Gabe Newell: Linux is the future of gaming, new hardware coming soon | Hacker News Reader

Gabe Newell: Linux is the future of gaming, new hardware coming soon

arstechnica.com

404 pointsonosendai300 comments

I agree. I think this point really hit home for me when Rome Total War 2 came out. This has been one of my favourite game franchises ever since the original Shogun TW.

But.

I haven't bought it yet because it doesn't run on Linux. I don't want to reboot my dual-boot system anymore.

Now, I just want to take a sec to point out that I'm not saying this from a snobbish boycotting point of view. But from a purely practical one. I've been toying with the Steam Linux beta since release and whilst I've had a lot of indie games in my catalogue (thanks Humble Bundle!), I've had hardly any AAA games except some old Valve titles - which I'd finished playing years ago.

But recently there have been a couple of great Linux versions of strategy games that have come out (Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis 4), and when I weigh up the decision between rebooting to Windows to play something, or just stay in Linux and play one of those. I always stay. And that's in spite of a potentially great game like Rome TW2.

Then when you add in some great looking upcoming games on Kickstarter, like Wasteland, Project Eternity, Torment Numenera, etc... Also, a huge victory (for a UK fan) of Football Manager 2014 upcoming for Linux. The future is looking very bright.

All of this adds up to one thing, I don't have a need to reboot anymore. I used to get forced into using Windows just for gaming, now I actually have a choice.

NB. On a side note, the catalogue for Linux isn't looking too bad either. I just checked my account and I have 310 games, of which 76 will run in Linux. Not too shabby anymore.

The influence of Kickstarter (largely due to Linux support for the popular game engine Unity) and Humble Bundle on the availability of games on Linux cannot be overstated. But even outside of Linux, it is wonderful to see how the indie gaming scene is blooming at the moment.

There was an editorial (which I can't seem to find now) on Rock Paper Shotgun, about how we're having the golden age of gaming right now, and it's very true - though we'll have to wait for many of these kickstarters (Torment and Wasteland, to name to two most well-known ones) to come to fruition.

It's also neat to see that they don't necessarily go the nostalgia route. The last one I've backed, Sunless Sea [1], is going to be a mix of different concepts (roguelike, exploration, survival, trade) along with a mechanism for madness, and is not a follow-up to anything in particular.

I'll toast the future of gaming, happening right now.

1: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/failbetter/sunless-sea/

I completely agree; the combo of Kickstarter, Unity and Humble Bundle has been a powerful force to demonstrate Linux gaming. Then add Steam in to help tie it all together in a convenient one stop shop and advertising platform and it really is looking great.

Thanks for pointing out Sunless Sea btw. I'm a big fan of FTL and this looks like a very interesting game in a similar vein.

It's probably worth mentioning that demand for Linux support on Kickstarter played a huge role in getting Unity ported over.

Ah, it's a kind of positive feedback loop, then. More of this, please.

> Thanks for pointing out Sunless Sea btw. I'm a big fan of FTL and this looks like a very interesting game in a similar vein.

You're welcome. You also get quality, funny, atmospheric writing for the same price.

But thinking about it, it would be interesting to have informal statistics about what kind of game gets funded on Kickstarter. I've seen adventure games, roleplaying games, one Diablo-like, a roguelike or two, and plenty of strategy/tactics games (marking a strong comeback of turn-by-turn play). On the other hand, there seems to be a dearth of manshooters/interactive torture games (apart from a tactical one I read about not so long ago) - either because the public is already well served by Medal of Duty XXIX or due to budget constraints. On average, the emphasis seems to be more on "thinking" games than clicky-clicky.

Were interactive torture games ever a thing?

I'm told you can punch people with broken glass in their mouth to make them talk in Black Ops.

It is interesting, because I am a long time hardcore unix guy, and I have the exact opposite feeling. I don't think linux offers any advantage over windows for a desktop/gaming environment any more. Back when we had to deal with the instability of windows 98, having games work on linux was a fantasy. But now, between the increased stability that came with moving to NT for windows, and the decreased stability that came with all the crap that comes with gaming on linux, I don't see the benefit. That combined with linux moving so far away from unix, and so much closer to the bloated complexity of windows, just makes it seem pointless.

Thanks for the contrarian perspective. Sure, there's the pain of dealing with drivers and settings and tweaks with Windows, even with Win7, but it's certainly not any worse than getting Linux to work.

I don't mean to nitpick, but that is one thing I don't find to be true. Comparing W7 install to Linux Mint, Mint won by landslide on my laptop. Disregarding the horrorshow of a partition layout from the manufacturer that I had to fix, the mint install was much, much faster and easier, with full support from the get-go. The drivers thing really is an important point, and even when my Windows install was fully completed, the fact I had to cope with the horrible ASUS shell to use keyboard functions has caused me to not even boot W7 for months.

I use arch on my other machines, and naturally that is a whole other story I wouldn't even dare tell a less tech-savvy person.

Good point. I hadn't really thought about it from the point of view of relative advantage of platform. More just my own personal desire to game where I work I guess!

Having said that, I do still find Linux to be a much more stable and high performance platform. One of the reasons I dread dual-booting is that it takes about 5-10 minutes after booting for my Windows installation to be properly responsive to commands. I know I can re-format, but I don't feel I should have to. I've been running the same Arch install for longer than I have Win 7 and haven't had to resort to massively drastic tactics like that yet.

I guess it all comes down to lowering the barriers to entry. Ultimately the mass-market will use what is installed on their computer when they buy it. This gives the major manufacturers one more reason to try the Linux experiment and cut the Windows license costs. It's a pretty good reason too. Gaming was one of the very few things that couldn't be fixed easily through some other means like Wine or VMs.

In my experience, Linux definitely has the advantage. Once I remembered to close my 5 workspaces and sorted out my graphics drivers (problems that won't affect a console-like system), Team Fortress 2 felt buttery smooth.

If I want to switch playlists while gaming on Windows, I have to hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, click Task Manager, then click the web browser in the task bar on the bottom. Linux Mint with Cinnamon snaps me right there with an Alt-Tab.

Currently I can't play Steam on Linux because I'm stuck with with the OSS Radeon driver, which works fine for a desktop but doesn't have the performance for TF2. Whereas the ATI driver would, except it doesn't support compositing and DRI so I can't use my desktop with it.

I want gaming on Linux if only because it would light a fire under the manufacturers to fix their god damn drivers.

A non mandatory app store is the real thing that has pushed Valve and a real consideration here.

> I don't think linux offers any advantage over windows

It's free in beer, and free as in speech. The developer experience is much better on Linux; doing something like running all your video assets through a converter in parallel is a one-line shell script on Linux [1], but a hundred-line Python script on Windows. Subjectively, on Linux filesystems seem to be faster and overall memory usage seems to be smaller.

Seriously, a long time hardcore unix guy doesn't see the benefits of Linux over Windows?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6363676

>Seriously, a long time hardcore unix guy doesn't see the benefits of Linux over Windows?

Nope. Linux barely even resembles unix at this point, as I mentioned. That one line shell script is also a one line shell script on windows, install cygwin or learn powershell. I find the developer experience on linux to be terrible, I do my development on openbsd running in virtualbox regardless of whether I am running windows or linux.

> and when I weigh up the decision between rebooting to Windows to play something, or just stay in Linux and play one of those. I always stay.

I can relate to that. I also play on Windows with a dual-boot install, and since Steam came out on Linux I just boot up Windows way less for gaming. I end up playing much more the titles which are available on Linux rather than wanting to reboot to play other games.

In a sense, this proves one thing: convenience wins, again. And that's definitely a great sign for Steam, since many Linux users are probably feeling the same way we do.

In a sense, this proves one thing: convenience wins, again. And that's definitely a great sign for Steam, since many Linux users are probably feeling the same way we do.

If convenience wins, doesn't that mean the vast majority of people will just stick with Windows for gaming?

People stick to windows for gaming. Its already the case. The point is to make linux users stick to linux even when they want to have fun.

One thing that actually concerns me is how satisfied I am with a few kickstarter games and humble bundles...

I mean Guns of Icarus is no AAA, but it's pretty fun. So is Awesomenauts (I wish it would allow local 2v2 splitscreen!). Not to mention my backlog of fairly fun timewasters. And upcoming Project Eternity and Torment games. I'm seriously pretty much set for games. And at this point odds are if AAA games came to Linux, I'd probably just skip them and wait for the next interesting Kickstarter or Humble Bundle.

If other people are like me (Linux or not, I suppose) the AAA game could be dead in short order.

Newell has the ulterior motive of killing Microsoft's app store, which he clearly sees as a direct threat to Steam. If it takes off, indeed it will be! I remain unconvinced that Linux has passed the tipping point and is on it's way to becoming the home entertainment OS of the future though. I use it on my work laptop and love it, but Win8 runs my HTPC.

1. A home entertainment box does more than play games these days. Windows is still the only OS with acceptable bluray support. OSX is as out in the cold as Linux on this score even though Apple is a member of the bluray consortium! Some may be tempted to scoff at physical media, but it's still alive and well, especially with the audio/video-phile crowd.

2. If games have to be rewritten to operate on Linux, most existing games never will. Most games, once their sales have ceased bringing in cash, are abandoned and never updated again. Legacy gaming support is important. A lot of people have beloved games that are years or decades old that they still occasionally play. If switching to Linux means they have to abandon those, they won't.

If Newell is serious about his Steam boxes succeeding, he needs to support work that will let older games run on Linux without modification and he needs to support development of a bluray support package for Linux, plus any future formats. No open source software will ever legally support bluray. I like open source and I'm sure some fanatics will be tempted to blast me for calling for more closed-source software on Linux, but that's precisely what Newell is doing. He's bringing closed source, non-free software to Linux. If you want to see Steam on Linux succeed, you're demanding something free, open-source software has yet to deliver.

I'd hate to tell you that you're in a bit of a minority buying bluray and using bluray medium. The future isn't physical disks that you lose.

Linux runs my media pc and my media server. Valve have already accomplished full platform support for most of their games, Humble indie bundles require full platform support for their games. Linux versions of most games, isn't some far away dream, it's here.

I'm not sure I fully comprehend your linux 'open-source' only argument. Have you seen ubuntu?

Like the OP says, for people serious about audio and video quality, they will buy Blu-ray (or whatever physical media replaces it) for a long time to come. The bandwidth simply isn't there otherwise.

That said, I agree with you that the future is not with physical media - that's very obviously the case. But the future isn't here yet.

> Linux versions of most games, isn't some far away dream, it's here.

That's absurd. There are no AAA titles available on Linux. Newell's prediction might seem more realistic if Ubisoft, Rockstar, etc. jump on board. Maybe it will happen if a viable Linux-based console came around.

> There are no AAA titles available on Linux.

Other than the Valve games Linux will soon get Metro: Last Light and Football Manager 2014. Almost no AAA games so far, but it is to be expected that AAA producers are generally slower and more conservative.

Not to mention that AAA games take 2-3 years to produce, whereas Steam Linux has been out for only 6 months. There's a lot of inertia to overcome.

Exactly. You cannot expect AAA games to come anytime soon on Linux.

AAA games can be ported from Windows to Linux in a matter of days if they already work well in Wine. When they don't, extending Wine to make them work is vastly cheaper than you probably think.

Running in Wine is not porting. It is using a intermediate layer. Porting means native code.

Wine absolutely can be a porting tool; Codeweavers offers porting services using this exact technology: http://www.codeweavers.com/services/

From a technical standpoint, Wine is extended to make the game work, that version of Wine is bundled with the application, and a script is included to run it without further user involvement.

I don't get why people still insist this sort of port somehow doesn't count. If it runs at full speed, shows up as a "Linux game" under Steam, and the user literally can't tell the difference, what does it matter?

Limbo did that and its performance was awful. No thank you.

