Valve Software recruits hardware experts
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Link: http://newcdn.flamehaus.com/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf
*Economist was the other job they mentioned, which they filled with the famous Yanis Varoufakis.
With the recent interest in wearable computing I wouldn't be surprised if this is more about peripherals than gaming rigs. Working on additional HID's (heads up displays, kinect-a-likes, voice) might well be a more valuable addition to their software platform than getting into the console wars.
Or possibly a handheld. They seem to have 2 ends of the gaming market, high end FPS graphics fests which sell to people willing to build console smashing gaming rigs, and casual gamers who like the Bejewlled type games. It would be very hard to create a console that taps their existing muscle gamers, but capturing the gameboy, iphone casuals might be possible.
If they did go towards console territory what I'd love to see rather than a closed box console would be a line of Steam certified hardware so you could build a PC that matched your pocket, upgrade in future, and be guaranteed compatibility with the Steam linux distro it runs.
"Hardware, in the form of a crowbar, plays a part in Valve's Half-Life games"
The alternate interpretation that this person will be designing whole systems is equally plausible to me, especially given their investment into the Linux space. Initially, that move didn't make a whole lot of sense because the Linux desktop space is so small and (particularly where issues around graphics drivers and the like are concerned) requires a fair bit of technical acumen. A ChromeOS-like strategy makes much more sense, though: heavily tailor the OS user experience to fit your specific target audience, and vertically integrate so you control the hardware, and the user never has to touch drivers or configs. Then it's not "Linux," anymore, it's "SteamOS" or whatever.
Actually it seems as much to do with the more solid "Valve has a patent on a controller with swappable parts". Said patent is here: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20110105231
But yes, there is a lot of speculation, of course.
His blog is really interesting and definitely worth following.
G+ profile: https://plus.google.com/115054970849159689228/about
A post on his blog where he discusses his previous business and mentions working at Valve: http://benkrasnow.blogspot.com/2012/08/tour-of-bens-shop-201...
That seems very vague to me and I'm having difficulty visualising exactly what that might mean.
Perhaps an accelerometer attached to your wrist would essentially allow you to use any object as a makeshift mouse/keyboard?
There is a next-gen design in the works, Valve getting involved with it would be a serious wake up call ..
From what I can tell the average selling price of PC's has dropped in the last 10 years from $1,000 to $500 or less. At a $400-500 laptop, you just don't get good GFX, so PC gaming kind of sucks.
Steam helped a ton on the software side, but if the average gamer is going to have to swap out a graphics card to be able to play Skyrim well on their PC, they'll probably just buy an Xbox instead.
The PC market needs some kind of "standard" box configurations with sane pricing and non-crappy software installs. Like, a $500, $750, and $1,000 machines loaded with stock Windows 8, no crapware, good gfx, SSD's, etc.
If Valve did the same thing with their own version of Ubuntu running Steam, they could lower machine prices and also really reshape the PC gaming landscape over the next 10 years, esp. for indie developers who are already porting to Linux.
Valve could even do something awesome with Steam where if you buy a "Steam box" it comes with your Steam account and games preloaded and ready to go when you start it up, sort of like what Amazon does when you buy a Kindle.
If Valve goes down that road and tries to truly innovate, there is some real potential.
Almost every computer sold today with AMD or Intel CPUs have a decent video card built in. It's true they won't run the latest and greatest in high quality graphical games but I bet they'll run 90% or more of the games available on Steam just fine and most of the rest with reduced settings that will match the quality of the consoles. Granted, there are exceptions to this.
Most games that are ports of console games are done cheaply because of lack of focus or budget, not because of hardware. There are several franchises out there that make a ton of cash if made for and marketed to the PC market correctly. Most publishers don't bother with PC gaming any more because they no longer understand the market. What consoles are today is what PC gaming was five to ten years ago and they still get that, it's easy. PC gaming today is different and the expectations are different. Companies like Valve that understand the difference are the people making money. When the expectations of the console market catch up with PCs (possibly the next generation) then the current publishers better adapt quick or they'll suffer.
