such as Windows API or DirectX for example).

This is perfect, we don't need fragmentation on pc games platforms too.

[mmstick]

No, Steamworks is nonsense, because it locks the developer into one distributor. It's not better than any other type of lock-in (such as Windows API or DirectX for example).

That gets into ideology which is impractical in the real world -- and it quite simply is better since it's not developed by a company that has poor standards like Microsoft.

There is no 'lock-in' that you speak of since developers are free to implement their own features if they choose to do so. Steam and Steamworks provide better features and services to gamers than any other existing competitor (like Xfire).

Originally, gamers were disgruntled by 'Steam DRM' but after a while everyone loves Steam's DRM and the features Steam provides -- to the point that even I myself am unable to play a game without Steam.

[PyroDevil]

I wonder what would happen if HL3 would be debian developer exclusive for a month or so.

[shmerl]

That gets into ideology which is impractical in the real world

This is really same thing as making cross platform releases vs. exclusives. I strongly dislike exclusives which require users to use only one platform or tell them to get lost. Steamworks is one of such examples.

Originally, gamers were disgruntled by 'Steam DRM' but after a while everyone loves Steam's DRM and the features Steam provides -- to the point that even I myself am unable to play a game without Steam.

Who is "everyone"? I know many users who won't even touch Steam because of DRM.

[discordian]

That gets into ideology which is impractical in the real world -- and it quite simply is better since it's not developed by a company that has poor standards like Microsoft.

There is no 'lock-in' that you speak of since developers are free to implement their own features if they choose to do so. Steam and Steamworks provide better features and services to gamers than any other existing competitor (like Xfire).

Originally, gamers were disgruntled by 'Steam DRM' but after a while everyone loves Steam's DRM and the features Steam provides -- to the point that even I myself am unable to play a game without Steam.

lol.
I really dont get anyone buying a game through steam, often giving the developers less money because of the steam-tax and getting 1 DRM layer on top for the change.

I dont have Steam installed since I finished portal 2, and unless Valves own games appear on competing platforms, Steam is just an rather evil monopolostic scheme with nothing but hassles for me.