Why does it matter if that compatibility layer sits in a system-wide library or in application code (as anyone would add if writing a program to target multiple kinds of system)? Wine is not an emulator, it's a free re-implementation of the windows API that runs on Linux.

Using WINE is not porting, it does not run natively, and this is not what Valve recommends to do.

It does run natively. You don't think it runs in an emulator, do you?

You lose a lot of raw performance with wine. Left 4dead ran on wine at probably half the framerate of the windows version. No thank you.

Let's not forget Wargame: European Escalation, which is far from being an indie game. Probably close to a AAA category.

Serious Sam 3 is another game which is not exactly AAA but very close to it.

I would say the Wargame franchise also counts as AAA. Other than that, you are correct :)

People serious about audio and video quality dont run stuff from their all in one pc based player. They have dedicated, high quality bluray player and cd players. And like someone mentioned bluray is not going anywhere for the masses. Too expensive, not practical, in the end convenience trumps all.

I thought bluray was already abandoned. I never see blurays for sell in display ends anymore, Walmart has basically been forced to refocus on third-world-style living in suburban USA.

In Europe they are everywhere.

I still use DVD and am starting to have problems, because the new titles at our library are mostly Blueray.

Where are you? They're as available as DVDs at most big-box, media, and electronics retailers in urban and suburban locations across the midwestern US, at least. Wal-Mart, sure, but also Target, Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, Fry's, most independent stores that sell, resell, or rent movies, and Red Box rental kiosks. They're also available from chain drug stores like Walgreens and CVS. Smaller and rural locations tend to have smaller selections, but that's true of most any product type.

Honestly, the only retailers that come immediately to mind selling DVD but not Blu-ray are gas stations and truck stops.

I'd say the bandwidth is easily there for Blu-Ray. I can download a 40-80gb file on BitTorrent pretty easily if its well-seeded. What I can't do is legally buy a Blu-Ray, and have it downloaded at Blu-Ray quality to me from any vendor.

Which is absurd because the first thing I do with all my Blu-Rays is rip them losslessly to MKV files on my server.

easily? Maybe in some really well-off parts of the world. Blu-Ray bandwidth is between 20-30mbps, and where I live you can't get anything higher than 10mbps, and even that is lucky,the highest option most people can get is 4-6mbps. I purchase all of my films on BluRays - the quality is there, the media is forever mine and not bound to any subscription, I mean I am pretty sure we will get there eventually,but until you can get 100mbps fibre connection to everywhere it's impossible to phase out physical media.

Would it plummet if your neighbours did the same?

Where I am its popular for whole villages to decide to lay fibre and they set up little trusts to do just that and they even get grants from the government. And they have really great speeds, but at some point their bundle of fibres meets a switch.

>Maybe it will happen if a viable Linux-based console came around.

Eh, isn't that what Valve's Steambox is: a Linux based console?

I watched a bluray movie last night for the first time and I was shocked. I was so surprised how much higher the definition was vs streamed "hd" content.

I can also definitely detect a significant distinction, but it doesn't feel more "real" to me -- in fact, I experience it as falling into a kind of uncanny valley between video-realistic and near-realistic. Don't much care for it.

Perhaps you watched it on a system with the horrible, high-framerate interpolation switched on? Not everyone is sensitive to 24fps (traditional film) vs. 30fps (looks like Handicam output) and the effects of TV/processor motion enhancement.

A lot of HDTVs have motion interpolation, colour enhancement, and noise reduction; all of which absolutely ruin movies.

I suggest turning these off(In my case, all of them were on by default, and some of them needed to be manually toggled on every start for a month before it magically decided to default correctly).

This is because traditional film cameras had horrible images compared to what your eye can see. This resulted in various techniques such as movie make up and bright lighting.

Now that the camera is much better, all of those compensation techniques are now making the image look fake. The lighting is too bright, the makeup too heavy.

I'm not convinced that's the whole story. Even old movies converted to digital fall into the uncanny valley. Try watching bluray Godfather for example. Looks staged.

You might want to check the settings on your Blu-ray playback system, because the Godfather Blu-ray is one of the more "filmic" transfers I've seen, preserving the grain of the film print rather than attempting to "clean it up" with digital noise reduction, and it should play back at the original 24fps frame rate on any system that supports it.

> The future isn't physical disks that you lose.

No, it's a Netflix subscription, so when they drop your kids' favourite shows you have fun explaining corporate politics as the reason they can't watch Bob the Builder any more.

> Linux versions of most games, isn't some far away dream, it's here.

Very little of my Steam library is available with Linux versions. Almost none, in fact. This would be the norm for most people, unless you're limiting yourself to games that run on Linux in the first place.

> Very little of my Steam library is available with Linux versions. Almost none, in fact

That probably means you don't play any Indie games. Not sure who is the norm here. Indie Games have been booming in digital distribution, in case you did not notice.

Yes, and I love me some indie games, but I'm pretty sure each version of Call of Duty will sell more copies than most (if not all) indie games combined on Steam.

I buy indie games that I already own to support the developers (some of which I know personally), heck, I just bought the Humble Bundle even though only of the games there I didn't have, but Medal of Honor/Call of Duty/Skyrim/Bioshock/GTA are the games most of the players want, not Frozen Synapse or Hotline Miami.

You seem to be making the assumption that you'll never see a Call of Duty game on Linux. It wouldn't be the first AAA FPS title to come out for the platform (UT, Quake, etc), and if Valve's console thing sells well enough, they could entice them onto Linux.

I remember that the Windows version of Call of Duty 1 worked perfectly on Linux using WINE.

But you will have a chicken and egg problem. If the steam box sells well, they will port, but except for some early adopters, they won't buy it until the games are ported.

I hope we see more games ported, but having worked in the industry for many years, going the extra lengths to support yet another OS which will most likely be just a small beep in the sales numbers isn't going to happen anytime soon. Heck, look at the franchises that started on the PC (CoD for example) and how the developers still focus more on the console versions then the PC ones.

I have. I play some of them (e.g. Limbo, which is great). I also want to play the Saints Row and Risen series, too.

Unfortunately, the games market as a whole leans more towards the big series, which are much less likely to be cross-platform beyond "several consoles and maybe a PC port."

> No, it's a Netflix subscription, so when they drop your kids' favourite shows you have fun explaining corporate politics as the reason they can't watch Bob the Builder any more.

Mate, the 'future' you're suggesting here and the related straw man argument is one of your choosing. Netflix or some known current company isn't a future to a medium. I'll assume you're suggesting online streaming as a service as opposed to other potential digital medium schemes. Physical disks provide no advantages in this scenario either, what happens when (not if) this favourite disk becomes scratched and unreadable?

> Very little of my Steam library is available with Linux versions.

Very few of mine don't have Linux versions. This might not be the norm for most people of course, because it's linux that is gaining in the field of gaming platforms over windows. Sure, I can't play the same amount of AAA games as if I ran windows. With the Half-Life engine now running on Linux and many indie games having ports, I don't _need_ to run windows to game.

I'd love to throw in some data, but alas many a site related to numbers are classified as 'games' and blocked on this connection.

>what happens when (not if) this favourite disk becomes scratched and unreadable?

Wow, really? I have you know I still own DVDs from 1997! and they work just fine so you might want to dial down the "when not if" argument.

On the flipside, I do have some trouble finding streaming sites that offer their services for that long. Not to mention the fact that these services have recurring payments to use. So excuse me if I and many many others opt to buy our media to own and to be in control of it rather than trusting some company with offering it for god know how little time.

And here is the real kicker: If you own a disk, you have ways to digitize it yourself if you can't be arsed to put a disk in the drive. So it seems to me that I have the better end of the deal compared to someone who just streams everything. Not to mention the fact that not everybody has internet connections that lend itself to stream blu ray quality.

>Wow, really? I have you know I still own DVDs from 1997! and they work just fine

I have you know I still own a horse-drawn cart, and the wheels work just fine!

It really is more of a "Where we are going, we wont need wheels" situation. Sure there are some edge cases for physical media today, but they will slowly fade.

> Mate, the 'future' you're suggesting here and the related straw man argument is one of your choosing.

It's a thing that actually happened. I'm sorry facts don't accord with the world in your head, but there you are.

> Very few of mine don't have Linux versions. This might not be the norm for most people of course, because it's linux that is gaining in the field of gaming platforms over windows.

"You shouldn't want to do that" is rarely a compelling argument to customers.

> It's a thing that actually happened.

Just like HD-DVD is the future? Netflix cannot obviously in the point in time be a future for most citizens on the internet. You may be screaming in an echo chamber if you're located in the US. Netflix certainly isn't a solution elsewhere.

>No, it's a Netflix subscription, so when they drop your kids' favourite shows you have fun explaining corporate politics as the reason they can't watch Bob the Builder any more.

I suppose this is as good a time to ask as any... Why has UltraViolet not taken off, in anyone's reasonable estimation?

Seems smart to me. I buy a UV film, everyone recognizes my purchase. I buy a film once. I own it. Do I have this wrong? I only own a few, mostly with other purchases, but it seems smart to me, and easy.

You don't own it. You have a lease until they shut down the ultraviolet service. You've giving control of all rights to the operator of the service. If they don't want you to have subtitles in your language then you don't get them.

It give up so many freedoms I can't wish for ultraviolet to die more.

I guess UV doesn't offer enough lock-in to its partners. These days if you can't build a Thiel-style "monopoly" you might as well not even bother.

why would a digital distribution platform care about a blu-ray drive. None of the games on the platform will ever be sold on physical media.

Anybody who cares about blu-ray players will already have one anyway. They could also pick one up for very very cheap.

Considering the paucity of games written for OS X I think its a stretch to see any number of games running on Linux. Even on OS X far too many are ports or wine type encapsulation and the OS X base does tend to spend more than what is normally attributed to Linux users.

On Steam now, there are 289 Linux capable games, versus 809 for OS X, and thousands more for Windows. So they have a lot of ground to make up

To be fair, steam for linux has been out for about 6 months. Steam for OSX more like 3 years. That's some pretty significant progress in that time.

Yeah, support for Indie titles has been very impressive so far. Besides, Newell said "Linux Gaming is the Future", i.e. it's not there yet.

But if they indeed launch a "Steambox" with dedicated Linux support, that's a whole new story in terms of user base and market expansion.

IMO Linux stands a more reasonable chance of being a successful gaming platform than OS X because you can actually get a decent GPU for your Linux PC.

OS X also still have large problems with graphics drivers while on Linux the drivers have gotten way better the last couple of years.

When looking at the tech support forum for Europa Universalis 4 I noticed Mac users had much more performance problems than either Windows or Linux users.

The difference here is that Valve is strongly pushing for Linux, and helping out developers to follow their path. That did not happen with OSX. And they know that serious gamers are not OSX users. The people who play the most are on Windows currently, and even if they convince 1% of Windows users to switch to Linux at some point, it will make a significant impact on the Linux gaming market.

There is nothing wrong with "Wine type encapsulation" ports, especially when we're talking about full screen games that don't need to interact with any sort of desktop metaphor. If it works, the user just doesn't care (or even notice!)

I think they mean Linux will be successful in the gaming space in the same fashion it succeeded in the mobile space. The Steam Box will run Linux, no user will ever know about it, and it will leverage the openness of the OS, coupled with the already existing Steam user base to lure developers.

I think this is a game changer for the console game development industry, and for the console market. In the end, however, it'll be a lot like Android: quiet success.

>Windows is still the only OS with acceptable bluray support.

That's like say that Windows is still the only OS which supports Minidisk, PS/2 and 5 1/2 flopies.

It hardly matters going forward, and it probably does it more harm than good.

The problem is that it might matter for HTPC consumers now, which could hinder the potential later of consumer Linux HTPCs.

Who cares! It's about selling a console. I care about having a BluRay player yet I still bought ax Xbox 360 back in the days. That did not prevent any purchase at all.