Most of the larger computer makers have been marketing "game" PCs for years but there have no standard configurations because different customers want different things. I, for one, feel that's to the consumer's advantage but it does require a knowledgeable salesman that help make decisions.
Your thought of an Ubuntu box with Steam is interesting but I can't see it happening any time soon, they need many, many more games to run on Linux for it to happen. It would be interesting if they did though.
If Valve went this direction it would help fix the biggest problem PC gaming has ever had, Microsoft.
That's really only been true since Sandy Bridge though. Before that, Intel's GPUs were... bad.. Real bad.
Intel's lower end chips may not have a GPU built in but I would imagine that's intended for a market where it doesn't matter.
But I'm still willing to bet that almost all computers sold today have a decent video card in them. I can see my statement as it was is a bit much since I was implying that all AMD and Intel CPUs have GPUs built-in, which obviously they do not. But I'm sticking by my thought that almost all computers sold today would have a decent video card in them. All of them may not be able to play the latest and greatest games but they can go a long way with the rest.
To me, in today's market, if the computer doesn't have a decent video card then it was built for a specific function in mind and gaming is more than likely irrelevant.
Intel's integrated GPUs have always been lackluster when it came to 3D games. Their original intent was a cheap solution for laptops and very cheap computers. Game developers have been pushing them for years to make a decent integrated card that could support DX9 decently to be considered a low-end standard. It wasn't until for the past year or two that they got something decent out there.
EDIT: when I say Intel wanted a cheap solution I'm meaning something that provided for decent 2D and video performance that wouldn't kill the laptop battery in five minutes. For desktops they were intended for cheap office computers running Word and Excel. Hardware acceleration for 3D never seemed to be of much concern because it wasn't intended for gaming.
At that point, why not just release their own console?
Now, if Valve actually moved backwards to a day when consoles were simple devices that didn't require OS updates, installation of the games, game updates, and a whole slew of other crap from the PC industry that makes it easier for vendors and harder for users, then they'd have a real 'console' that wasn't a PC.
Otherwise, modern consoles are just PCs.
The main difference between a console & PC is largely marketing and also the default UI which is presented to users "out of the box".
What would be nice is a standardised box with a simple UI, good graphics hardware (and solid driver support) and a lowish price tag. That standard experience could be basically the "Steam box" but with an option for advanced users to unlock the underlying Linux System and install regular Linux software.
This would allow games to be developed directly on the console itself, if this was combined with providing tools such as model editors , game engines etc for free or at low cost it could really lower the bar for Indie devs to produce some fairly high end games.
Also if the console proved popular you would have "stealth installed" a Linux desktop in millions of homes worldwide.
Typically software repository choice, versatility, and upgradability of components.
As consoles become more like PCs , PCs become more like consoles.
/end country bumpkin
They are hiring industrial designers and allude to working on replacements for peripherals like the keyboard and the mouse.
How that would work if you were running actual Steam hardware on the other hand.
1. A hypothetical Steam Box or Valve-branded computer is extremely likely to be based off of COTS PC hardware, so there would not be a significant technical barrier to running games purchased on those platforms on a regular PC.
2. Steam already lets you buy a game once on Windows and play it on any Mac you own -- ie, they're not considered separate versions -- and Valve, at least, is extremely unlikely to stop developing for regular PCs, so you'd probably be easily able to load up any PC you have lying around with your Steam Box games in a worst case scenario.
A Steam console if likely to be much more tightly integrated with their cloud stuff than a regular PC would and be reliant on valve for software updates so there might be more implications if they switched the cloud services off.
The Lambda here represents the radioactive decay constant and is used as part of the measure for the "half life" of any radioactive material.
The Gordon character is a scientist, much of the game is set in a science lab and Valve are known for making games with many scientific references (see also: Portal).
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Freeman 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_(series)
Edit: unless you're not a gamer (yes, I'm clutching at straws!)