> Windows is still the only OS which supports Minidisk, PS/2 and 5 1/2 flopies

Liar! ;-) I use a PS/2 keyboard on one of my Linux boxes. Works flawlessly. Linux also supports Jaz and Zip disks/

A bigger problem for using your linux machine as a media PC than bluray is the lack of Netflix. You can make it work with wine and some patches, but it's a non-trivial amount of work and/or disruptive to your normal wine install.

Try netflix-desktop. It's a package available for Ubuntu and Arch (probably more, but those I know of). One click install of everything you need for Netflix, without messing with your current Wine install. Worked for me!

When last I looked at it, it actually can't be installed alongside the official wine package from the ubuntu PPA. I'm sure it's possible to do it manually and have it alongside, but that's a fair amount of work.

Until the patches are all in upstream it's basically an alpha capability. And having to use wine at all for it makes it second-class compared to using a normal windows install.

Even better is pipelight: http://fds-team.de/cms/articles/2013-08/pipelight-using-silv...

> lack of Netflix

Why does Netflix matter? I've never jumped on that bandwagon and I don't miss it. I watch one or two movies a year, and the free, legal content available on Hulu / Crunchyroll / Youtube / over-the-air TV is more than I can possibly consume!

And besides, can't you just ask Netflix to mail you a physical DVD if your OS isn't compatible with their streaming service? Or did they finally shut down / spin off that service like they wanted to a few years ago?

Or you could reboot to Windows...I'm assuming your PC came pre-installed with it, and these days Ubuntu is pretty good at preserving your bootloader provided you don't tell it to format your disk when you install.

> I've never jumped on that bandwagon and I don't miss it.

That's... lovely. I'm not sure what it has to do with the price of rice in china, though. You don't miss something you've never had? That kind of goes without saying.

I watch considerably more than one or two movies a year, and netflix is a great way to watch them on a casual basis. I don't want to get CDs in the mail and I don't really have any interest in dual booting to windows (and no, most of my PCs don't come preinstalled with anything).

I'm really not even sure what the point of your post is, except to say that I should inconvenience myself greatly for no really good reason.

I find so much wrong here. For one you really don't seem familiar with Wine, which despite being run by a ragtag group of developers already has brought legacy support for most Windows games on Linux.

The bluray argument is largely moot. Valve and the game industry at large could care less about it, with consoles as the exception. Gabe and his team only have to present a console with an advantage over existing consoles (modular build is a huge deal) with a distro that is stable. With the impressive bases already in existence, and OpenGL being a fullfledged match for Direct X it's a no-brainer that Valve has what it takes to pull this off.

Lastly I'd like to point out the Linux community is not uniformly against closed source. What makes our veins pop is stuff like hardware OEMs not releasing driver sources, making development and innovation a pain. Who cares if a game is closed source?

Most interesting about Wine (to me) is its use as a pre-packaged porting mechanism; I've seen a few indie games whose "Linux port" is just the Windows binary and a wrapper script that opens that binary with Wine and the correct DLLs.

I think you're right about Wine. For games Circa 2003 and earlier I often have much better luck with Wine than I do on a modern Windows install if I'm using original media.

Not to mention that every game I've ever gotten from GoG has worked pretty smoothly (IE close to effortlessly) with Wine. I've only run into trouble with stuff like installing 3rd party infinity engine mods.

I think in some ways Linux is a better platform than Windows for retroclassic games.

Older game compatibility might not be so much of an issue in itself. You have the same thing with Windows to a degree, plenty of DOS / Win95 era titles are not directly compatible with newer versions. Same with older consoles.

What tends to happen is either there is a re-release to cash in on a previously successful game or compatibility tools (WINE/DOSBOX) become good enough over time.

The biggest hurdle is the lack of a killer reason to run a Linux gaming system over a Windows system or a console. AFAIK there is no big title in the works that will be in any way a Linux exclusive.

Here the open nature of Linux actually works against it to a degree, since the underlying stack is open source, dependencies can be (and are) ported to other platforms with less technical and legal issues then proprietary systems like DirectX.

Its not going to be an hurdle but a great opportunity to see many players come up with their own steambox. You basically end up with an open console anyone can make.

1. Can I develop an open source blu ray player with full aacs support and put it on my website without getting sued?

Depends. Do you live in Europe?

Your point about legacy support is moot. When people buy a new console they really dont care about running games from the previous generation. When sony stopped offering backward ps2 compatibility for the ps3 it did not stall their sales. For the xbox360 most of the xbox1 games were never made compatible with it. You are just talking about a vey small and vocal minority.

Bluray players are already at sub $100 prices. For people who want blurays, they can get the player. If they start becoming an issue, I bet valve can get blu-ray onto linux if they wanted.

ha! blu ray support? who cares about blu ray support?

it's a snore-fest vs. dvds: http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/wp-content/uploads...

whereas streaming passed purchased dvds... last year: http://www.screendigest.com/reports/2012222a/2012_03_online_...

and win8 runs your htpc? nice. other than you, i know no one who even has an htpc anymore (occasionally hooking their laptop to the tv doesn't count) and most of them (my non-geek friends) don't even know what that is.

everyone and their dog has a roku/apple tv/xbox/smart tv tho.

m3mnoch.

I'm not sure how you have such an old account and have never read the HN guidelines, but please don't sign your posts.

prolly because i am not afraid of being hellbanned or whatever hacker news calls it these days. been there before. remind me to tell you about the time i was banned from the quarter-to-three forums sometime.

or maybe i'm more of an austin-game-guy rather than a bay-area-groupthink guy?

or maybe it's because i've only recently bothered to comment? in fact, i think this one may push me over into a double-digit comment count!

shrug

most likely, tho, it's because i've been commenting like that forever and a day (in internet time). a quick google search nets me this example from about 8 years ago: http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/839/something-awful-3...

thanks for pointing it out tho. i'll try to remember going forward that, unlike the rest of the internet, there's a pretentious law here not to sign your posts.

                     <-- look!  no sig!

"everyone and their dog has a roku/apple tv/xbox/smart tv tho." - why do you assume that everyone lives in the US? You do know that most people in the world do NOT have access to those services,right? In my country there is not a single streaming provider, so I buy all of my films on BluRay. Who cares about a market chart? Nowadays I would not even consider buying a DVD film,and streaming is not an option. And all 40 million of other people in my country are in the same situation - no one cares about roku/apple tv/xbox tv/netflix/lovefilm because they simply don't work here. And pretty much in any country to the East and South of German boarders. And don't tell me that's insignificant.

Not to mention not everybody has "Google Fiber" or similar to be able to actually stream something in blu ray quality even if the services were available.

Try to make do with a 3MBit/s connection. Then, people might see that their beloved streaming will not surpass physical media until these kinds of connections are a thing of the past or only exist in the rural-est places of the world.

sorry to hear your country doesn't have solid support for those streaming providers. that sucks.

my country, however, does. as do all (well, most) of my friends' countries. that would be why i used "i know no one" as the qualifier for my comment. shrug

basically, i answered his anecdote with my own. (oh, the delicious irony!) sorry again if you missed the connotation there.

> Who cares about a market chart?

only people who value data over anecdote it appears.

What are blu-rays like for the rising 4K/UHD resolution? If that takes off, could we be looking at new format requirements? Higher bandwidth? Higher capacity? What about 3D? What about beyond that, holographic?

I don't know. This is all speculation, but I would grant Gabe the benefit of the doubt here. Over the next.. 5+ years, who knows what the entertainment world might be like?

Sorry, legacy gaming support comes in the form of emulation, not physical media drivers. See every past device/format/drm locked gaming system.

> Newell has the ulterior motive of killing Microsoft's app store, which he clearly sees as a direct threat to Steam.

I honestly think that's all there is to this, because otherwise how is Windows 8 any more or less open than Windows 7?

I think it's not Windows 8 in particular that made Valve nervous, but it was probably the wake-up call.

The industry as a whole is moving into walled gardens right now, following Apple's lead. I'm very worried about that myself, so I'm cheering Valve on here.

It's true, having open platforms aligns with Valve's business goals. I fail to see the problem with that, it's a lucky coincidence.

Steam is every bit as walled a walled garden as any other.

Valve wants to build it on top of am open platform (Linux) because building a walled garden inside someone else's (MS's) walled garden is risky. But that doesn't make steam itself an open platform.

Yup, that's true. Currently they're blowing the open platform horn (for their Steam Box as well), but Steam itself is by no means open.

At some point, open platforms might no longer align with their business goals. That's when they'll do nasty stuff, and that's when I'll whine about them. Currently, I'm cheering them on.

There is pretty much nothing you can't do to a game you bought on steam. You can copy and modify all the files you download - in fact Valve strongly encourages doing so! You can even play on multiple machines at once over a LAN by turning off the steam client's ability to phone home.

Steam is a more like a walled national park - the walls are there, but they give you a lot more room to run around.

Not to forget, game sharing with up to 10 friends/devices is coming.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24063613

I have no trouble playing BluRays on GNU/Linux. Not that I'd bother; BluRay drives are an extra expense, and are fragile as far as media go.

Much of the content I consume also requires software patching to watch comfortably anyway(anime for instance is often only ever released in Japan without English subtitles. Even if I could afford the discs, I wouldn't be able to consume the material comfortably until I've studied Japanese for a couple more years).

I run Steam under Wine for Skyrim on a reasonably priced system with a decent, but not great Nvidia graphics card. I use steam for most of the other games and buy stuff from humble bundle.

Currently I use a mish-mash of Apple TV and an older Sony box (which is actually pretty decent compared to apple except for itunes support) for the home theater, but I fully expect my future tv to actually have a netflix and what have you player on them. Gabe would do well to actually announce a tv that runs Steam, as the future probably is less and less a separate box.

Edit: Oops, forgot, I also have 100 Mbit ethernet, Bluray isn't in my future by a longshot. I expect more people will be on this plan soon.

Legacy support of old games on PC is overstated, at best. I still can't get Oni to work, even after installing guerilla patches.

Have you tried asking around on http://oni.bungie.org/community/forum/index.php ? I have been able to get Oni running on Windows 7 in the past (although IIRC only the modded EXE ran)

> 2. If games have to be rewritten to operate on Linux, most existing games never will. Most games, once their sales have ceased bringing in cash, are abandoned and never updated again. Legacy gaming support is important. A lot of people have beloved games that are years or decades old that they still occasionally play. If switching to Linux means they have to abandon those, they won't.

I don't see the majority of players care about old games. I certainly do, and so does a non-trivial amount of people, but it's not really anyone's focus I think.

New Windows versions make (edit: in my experience) most old games unplayable, I've had much more success getting Windows 98/XP games running on Wine than on Windows 7, to my surprise (Baldur's Gate is a recent example).

If there's a market for legacy games, someone will step up and port them to or emulate them on modern operating systems. It's already happening, both commercial (gog.com etc.) and non-commercial (console emulators, DOSBox, Wine, ...)

> New Windows versions make most old games unplayable

That is simply not true, the vast majority of games work fine, and most of those that don't only need you to fiddle with the "compatibility" settings.

As for the reason why "old" games are important, it's because they offer a back-catalog, you open your store with a very large selection. Not so much the 10-15 years old, but rather the 2-5 years old games.

> That is simply not true, the vast majority of games work fine, and most of those that don't only need you to fiddle with the "compatibility" settings.

I realise that's just my experience, added a remark above. I've had very little luck getting even stuff that works fine on XP to run on 7. I'm not blaming Microsoft, I know they're going to great lengths for backwards compatibility. But I don't see old games running on new systems as a given, not on Windows, not on any other platform/OS.

> As for the reason why "old" games are important, it's because they offer a back-catalog, you open your store with a very large selection. Not so much the 10-15 years old, but rather the 2-5 years old games.

Maybe I'm old, but 2-5 years old games aren't "old" at all in my book. I'm thinking about >10 year old stuff. Don't recall any trouble getting <5 year old games running on 7, indeed.

In the cases where I got old games to play in windows 7 when they were having problems it had a lot to do with running them as administrator. Which is a shame, as I bet many of the multiplayer games are riddled with security exploits.

the plural of anecdote is not data - some games work, some games don't. i've had both successes and failures with older games.

> the plural of anecdote is not data

Yes it is. Biased, self selected, very hard to exploit. But it's still data. If you know the biases and counter them (for instance by asking people directly), you could even gather something useful.

> If you know the biases..

indeed.

> for instance by asking people directly..

a terrible way of accounting for bias. people are often unaware of the bias they impart on what they say.

Of course. Selective memory would still be a problem, for instance. But you would get rid of self selection. Though if you just ask your friends, you will have another kind of selection bias…

It's a shame gog.com have stated that they don't plan on supporting Linux anytime soon. The main reason being that they won't be able to provide reasonable support for multiple distros and distro versions. Why they can't just officially support Ubuntu like Steam does defies me...

A partnership between gog.com and valve could really, really be something special here.

It'd be nice, but I think gog.com is too anti-drm for this to happen. Not a bad thing I don't think.

I think most people are missing the point. It is not about replacing your main OS or PC it is about having platform independence. The same reason why Google bought/started Android applies here; protecting/getting the means to sell your services. The Steam Box is going to be an open h/w and s/w platform. If you would like to integrate Steam in your TV? please by all means! You would like to sell your own Steam Box? How may we help?

People that are going to buy a steam box are people that would otherwise buy a ps/4 and/or a XBOX one. Nobody cares that the PS/4 is running BSD nobody is going to buy a PS4 because it runs BSD. Microsoft failed to understand this as well, "we have three OS's running on the X1", yeah that will sell a game system like cupcakes. Almost nobody is going to buy a game/entertainment system based on the OS. It boils down to cost, marketing, what your friends are getting, launch games and exclusives.

If the steam box is going to have similar h/w and price point as the PS4 and X1 and a couple of cool new games like HL3, it will have more games at launch than the PS4 and X1 combined (and as an extra bonus you can play your games on a PC running Windows or Linux). You want to play HL3 on a console? buy a Steam Box.

As for bu-ray support, if it turns out to be a main point of consideration they could make a player that support it. But looking at the PS3 vs X360 it wasn't a main seller for most people.

TL;DR it is not so much about all desktops running Linux but most of everything else

This is a great point and should be modded up. Lots of people use the android-based 'smart tv' functionality in newer TVs. If the TV can have a steam box built into it, I suspect it would see a LOT of use, no matter if the game selection is not 100%.

And of course since Android is Linux, combining the two would seem feasible...

1. A home entertainment box does more than play games these days. Windows is still the only OS with acceptable bluray support.

I had a PS3 for years and I think I watched a bluray one or two times. The rest of my full-HD media experience was powered by the internet. Nobody building anything for the future should care about physical, DRM-encumbered formats. Those are clearly the past and will be gone sooner or later.

Using Linux in this regard seems like a good solution. Windows will tax you to hell and back for the privilege of rebooting your hardware all the time to apply software updates, while Linux is free and doesn't require such user-hostile nonsense.

Nothing (of value) is lost and the solution is future-proofed by not walking into licensing-traps.

Disk media is a dying thing (even though DVDs remain the only normal media with easily removable DRM). Video is going to shift to purely digital distribution. Blurays are obsolete. Many people don't even have drives to read them and see no point to buy them. DRM lobby constantly tried to slow down innovation, and the technology stepped over them.

You're comparing apples with oranges.

Valve will position their steambox to compete with consoles, which have the same issues with backwards compatibility which you mention.

Physical media will matter less and less in the future.

My HTPC is a raspberry pi running a variation of debian and XBMC. I also have a chromecast for watching netflix and youtube.

I currently do not have a gaming PC and would be massively interested in a steambox when they're released.

Bluray support was problematic in the past, but in 2013, on Ubuntu: 1. Install http://www.makemkv.com/. 2. Insert Blu-Ray disc. 3. Click copy.

Now it's ripped, you can play it through any decent media player - mplayer2, mplayer, VLC, etc. etc.

'"When we talk to developers and say, 'if you can pick one thing for Valve to work on the tools side to make Linux a better development target,' they always say we should build a debugger," he said.'

Yes, please. That would be awesome.

Yeah, gdb really really sucks. I was yet again reminded of this today when trying to debug some multithreaded qemu code.

I use gdb to debug qemu as well - have you tried using qtcreator as a gdb frontend? It is actually fairly decent. There is always room for improvement, of course, and it is far from perfect - so a new debugger would always be welcome. But it is about the best front end for gdb I've used, although I used to be pretty partial to Insight as well for embedded work.

Is there really a problem with gdb apart from IDE integration?

I am using gdb sometimes and it is just fine. Especially with the Python scripting support now. I used the Eclipse CDT gdb wrapper once and that, I agree, really sucks.

> Especially with the Python scripting support now.

Yes. A thousand times yes.

> I used the Eclipse CDT gdb wrapper once and that, I agree, really sucks.

Just curious, how long ago was that? My opinion of Eclipse kind of ebbs and flows. I've used the GDB support a bunch for remote debugging of embedded systems (including, surprisingly, the Linux kernel).

In fairness, my gripe was always more with the IDE than its debugger support. CDT has always felt like the red-headed stepchild in comparison to Java support. The extra intelligence is nice, but it makes it so that you have to jump through lots of hoops to get it to be even remotely usable with a large codebase (again, the Linux kernel). Even on smaller codebases it can consume a buttload of memory and still be quite slow. But the debugger interface always seemed to "just work" for me.

Actually, as a debugger, GDB kicks ass. From a usability standpoint, however...

This probably isn't good advice, but I really like VIM/pyClewn as a GDB frontend. Otherwise, there's always Eclipse, and 8 billion other IDEs.

In the meantime, if you haven't already, you can look into edb (Evan's Debugger) to see if it fits you better. It's Qt4-based and it's modeled to resemble OllyDbg. It's not very actively maintained, however.

I've been hearing rumors that RAD Game Tools is working on a Linux debugger. I wouldn't be surprised if Valve and RAD are working on it together considering that the two companies have worked on past projects together.

One thing to maybe keep an eye on is https://github.com/emoon/ProDBG, by an actual AAA game developer.

While it's super cool that maybe I'll be able to run linux at home and still play games some time in the future, it's kind of sad that the only reason he cares is because he's worried about a MS app store potentially being a competitor to steam, and yet people are fervently praising him for it.

He doesn't really care about linux, he doesn't really think Windows is a bad platform for gaming, he just wants to try to crush a competitor. If he did care he would have done something years ago. Id has managed to release the vast majority of their games on linux, and it didn't take a potential fiscal threat to make them do it.

Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Be it altruistic or capitalist, Linux stands to benefit from the exposure and backing.

But you can't assume it is a gift. What does it matter if desktop Linux takes off on the backs of proprietary nonfree software? Not just proprietary apps on top of a free stack, but a proprietary distribution platform where most programs bought for it only run through it, where the controller can at whim close your account, and they vet and determine who they bless to use their platform earpiece? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

The vast majorty of current Linux titles are not on Linux because of Steam. Few titles (Crusader Kings comes to mind) actually ported their engine to run on opengl / posix / alsa or sdl just because Steam appeared there. Most of the last 2 years of Linux gaming boom has been due to Unity and the Humble Bundle. Unity was porting to Linux before Steam on Linux was announced, same with the Humble Bundle.

Having a platform is fine and everything, but here are two observations from seperate perspectives:

1. Why develop for a platform where you can only expect a few thousand sales, even on the de facto distribution platform that takes a cut of proceeds? 2. If there are no games on a platform, wouldn't you just want to release directly and let your potential customers come to you? If they are desperate, wouldn't cutting out the middle man be more profitable, since Steam isn't making Linux development easier, just marketing and sales processing? I think Steam is so important on the desktop PC because there are so many games on it. People don't go download Origin or seek out a developers site to buy a game, they just buy it on Steam. If you are on something like gnu/linux, you have no competition game-wise, you just have to make sure people know you exist. In almost any genre, you have minimum modern competition on the platform. So why give Valve whatever % they take?

Knowing that the game exists is 80% of the battle for indie devs.

I check Steam everyday looking for new Linux releases. I can't say the same for checking indie game blogs or wherever else I'm supposed to find the announcements of a Linux version. Even if I did, it's simple mathematics - do I check 30+ websites of various game publishers, news organisations and indie devs, or do I just check Steam?

They have a pretty powerful platform; I think the publicity benefits of being on Steam far outweigh the cut they take as a middleman.

What does it matter if desktop Linux takes off on the backs of proprietary nonfree software?

Meh. I'm old enough to remember how Serverside Linux took off in corporate environments: Oracle ported its database. That was seen as a sign of approval, and soon Linux was everywhere. It was pretty rare to actually be running Oracle, but that was the tipping point.

A rising tide raises all ships.

If there was ever a competitor that deserved to be crushed, it's Microsoft.

I'm all for this. If Microsoft wants to turn their OS into a consumer toy or a corporate tool, go ahead. I'd love to have an open-source OS that happened to be a first-class gaming platform as well, where if there's problems with performance, companies like Valve has a recourse: patch the OS.

Yea that would be outstanding. You need a custom kernel to play this game.

With <5 second boot times brought on by SSDs, switching kernels to boost performance could actually be a viable option.

Not "need", but if Valve wanted to submit patches, they could. Secondly, they could make their own distro for their own hardware which they are allegedly doing. Then they can do whatever they want with the kernel.

See also: Android.

I agree that he's certainly not doing this for the Linux community purely out of the kindness of his heart. But why should he? He's running a business and has to choose the profitable products to develop. Up until recently, Linux gaming has not had a huge amount of potential profit. It still might not for that matter.

If you watch his presentation however, he does talk about a lot more than just the fact that the Windows/Mac app stores are all trying to take a cut. One of the key points he makes is that the largest proportion of innovation in the gaming scene is happening/originating on PC. Digital distribution, social gaming, free-to-play, community generated content and markets, etc. All these were primarily instigated on the PC, but are potentially in danger from closed, captive marketplaces.

Are people going to generate new hats for Team Fortress (to pick a simple example), when the approval process for content in the various app stores could hold it up for weeks or months? If another innovation such as Social Gaming (farmville, etc.) were to come along, but all the platforms were locked down as to what features they can enable for the users; would it ever take off as a business model?

So yeah, he's certainly doing it out of self-interest for Valve, but it's about far more than just the monetary cut they take. It's about the freedom to develop new and innovative ideas on an open platform without worrying about whether they'll pass the inspection of some opaque 3rd party authority.

PS: It's quite ironic to complain about a person making good logical business decisions on a forum dedicated to startup companies, where the majority of people are trying their damndest to make their own businesses work...

I think the writing is already on the wall that the Microsoft App Store is no threat to Steam. The Android market, maybe.

You just have to remember how bad GFWL was, and look at how bad the current Microsoft App Store is, and you'll know there is no threat to Steam coming out of Microsoft. Even if Microsoft manages to get the right people on the ball, they are still years behind.

>he doesn't really think Windows is a bad platform for gaming

How can you know this? Right now, being a Windows desktop centric company is a huge liability as consoles and mobile are eating the gaming world. Yeah, PC gamers will always be here, but not in vast numbers.

>he just wants to try to crush a competitor

He also wants to contemporize and have his own OS. If the Steam linux-based console came out with tons of game support, it might be a no brainer for PC gamers sick of building expensive systems and dealing with Windows centric hassles (DRM, shoddy updates, OEM crapware, goofy UI decisions, etc). I'd buy it and retire my desktop. As long as the games were keyboard/mouse-centric and complex, not lazy PS3/4 transfers.

This comment is so broken. It begins by saying why Gabe has come to care about Linux (it is a solution to MS lock in). Then you say that he doesn't care about Linux.

Whether he's taken his sweet time coming around, he HAS come around. He now obviously cares about linux.

Some people like a sports team because of the way they play the game. Some like the same sports team because they're the local team. Others like them because of the color of their uniforms, or they find one of the players very attractive, or any number of reasons. Some started liking them only after they did well last season, others got team related tattoos 10 years ago.

They're all fans.

> It begins by saying why Gabe has come to care about Linux (it is a solution to MS lock in).

That's not why he cares, he cares because the MS App store is a threat to Steam lock in, and he wants his tasty 30%.

> Then you say that he doesn't care about Linux. / He now obviously cares about linux.

No he doesn't, he cares about being a pied piper leading people away from a potential loss of revenue for him. I know otherwise reasonable people who only buy games if they are on Steam, and who dump on Origin while simultaneously praising Steam. He wants to make sure that continues, and having Windows 8 centre around an app store that he doesn't make money from is upsetting to him.

There is not one thing that Windows 8 does that is "bad for gaming" from a consumer perspective compared to Windows 7, a platform he is fine with. Note that I have no intention of buying W8, but I have a distaste for BS, regardless of the source or the target.

> Some people like a sports team...

Sure, a rising tide raises all ships etc, I understand that. It's just disappointing it's coming, not from a love of what makes Linux great, but from a greedy app store owner who doesn't want another app store cramping his style.

I'm skeptical because Linux has been called the future of gaming for at least 15 years. During its heyday in the 1990s, id Software released a Linux port of every Quake game, and that still wasn't enough to cause a major shift in adoption, and that was at a time when PC users on average were more technically inclined.

I also can't help but note that Gabe only began this public crusade when Microsoft released an app store that competed with Valve's app store. So I'm interested to see what happens, but I'm skeptical.

Linux in the 1990s was still quite strictly a platform for power users and tinkerers. Nowadays the Linux distros that people are adopting strive to be user friendly enough for your parents and grandparents.

Yeah, I installed Ubuntu on my computer illiterate dad's computer and he prefers it to Windows 7. He says its faster and easier. He doesn't even know how to copy and paste.

Couldn't really say that 10 years ago.

I also can't help but note that Gabe only began this public crusade when Microsoft released an app store that competed with Valve's app store.

Well, of course. It's not hard to see the writing on the wall. Valve is looking for a platform where they can't be muscled out before they're muscled out of the one they're on. You can only compete with a vertical integrator for a long as they allow you compete. Doubly so with software platforms. If you look at the trajectory of Microsoft's platform control, there is zero reason Valve shouldn't be shitting their pants right now.

Well, Valve owns social gaming graph for every user. Until Microsoft creates seamless integration between Windows and Xbox and imports xbox graph, Valve has pretty powerful network effect on its side.

they've already tried (and flubbed) this once. Not to mention that they already have a unified authentication platform in place. They just flubbed the 'seamless' part.

I've been using Linux since 2006 or so, and I've never heard anyone describe it in a positive manner related to gaming until the last year or so.

The advice for gamers was always "Well wine can do some games, but really you should dual boot if you want to game".

The presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzn6E2m3otg#t=13

Thanks for posting that. Before watching that, I was under the impression that Gabe was against Windows 8 because he fears competition from new digital distribution systems that can compete with Steam.

After watching that, it has solidified my belief that his only complaint about Windows 8 is that competition is coming.

What am I missing?

That the altruism of his business decision isn't important?

I think you're touching on the popular sentiment that Linux gaming would be a good thing for consumers. Therefor the news is interesting, as a disruption to current players if nothing else.

I know one issue they're worried about is display latency. DRM complicates this issue and potentially adds yet another layer of indirection to worry about. Though to be fair, I wonder how big of a driver this is for them.

See Michael Abrash's discussion on VR latency: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-qua-n...

And also this tweet:

  I can send an IP packet to Europe faster than I can send a
  pixel to the screen.  How f’d up is that?
    
    - John Carmack, Id Software

I wish Gabe Newell promoted Linux with same passion before MS launched App Store and his business was threatened. I find it hard to believe anything he says.

On other hand, I wish all best to Linux :)

The sort of games present in App stores (itunes, google play, microsoft, facebook) cater to an entirely different audience than Steam.

For now. Microsoft recently retired Game For Windows Live. I'm sure they have some kind of replacement planned that fits in with their current ecosystem.

It is possible to simultaneously be against something both because it threatens your business and because you find it personally distasteful.

Knowing what I've seen of Gabe the past few years, I'm inclined to believe it's a bit more of the latter than the former.

That criticism seemed sensible several months ago, but where we are at right now, does it really seem like MS's App Store is doing any significant threatening? Just looking at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/apps it seems clear to me that this is not a threat. These are "iphone games", not "PC games".

From what I have seen, the only competitor to Steam that is even a blip on the radar of gamers is Origin. If anything, Valve is pushing into territory that they think Origin cannot enter, not MS.

Do you really care about Valve's reasons? Let's just shut up and let them use their industry muscle to encourage Linux gaming, and in the end we will all win.

Not particularly.

I'm not a "real" gamer anyway so none of it really matters to me anyway, I just find the notion of the future of "real" gaming being touch based low-powered "Surface-like" devices to be very silly. Whether the future of PC gaming is on Windows 8 or Linux, it will look very similar to how looks right now: beefy machines chewing up somewhere around half a kilowatt of power, controlled by keyboard/mice and game controllers.

The most change I consider plausible/viable is in display tech. Either high-dpi screens, or next-generation "Rift-like" displays could complement PC gaming. Input and power are here to stay though.

Also I find it bizarre that so many people seem so invested in being sure that Microsoft's App Store presents the largest threat to Steam. It doesn't currently, clearly, and I rather doubt it will in the future. Origin on the other hand does, but nobody here seems to be interested in them. Origin is a real and current threat, not some sort of hypothetical threat. Maybe there just aren't many EA shareholders/employees on HN...

does it really seem like MS's App Store is doing any significant threatening?

Not yet, anyway. Do you think this situation would remain the same if it ever gained a significant market share? The real criticism here is that MS's strategy is a trojan horse.

His company's future is now banking on getting games on Linux to be a reality. That may not be a particularly altruistic motivation, and sure it would be great if Valve had done more in the past to further the ideals of games on Linux, but with the success they were having on Windows platforms up until that point one could hardly blame them for wanting to focus their efforts on previously more pressing matters.

Gabe now sees that Windows 8 is not a viable platform for games, and his future may well depend on making Linux work. Given that, I see no reason to doubt his resolve in the matter.

Gabe now sees that Windows 8 is not a viable platform for games

What does this mean? I am able to run every game on Windows 8 that I was able to run on Windows 7.

Just sourcing what he's said in the article and what the article links to, it seems that Microsoft is fast headed to a closed platform similar to what Apple has on iPhone. It's not too hard to imagine that we might someday have to jailbreak our desktops to play some games.

There are other reasons I could give, such as lackluster kernel performance developments, that would impede game development and performance. It's also not too much a stretch to say that if you want to be able to run games seriously on a PC, it'd be handy to have a minimalized OS in which to run it, without so much overhead for whatever else the PC might be doing.

such as lackluster kernel performance developments, that would impede game development and performance

Be honest, this is FUD. My own experience and every report I have read is that Windows 8 is faster than Windows 7 hands down. And how is Steam not a closed system? In the talk he complains it took 6 months to get an Apple Store update through. How long does it take to make changes to games on Steam? Can I put a game on Steam today? No? How long does it take?

This isn't about Open vs Closed. This is about Gabe In Control vs Gabe Not In Control.

Steam being a closed system is not a problem for Valve... why/how could it be?

And how is Steam not a closed system?

It is, but currently relies on an specific level of openness in a platform to operate.

Microsoft and Apple are vertical integrators. They don't.

So when the parent said "it seems that Microsoft is fast headed to a closed platform" they were referring to specific aspect(s) of the openness of the platform (Windows). Not saying that Steam was a free-for-all.

I'm all for games on Linux, but the reason why he's saying "Linux is the future" is because the MS Store is threatening Steam's business model if it stays on Windows.

"Viable" doesn't just mean the game runs; it also means that Steam makes money on it. And Steam may be making a lot less money in the future due to the Windows app store.

If that is what was meant, then I'd argue it should not read as "not viable for games" but instead "not viable for the Steam business"

With many (likely most) PC gamers having sunk many thousands of dollars into their Steam library, those are the same thing.

Foolish on their part? Probably. However that seems to be the current situation anyway.

No, you can still run games on Win 8 that you can run on Win 7.

Gabe is stating that for Valve and their digital distribution platform Steam, Windows 8 is a 'hostile' environment. They could potentially be blocked/forbidden from deploying steam on Win8 (or future version of windows) as the Windows App store could take it's place as well as any steam updates/game updates would have to go through Microsoft which would cause unnecessary delays/overhead.

In other words, it's the argument from FUD, and the FUD is entirely in the service of Gabe's own profitability.

I sort of got bored of the presentation 15 minutes in (and was only half paying attention, truth be told) but it seems to me that Gabe is operating under the (gigantic) assumption that Microsoft would remove the Desktop and move Windows into a 100% closed environment.

Sounds like he's jumping the gun. I don't see that future happening.

He's being hyperbolic. The real problem is that he's feeling like Netscape circa 1997 - facing the problem that his main asset is competing against something built into the OS. Microsoft isn't going to kick 3rd-party game stores off of Windows, but they are building a 1st-party one... one they intend on growing.

Gabe is worried about his cash cow becoming a second-class citizen on the platform.

They've already done that with Windows RT and WP8. No, I'm not talking about not being able to run legacy apps on it. I mean not being able to install apps from other sources other than the Windows Store.

Do you really think Microsoft wouldn't prefer that in the future they make it so most people choose the Windows store over anything else, by pushing it even more into their faces, like they did with Metro?

Many people asked for the Start Menu to be back in the desktop mode, and they didn't bring it back? Why would they do that, when it doesn't interfere at all with Metro mode to just have that in the desktop mode? Why else would they do that, if they didn't want to force Metro even more on you by turning it into a shortcut to Metro mode instead?

One thing is wanting to get users to use Metro more. It's another thing entirely to force them to use it exclusively by removing any other option.

Desktop apps can do many more things than WinRT apps are allowed to do. There are thousands of business critical applications running on desktop that are likely rarely maintained. These two reasons alone should convince you that Microsoft would be stupid to remove the desktop.

The blend of Metro and desktop is not meant to kill the desktop. It's simply a bet on hybrid devices (like Surface, Yoga, etc.) becoming the norm in years to come.

If anything, I see RT as likely to accelerate the adoption of platform agnostic web apps in enterprise. It was already headed in that direction, but the lack of legacy support and the fact that MS has given IT departments no good way to centrally manage devices kind of throws the advantages they had in that market segment out the window.

If apps are going to have to be rewritten to run on mobile devices, why tie yourself down to the Metro platform when end users are wanting to run their LOB apps on their iPads anyway?

You can write Metro/Windows Store apps in HTML/JavaScript, C# and C/C++ etc, and you can use Visual Studio 2012 or the (free) Express version. This is much more open and flexible than writing iPad apps and it's something enterprises already know how to do.

Also, you can immediately deploy the same app to tablets, laptops and desktops, which isn't the case with iPad apps.

That's why the first sentence of my post was:

>I see RT as likely to accelerate the adoption of platform agnostic web apps in enterprise.

I am specifically not advocating platform-specific applications.

Microsoft has essentially thrown away the reasons for enterprise developers to tie themselves down to the Microsoft platform. If that's the case, there's relatively little reason to tie themselves down to any single platform.

C# code does require some modification to be run in a WinRT context, but I'd say the likelihood of code sharing with an existing C# application is still significant.

Sheesh. The Start screen is exactly as good at running Windows desktop apps as it is at running Metro apps.

Both Microsoft and Apple recently implemented similar 'Gatekeeper' software to scare people away from using or installing binaries that aren't from their blessed App Stores.

What are you talking about? I run Windows 8 at home and install non-App store software all the time.

Try running Minecraft. It's an unsigned binary so Windows "helps" you by hiding the 'Run Anyway' under the more info warning.

I just did. No warning.

Given enough downloads that warning disappears. Basically it displays for unsigned executables with low download counts which may imply malware. It usually goes away after a few hours for moderately popular software.

And apparently notch can't afford a code signing certificate.

Linux distros have had the run all your software from the 'app store' concept before Mac and Windows. The only difference is that Linux distros assume that all their users are more computer literate and know what they are doing when they install third party binaries. If you are writing a general purpose, mass market consumer OS, you want to clearly indicate to your user when they are doing something risky.

By default, Gatekeeper only requires signing with an Apple-issued developer certificate, not distribution through the App Store, and even then only affects applications downloaded from the Internet through a Web browser or other application that intentionally sets specific extended attributes on downloaded files. Which, unless it wants to trigger these warnings, Steam would never do.

Unless I'm mistaken, (non-ARM) Windows works the same way, except Microsoft relies on third-party CAs to issue code-signing certificates (and, pedantically, NTFS calls extended attributes "alternative data streams").

I feel like the arstechnica article was a terrible summary of his presentation. The main point is that he feels like the proprietary systems (App Stores and consoles) restrict innovation. All of the innovative stuff in gameplay over the past 10+ years have come from the PC; digital distribution, free-to-play, MMOs, etc (11min). He feels like the next extension of this is user-generated content. Since Microsoft is going in the App Store direction and the epitome of open software is Linux, that's the direction he wants to go.

He recognizes the struggles with Linux (and with gaming PCs on the TV) adoption for gaming and is working to clearly identify and fix them.

It sounds like he's moving away from Windows to address innovation and gaming PC adoption on the TV (and similar ideas). While Microsoft might not take away the Desktop, they certainly aren't making it easier to do custom things like booting to Steam or creating a controller based input/abstraction (that's simple for a non-techie gamer to setup and maintain).

Title is misleading, Gabe isn't promising any new hardware. Valve is poised to release "more information about how we get there and what are the hardware opportunities we see".

It's like when we all waited months to hear Elon Musk explain how, in very vague statements, the hyperloop could maybe work, if everyone (the government) pitched in a hand.

I think it's fair to say it'll be a fairly long road. Dealing with hardware vendors, especially with GPU manufacturers, will be the biggest hurdle, and getting them all to fall in line will take a lot of work.

Even if he announces the "Steambox" tomorrow, without a truly open Linux solution with very broad drivers support it won't mean much to games developers. It'd just be one more platform they'd have to explicitly support, i.e. they'd have to make a Windows version, Mac version, PS version, Xbox version, and finally a Steambox version

I think people forget that Gabe started his career at Microsoft, and spent over a decade there.

It may have been a million years ago by tech standards, but I think that subcontext makes his statements about Linux even more interesting.

Disgruntled Ex-Worker?

As someone who games on a PS3, steam via OSX and ios I'm not convinced there will ever be or needs to be a "winner". Some games are better close to the screen with a mouse. Some are better more relaxed on the couch and some are better on a tablet. I could picture getting a small gaming box running Linux if most of my steam library transferred over and anything new was offered in Linux. Professionally, I'm in print production and design, so Linux is unlikely to ever be my sole OS.

I'm finding with the new batch of consoles and micro consoles there has been surprisingly little talk of cheating prevention. I was once almost completely a PC gamer but cheating in just about every multiplayer game I played pushed me to consoles. Even today most of the games I play on console that have PC versions are hacked quickly. There is cheating on consoles but at a much, much lower rate. If Linux via Steam can do something significant about cheating that would be a huge plus.

As far as digital download services, Steam has value to me working on different OS's. All the games in my steam library work on windows. This has proved a godsend when visiting the in laws on the other side of the country for a week at a time. Ios has proven quite good at having apps last through many generations of hardware. Many apps I bought on the original iphone work on all modern ios devices. I have given up on buying digital versions on PS3 as they seem like a dead end. At least with the disk there is a good chance sometime down the line an emulator will come out for what ever computer I will be running in the future...

One thing game devs, from my experience playing games on linux steam, need to work on with linux is how to deal with multimonitor setups.

Every game I have in steam that runs on linux attempts to spread itself out across all my displays, which is especially busted when I have a vertical monitor. Entire sections of the screen are just cut off completely as the height of my virtual display is higher than 2 of my 3 monitors.

Now, I use intel's video support and not nvidia, so I'm using randr to set up my monitors and not nvidia's proprietary stuff. I wonder if that's the issue.

I use the nvidia drivers and have the same problem.

Multimonitor support in games is terrible on Windows too. Game devs just almost universally get it wrong. (I don't understand why; literally every dev I know uses multiple monitors...)

Well, my experience on windows was always that the 'getting it wrong' was just choosing to play the game exclusively on the primary display. This at least leaves the game playable, and it never bothered me, I could never get used to paying attention to two screens joined into one for gaming. The result on linux is to literally make the game unplayable unless you manually disable extra displays.

This is great news. More developer support, and more hardware support to be able to create a Steam box just as easily as a home theatre box (w/ something like XBMC) would be fantastic.

Heck, I think even desktop gamers would simply be happy to be able to use Linux full-time, with the control and performance that comes with it.

I really like the idea of gaming on Linux, but I feel like there are still has a lot of unanswered questions. How do you stop developers from using Direct X? How do you convince graphics card companies to optimize their drivers for linux?

Steambox pretty much answers both of those questions. They are bringing a platform into the console space where DirectX isn't as much of a gorilla in the rool, then when people develop games for the console they get the linux pc port for free, enough user base and demand will convince the graphics card companies.

> How do you stop developers from using Direct X?

You make something better.

Two answers that I can think of at first glance:

1) A large proportion of the games that I own for Linux are developed using the Unity engine. This has many advantages for an indie developer (ease of use, cheap license), but is especially useful because it can cross-compile to Windows/Mac/Linux/Android/iOS/Xbox/PS. Even Blackberry! This is a godsend for indie developers trying to reach as large a market as possible.

So the challenge isn't necessarily to get developers to stop using DirectX, but to get the major engine developers (eg. Unreal) to ensure good cross-compilation support. They already have to a certain extent, because the PS3 is already using a form of OpenGL. All we really need is a little extra effort from them to make sure it's compatible with Linux. This would immediately add a large proportion of the current game releases to the Linux market.

2) Driver optimisation isn't as important as you might think. The average PC graphics card vastly overtook consoles in graphical power a very long time ago. Certainly within a year or two of the current generation of consoles. Even without optimised drivers, they are still far more powerful than the Xbox360 or PS3.

All in all, the obstacles are very surmountable. The biggest problem that I can see lies in convincing the big game engines, like Unreal, to bother with such a small market. But if Valve leads the way with the Source engine, they could start eating away at the likes of Unreal - simply by being the only AAA choice on Linux.

Good driver support is still pretty important... it's definitely one of the worst parts of Linux right now. I have an Nvidia card with Optimus in my laptop, and it's a total headache... I can't do stuff like connect a TV to my laptop and extend my display like I can with windows. The performance is not as good (which obviously matters for demanding games). The battery life is not as good. I just broke my X server when I tried installing some package (with apt) which wiped out some of my graphics libraries somehow... definitely not something your average joe can handle.

Overall, it is a huge pain in the ass. I oh-so-wish that graphics cards would "just work" like wireless cards now do.

But if you're on a desktop and get a well-supported card, you're right. It's not a big deal.

Oh god, I'd forgotten about Optimus, it's a whole new level of messed up! I completely agree on that front. Took me days to get my laptop working right over the summer. Thankfully I don't game on my laptop, but if I did, I'd be very annoyed. The only way I actually got everything working was by installing Gnome Shell of all things...

1) Same argument as ever. OpenGL is cross platform. This means you can reuse your engine for a mobile port of your game.

2) You take some of the graphic card company engineers and put them into a room with game engine engineers. Valve had some spectacular success with this technique lately [0]. Unfortunately, this is not viable for Indies or Free Software devs, but only AAA games need the high end anyways.

[0] http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

Is Gabe specifically suggesting creating native Linux games? It wasn't too long ago when John Carmack commented that "The conventional wisdom is that native Linux games are not a good market". So then does Steam carry enough weight to challenge conventional wisdom?

1: http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/17x0sh/john_carmack_a...

Question is, if Windows becomes a closed ecosystem or flops altogether, would PC gamers elect to move to Linux? Even if they do, there's going to be a significant loss of numbers along the way, and it's already a smaller market than consoles. I can see a future where most game companies (barring maybe Valve, Blizzard, and a few others) cut their losses and decide to focus solely on consoles and iOS/Android. That would be a sad future indeed.

I'd suggest that the users will move to what ever platform best allows them to play games from their steam libraries. Gabe's end game has to be that the users aren't even aware they've moved to Linux; they just plug in their steambox and play their games.

It feels like cognitive dissonance when the maker of Steam, that is full of DRM and, of course, closed source, talks about the successes of open source.

I mean, I have nothing against proprietary source (the difference between open source games quality and proprietary games quality is giant), but Valve made their living on proprietary code and now they are preaching the opposite.

Valve made it big because they released portions of their code along with the tools to create mods and total conversions of their games. They then hired the most talented people who were using these tools, either pulling them in to work on half-life or to create commercial versions of their own projects.

Then then made it bigger by making it easier for outside devs to publish on steam. Over the course of a decade they worked to turn steam from something that everyone hated into something that nearly everyone loves. The turn around has been incredible; from a hindrance no one wanted to a platform no one wants to do with out.

I believe that Gabe is more interested in Linux because it is an "open platform" rather than it being "open source". Valve were quite happy working on Windows when it was an "open platform" that they could release games onto with out having to jump through hoops. As MS moves to force everything through their own app store, Valve are looking elsewhere.

FYI (only tangentially related to the presentation), here are the latest hardware survey results for Steam users.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

You'll notice Windows 7 is still #1 (not surprising) but Windows 8 and 8.1 are the fastest growing, with almost 15% of Steam users running Win8 64bit.

An interesting stat to see would be different OS's or hardware models per person or IP address. Here there are a few graphs that I would be in multiple categories...

One issue that needs to be addressed is driver support, particularly around multi-monitor setups. Nvidia apparently now has at least partial support for Optimus laptops as of driver 319+ (currently 325).

The biggest PITA with multi-monitor Linux based systems is dealing with forced max power state (read: constant heat generation and fan noise).

Optimus should allow Intel graphics chip to drive say, your laptop display and one external monitor via VGA, and then the Nvidia chip drives an external via HDMI and Display Port.

On Fedora 18 so can't yet upgrade to Nvidia driver >= 319. When I initially connected 2 external monitors to my laptop, the laptop GPU fan kicked on _every single minute_ click-whirrrr, click-whirrr, click-whirrrr, total madness.

Was forced to mod the VBIOS, undervolting the Nvidia chip and slightly reducing GPU fan speed, a risky though rewarding operation. Now the laptop stays quiet since the GPU is constantly in adaptive/power saving state.

Hardware undervolting is obviously a no-op for gamers; hopefully with Optimus the multi-monitor heat generation situation will improve to the point where users don't have to risk bricking their graphics card in order to have a sane Linux work environment when not gaming.

This piece from Gabe's talk [1] is interesting:

"But the one entity we wouldn't ever want to compete with is our own users, right? They have already out-stripped us spectacularly. You can't compete with them once you give them the tools that allow them to participate in the creation of the experiences that they find are valuable. And it's not by a little bit; it's like an order of magnitude more productive already, and we're only a couple of years into thinking about how to do that.

[...]

The point is that the connected groups of users are going to be way more successful if they're properly enabled and supported than any of the individual game developers are going to be.

But, there's this huge tension between, if that's the direction that gaming is going, or if that's the direction content creation is going, these other systems actually put a tremendous number of road-blocks in the way of doing that.

It takes Valve several months to get through certification process for a single update. I mean, it took us 6 months to get one update through the Apple Store to ship an iPad update. We have a lot of resources and have a huge commercial motivation. No individual user, if they're the sort of center of gravity for content production, is going to have the wherewithal or the stubbornness to get through that.

That's just one example of the many ways that the closed systems appear to us to be antithetical to our user-centric model of content production, going forward."

Like you, I'm just trying to "read the tea leaves" here, but the future is user-generated content. Valve needs to leverage that by offering a hardware platform [2] that will allow them to be in complete and full control, both technologically and financially. A hardware platform that they can update as needed, that will give users more control to generate content; free from the concerns of pushing an update through Apple or Microsoft. In turn, their goal will be to leverage content creation by connecting users in a unified economy, again, that they control. They engaged Yanis Varoufakis [3], who is a renowned academic economist, no doubt to assist in that endeavor.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzn6E2m3otg&t=783

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steambox#Steam_Box

[3] http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began-with-a...

> the future is user-generated content

as a veteran of the "user-generated" game content industry, i can honestly say 5 years ago, i had that same vision. 5 years of blood, sweat, money and tears later, i can (also honestly) say -- that's not the case. and won't be.

for those of you who've never made (finished and shipped!) a game before, it's an incredibly frustrating experience. you have what would be called an mvp in ycombinator terms inside of a month. "i will crush the rest of this thing out 3 months and ship!" uh... no.

i'm here to tell you that is not the case. the whole "first 90%" vs. the "second 90%" thing is magnified 10-fold in games. it's a really long post for me to explain the myriad of gotchas involved from safely syncing game state between sleep-and-non-sleep-packets-suddenly-flood-in-but-omg-my-clock to btw-you-need-3-times-the-states-in-your-state-machine-oops to why-am-i-getting-3-fps-on-a-faster-device to all-of-the-above-times-multiplayer-exponentially. i plan on writing that post someday, but not now.

anyway.

the prototype flies off your finger tips and then the next 2 and a half years (please see the common thread of 3 years to make a game, from the movie indie gamer [highly recommended!] to that recent atomic brawl post) working through obscure bugs and corner cases because games have more complex interactions than non-games and gamers don't have a clue how to follow the damn happy path when they play.

so, yes. i said 1 month of fun, fast iterative prototype and 2 years of awful, in-the-weeds debugging where your strength of will to finish is tested daily. (insert rovio making 51 games before angry birds here) finishing a good game is goddamnhard. finishing a shitty game is a snap -- just ship your prototype!

what we found was that anyone who has the strength and perseverance to actually build and (more importantly) finish a game was already working in the game industry -- mostly because they possess a proven will to finish.

i guess what's i'm saying is lots of people can snap together sweet, use-with-care prototypes ugc-style. almost nobody -- and i really, really mean almost nobody, like 0.0001% of "i want to make a game" developers -- can actually finish and launch a game regardless of scope.

mind you -- i don't view indie games as ugc. if you ship (SHIP, not start) an indie game, you have what it takes to work in the non-indie game world. you just choose not to.

if you don't believe me, i challenge you to prove me wrong and just make a simple game this weekend and let your friends play it where you can watch, but not talk or help them at all. it will take approximately 12 seconds of them touching your game before you're completely "wtf -- how did that happen?!?!?" screwed.

m3mnoch.

What about games like Minecraft where users can use relatively simple tools to create their own worlds within some technical bounds?

By way of example, it looks like Everquest Next is implementing a more advanced version of Minecraft's building-block technology, which would seem to provide the foundation for allowing players to create whole new worlds in separate servers, like Minecraft but with more sophisticated world building tools.

Any thoughts on whether that might take off?

no -- not really.

for that, i would use second life as your measuring stick.

people will pay professional developers for toys to play with (eq next, for example), but enabling hobby developers to make money off their efforts using your platform? that's hard. and expensive. you wouldn't believe the support nightmare much less things like anti-money-laundering laws you have to deal with from country to country. it'll make you cry.

have you ever tried to push a platform update out underneath an already money-making-but-that's-my-livelihood audience? yeah, i wish whomever luck with that.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I know it's a tough gig. I'm working on an iOS game, and it is quite a challenge (but fun, nonetheless!)

Gabe has mentioned that there are customers that are making $500,000 a year via content production in the Steam Workshop. From his perspective (or anyone's, really), that's simply too compelling to not be a part of the narrative being discussed with regard to having full control (again, both technological and financial, in my opinion).

Clearly, they are seeing compelling experiences (and equally compelling cash) being delivered via user generated content, and it is in their best interest to foster and mature that space.

Man, people really need to listen to the actual quote instead of repeating BS. Gabe said ONE GUY had made just over $500k OVER THREE YEARS. Not lots of people were making 1/2 a Million every year.

"Man, people really need to listen to the actual quote instead of repeating BS. Gabe said ONE GUY had made just over $500k OVER THREE YEARS."

The source that I read (the quote, below, from Gabe) indicates people, which is of course plural. Also, it indicates $500,000 per year, not over three years:

"So now we're in this strange world where we have people who are using the Steam Workshop who are making $500,000 per year building items for other customers."

Exclusive interview: Valve's Gabe Newell on Steam Box, biometrics, and the future of gaming:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/8/3852144/gabe-newell-intervi...

If you watch the video where he's talking in front of a business school says somthing to the tune of "a lot of people are making surprising amounts of money. One guy even made $500k since we started." It was later clarified that that was over 3 years. I'm sure gabe is going to talk about this highest earner or he would have phrased it differently.

Yeah, I agree. I was a 3rd country indie and strongly believer of UGC. I still am, but not in the mod sense. Modding is useful only if you want to break into the games industry, but that's it. And only the 0.1% of the good mods generate good game developers.

On the other hand, if you have "fun" tools for users to create content, they WILL create it. Like in Little Big Planet, ModNation Racers and others. It's amazingly hard to make a game, and amazingly harder to make a tool that is fun to use. And with this "fun tool" obviously you strip down all the publishing barriers (technical and legal) that "common game development" have.

> i challenge you to prove me wrong and just make a simple game this weekend

Erm, if you take "content creation" to mean full, playable games then you're right. But...

I'm pretty sure Valve is referring to content at every level, from hats to in-game items to custom levels to mods.

Yep, cause making single thousand K poly models and full mods are the same thing. Just like bespoke that one bespoke metalworker made the entire 2013 line of camrys or that 8 year old t-baller who started for the yankees the next year.

Well, that didn't make much sense.

His point stands, however, and you only have to look at the quality of many of the Steam Workshop addons produced by hobbyists. Yes, this includes plenty of high poly models and much more, easily comparable to anything produced professionally.

I'm not denigrating the steam folk's quality. My point was that AAA game companies have lots of professionals making models like this. This likely pays much better than an entry modeling job at a game studio. You can also find really good models out on turbosquid and other places. Seems like vale marketplace is a better deal for artists if you get popular.

But what I was saying is that these guys are making single models of very high quality, not filling out an entire GTA V5. And especially not coding, acting, mocapping, producing, marketing etc a game. They're not even building somthing like bastion with a small team. They are many orders of magnitude between doing one model that sells well and building a full game. Especially one that does well.

I think he's completely off base to be honest, I think in the coming years Surface like devices will replace the traditional desktop, and unless Linux moves quickly, there's no way that space will be anything but Windows dominated.

With Windows 8.1 out soon, which improves Windows 8 massively, I see it continuing to dominate into the future where desktops become increasingly marginalised.

You're talking about two completely different market segments. There is a huge difference between the requirements of "casual" gamers (I.e., I play games primarily on my phone/tablet) and "real" gamers like me. I don't see myself playing WoW on a tablet anytime soon, if ever.

While your point is valid, I wish you had worded that better.

Yes, a modern tablet device could never compare to an equally modern desktop PC in terms of power and capacity. They're in entirely different leagues. The sorts of games able to run on the latter could never run on the former, i.e. you won't be seeing a game like Beyond: Two Souls or Destiny on a tablet for many years to come, not without some serious stripping of features, content, and graphics performance.

Not sure what was wrong with my wording, but you're still missing the most crucial bit. It's not simply a matter of horsepower. I don't care if you beef up a tablet to perform as well as my custom desktop; playing complex games on a tablet is just impractical and always will be.

Take WoW again as an example; I need a keyboard for my many (many) keybinds, a mouse for movement (because keyboard turners are just bad), and, really; an 8" monitor? Please. Tablets are simply a non-starter for complex (in terms of input and required reaction speed) games.

Tablet gaming is for my Mom and myself when I'm bored waiting at an airport. Sure, it's a huge market, but not all gamers are satisfied with Candy Crush.

As an aside, I would love for you to enlighten me as to how my first post could be improved.

The distinction between "casual" and "real" gaming is entirely facetious, and can actually do more harm to the credibility of your statements than anything. Games are games and come in all shapes and sizes.

I also have to disagree with your dismissal of horsepower as the root of the issue, because I can currently hook up any keyboard, mouse, or even game controller I want to my phone or tablet. Additionally, some portable devices are capable of hooking up to a larger screen via a microHDMI port. Their only limitation, then, would be the internal hardware components that ultimately add up to their "horsepower", with the added advantage of portability.

It's not facetious; there is a huge difference between people who primarily play mobile games and people who build machines for serious gaming. The represent completely different markets. If you were actually trying to sell games with your mentality you would fail miserably. You have to know your market.

Also, if I have a tablet with as much horsepower as my desktop then it would necessarily be more expensive than said desktop. So, you're proposing that I buy a tablet which is more expensive than my desktop and hook it up to all the peripherals I need so that I can... wait, what is the advantage here exactly?

You say that I gain portability; right, as long as I bring along my keyboard, mouse, and a monitor. Now that's what I call portability! Certain games just don't work without a large screen and more advanced input devices. Again, completely different markets.

As an aside, since you obviously took exception to my terminology, note that I put quotes around "casual" and "real" for a reason. I don't mean to look down upon the casuals, but to believe that they are basically one in the same is just ignorant. Those in either segment have very different tastes and want very different things from the games they play. I want games with depth that I can sink endless hours into. My girlfriend wants an occasional distraction. You're never going to sell us on the same marketing lines. We want different things.

Whether or not the distinction between "real" and "casual" gaming is real, there is undeniably a distinction between the sort of games that Microsoft currently seems to be trying to sell through their App Store, and the sort of games that Steam sells.

Surprising to very few, this distinction just so happens to align pretty damn close with the alleged "casual"/"real" divide.

(Also, you've been able to dock laptops for years, that isn't some sort of neat "Surface-like-device" trick, yet all the "real" gamers that I know still own dedicated desktop machines. Their screens, keyboards, mice, and controllers are all bulky. Their setup is already the antithesis of portable, going through all that trouble just to use a docked underpowered device just doesn't make sense.)

Tablet games have terrible controls, even when they are implemented as well as possible. There are certain types of games that are well-suited to touch, like Angry Birds, but most games are really awkward to play without a mouse/keyboard or a gamepad.

I remember saying something similar when the GameBoy launched.

Yes, the touch interface sucks for hardcore gaming. But it's not implausible that somebody would figure out the least-obtrusive way to add good gamer-friendly controls to a tablet and a big vendor throws their weight behind this. Then what happens? Then suddenly the big difference between a tablet and a PC gamer is hardware, and tablet gaming suddenly eats up the indie market and starts moving north.

Sure, a PC can push a lot more polies, and so will always have a certain market of core gamers... but look at how Blizzard has always done well targeting aging hardware. The lion's share of the market doesn't have a bleeding-edge video card.

But I'm talking about some games that are way too complex even for something like the current PS3 remotes.

how would surface like devices ever replace the traditional desktop? they allow no upgrades and pc gaming without a physical keyboard/mouse is just impossible.

You're missing the point. Most people don't have a dedicated computer to play pc games. They have one machines that they use to browse, email and play. The argument is that in the near future virtually all of those systems will have touch as part of the UI (not necessarily to replace the keyboard and mouse entirely, but as an added feature).

Because Windows 8 is a significant step forward in touch based UI, when you buy you're next laptop/desktop you will be installing Windows 8 on it. You definitely won't be installing linux.

The kind of gamers that Valve courts are the sort of people who still build their own PCs, and who still interact with their computer through game controllers and keyboard/mouse. You aren't going to replace TF2 or Skyrim input with touch-based input. Notta gonna happen.

Just look at the games that Microsoft is currently peddling with their App Store. This stuff is not a competitor to Steam. It isn't even in the same market.

Yeah... you're focusing on the world of Candy Crush and <insert crappy in game purchase model game here> type games. Sure, huge market, also completely and utterly separated from the world of real gamers by a massive void of nothingness. There is of course overlap, but I'm not playing mobile games on my PC and I'm certainly not playing Arkham Origins or FFIV on some tiny tablet.

This isn't about "most people". This is about pc gamers, who still build their own boxes and are even borderline fanatical about their hardware. They aren't going to Best Buy and coming home with a touch UI by mistake. They are ordering parts from Newegg and building liquid cooling rigs in their basement.

"With Windows 8.1 out soon, which improves Windows 8 massively, I see it continuing to dominate into the future where desktops become increasingly marginalised."

Why? Why does anyone care what it runs? Why would OEM's want to try to sell it?

Really? The Surface has been a complete and utter failure. Not to mention, the ARM version of the Surface won't run Steam, and games for Windows RT are far fewer than for proper Windows 8.

Fact is, the best interfaces for serious gamers are either keyboard + mouse, or a game pad. Even if touch was the next big input, Linux has it, and Canonical is talking about merging Ubuntu touch into Ubuntu desktop in 14.04.

My bad, I should've really explained it better in the opening post.

How I see things going, though of course I could be wrong, is that at home you'll probably just have a monitor, with your KB/Mouse setup of course, and you'll just plug your Surface like device into it.

I think the Console ideology this gen also supports my point somewhat, they didn't go all out for power with a big complicated architecture, they're just using x86 with a low power processor designer.

Plus with the tapering off with graphics gains that we're seeing you'll be able to create a fairly similar experience to the high end on lower power devices, which I think will benefit that type of device.

Also I also think Windows RT was a bad idea, they should've just gone all in with the Surface Pro, which I think is the future honestly.

This may be the future. Ubuntu is already going this direction, with Ubuntu on Android, Ubuntu mobile, the desktop of course and it's all going to be merged together...

Meanwhile, didn't Ubuntu recently, rather publicly, fail a crowdsourcing campaign because they couldn't find enough people who actually care about their mobile proposal? Yeah... I'm just not seeing that stuff as the future.

Maybe this will seem like a very foolish comment in 3 or 4 years, but I doubt it.

They failed to pre-sell a large amount of expensive smart-phones. This doesn't mean anything concerning Ubuntu's success on phones in general, never mind their place in the computing landscape...

That was them putting forward their best effort, right? I mean, they wouldn't intentionally start out with "Plan B"... All of their market research said that plan was the most likely to succeed, so at the very least they demonstrated their inability to accurately judge what people want.

I think the failure of that campaign says a lot more about the viability of Canonical's dreams than many are willing to admit.

Had they sourced out a phone they could sell for 400 dollars, and maybe bumped up the delivery time to around Christmas, and used Kickstarter instead of Indiegogo, I think they could have been very successful.

For myself, and I'm sure many others, spending 800 dollars on a product I won't see for nearly a year is a bit too much...

The Ubuntu Edge wasn't their primary phone plan. Ubuntu Touch (developer preview) images were already available, for example for the Nexus 4. Ubuntu were already speaking to carriers (http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/carrier-advisory-group) but the Ubuntu Edge had nothing to do with that side of things.

I think that interfaces aren't necessarily the issue here, as I could easily hook up a PS3 controller or a keyboard + mouse to my current tablet or phone if I wanted to.

I think it will come down to a few things:

1. Price - How much is a Windows 8/8.1 license these days? Why would a games console manufacturer want to bring on that additional cost?

2. Performance - Microsoft is too busy tripping over its own feet and supporting legacy enterprise applications and environments from decades long past to be able to tackle performance issues in a serious manner.[1] There's a reason the Xbone switches from Windows to an "Xbox OS" to run games.

3. Portability - Install a Linux flavor of your choice on your Raspi, phone, tablet, Steambox, Nvidiabox, whatever. The limitations will ultimately be upon the hardware, and the OS can get the heck out of the way and just let the games run.

[1] http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=74

What exactly do you mean by "Surface-like" devices? You mean more touch-oriented devices? In that case, I'm pretty sure Android will be the one dominating:

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-biggest-problem-in...

If you're talking about "also having desktop mode", Microsoft is only going to push that into the background with each new version of Windows, until desktop mode becomes like DOS - dead and buried.

I was thinking more of running a full desktop OS on a tablet device yeah, I think MS will be smart enough to keep it around, it's a very good feature.

A "full desktop OS" on hardware which lacks the horsepower, input mechanisms, and screen real estate required to compete with desktop gaming systems.

The very first version of the Surface Pro can run most Source engine games fairly well at the moment, and that's a situation which will improve rapidly if they keep iterating.

As to input mechanisms and screen real estate, it's still a Windows PC, that means it comes with all the advantages of one.

The important bit is that it's not a system any serious gamer would ver consider using, even if t could handle modern games.

Tablets are the future and Windiws 8 will dominate. Got it!

Can't help thinking there's a Linux kernel based OS by some internet company already out there that's selling on a few tablets. Obviously it can't be selling as many tablets as the continuing-to-dominate Windows so it must be an aberration. And there's another unix based OS out there doing even better, from some company in Cupertino I think. What are their names again?

Never mind, Windows will continue to dominate. On tablets. Right!

As far as iOS and Android go, IMO Valve sees these as just as bad as Windows, if not worse.

In the market of "Tablets on which you can game through Steam", the GP is speculating that Windows will continue to be the leader.

Android doesn't stop you from installing a steam store; are you sure about that?

I don't have an android device, but from the looks of things it's like the iOS app - the store is there but it's only to shop for PC games. You can't install anything. I could be wrong, though.

I'm ignoring whatever steam actually offers; I'm only talking about the capabilities of android. You can easily install third party stores, so it's a much better situation than iOS or Metro.

I wasn't referring to the the market that Android and IOS are competing in, as this post was about traditional non-touch games I was talking more about the desktop/laptop space and the associated products.

In that regard I do think Windows will dominate, and in the future Surface devices will probably replace laptops in their market.

You're going to be running cutting edge games on a Surface? I don't think so. Perhaps in 5 years you could stuff enough electronics in a box the size of a tablet to run current games of today at max settings on something like an Occulus Rift. But then what about the new games 5 years from now? PC Gaming is an arms race which has always required expensive and significant hardware to enjoy at the top level. I don't see tablets replacing that anytime soon.

> You're going to be running cutting edge games on a Surface? I don't think so.

You can run some pretty decent games on the hardware that ships on the Surface Pro. Sure, you aren't going to want to play BF4 or whatever Bethesda comes up with next, but as hardware cycles continue the playable-game-gap between desktop/laptop/tablet is only going to shrink.

I game today on a 1.5 yr old HP laptop with an ATI 6750M card inside, and it's more than adequate for stuff I've thrown at it. Sure, I'm not gaming on ultra, but my FPS is just fine at low/medium. These days games look just fine at those detail levels, although maybe it's just that I used to play Doom on a 33Mhz 386 and had to shrink the screen size to about a 2x2" square to get decent frame rates.

Here's the problem Valve faces - All the major tablet platforms (iOS, Google Play, KindleFire/Android, Win8 RT) have app stores dedicated for that device. Some allow side-loading but that freedom could quickly disappear.

This means a number of things: 1) Valve is late to this game and is fighting entrenched existing app stores that sell tons of games 2) Pricing is an issue as these app stores don't really have high ASPs on games - tablet users are cheapskates compared to PC gamers 3) The form factor is wildly different, making it tough/nearly impossible for Valve (and devs) to port. 4) The freedom to side-load for those platforms allowing it may lose it at any time (see: google play services)

All of these mean that tablets are not exactly fertile ground for Valve/Steam. As far as they're concerned, the PC (and Linux) is where it's at (I still think they could out-do Ouya/PSVita with a steambox, but seems like the idea is either a non-starter or ahead of it's time).

Knowing that Valve will from now on be heavily supporting game development and deployment onto Linux machines is very encouraging.

I applaud more Linux everywhere and am quite happy about Steam on Linux but it is a little odd to see Valve talk about the virtues of openness while shipping DRMed games (I understand why they do it and don't even mind all that much it's just odd).

I'm mostly a retrogamer anyways so I tend to wait/hope the games I like hit GOG

I just ordered parts for a gaming machine the other day, and it'll be running Linux. A surprising number of games run on it directly now, and Wine works for the ones I care about that don't. There's now absolutely nothing I want to do that requires Windows - even two years ago that wasn't at all the case.

"20xx: The year of Linux gaming" is the new "20xx: The year of the Linux desktop"

HL3 will be a timed Linux-exclusive for Valve's official Steambox. Calling it now.

Funny, how he packs one of the most real underlying reason - Linux is free as in beer.

Why is this funny? If I had the choice of either parting with 30%-20% of what I make or supporting another platform that gives me back that 30%-20% I'd support that other platform. After all Valve is a business and it doesn't make sense to accept someone dictating that they have a toll gate for your sales.

Remember that Microsoft charges 30%-20% not for the user's sake but to make money for themselves.

No, no. The decision is right, and I'd do the same. The "packing" itself, i.e. how he speaks about this, is funny. He doesn't articulate on this obvious reason.

This statement feels like so last century. Isn't the future of the gaming is in the browser? Operating software wars feels meaningless and ridiculous these days.

> Isn't the future of the gaming is in the browser?

I'm of the belief that the amount of revenue that can be squeezed out of games written by Zynga and the like represents a relatively small share of the overall gaming market.

I think there will always be gamers who want full-screen games with large assets -- and there's no plugin or browser subsystem that adequately delivers that experience, and the content files for a modern 3D game are often a little too large to host remotely. Especially on phones.

> Operating software wars feels meaningless and ridiculous these days

Apple's App Store, Microsoft's secure-boot and app-store ecosystem lockdown attempts that numerous others have commented on in this thread, Android's capture of a significant portion of the mobile market, Linux's powers waxing by the year, the fall of Sun and the implosion of Solaris...

The OS wars are getting interesting again! For many years there was more-or-less total stagnation in the market, with Windows ascendant, a few UNIX flavors and the remnants of OS/2 holding their own in the business market, IBM in full retreat from the PC market, and all competitors struggling to survive with marginal userbases for many years after Microsoft's decisive victory over IBM OS/2 in the mid '90s.

Gabe is scared of Valve being like Netscape when Internet Explorer came out. If he'd really care about linux, he would have started this years ago.

Steam needs to Wine certify games, or launch games using wine and have a minimum/recommended requirements for using wine.

Wine and DRM is a problematic combination.

Does he say at all what frameworks he'll be targeting e.g. Fedora, Ubuntu, Wayland, Mir??

I hope they finish CS:GO soon, that's the only reason I still dual-boot Windows.

I still dual boot Windows to play League of Legends.

"Kick the ball, Charlie! The future of gaming on Linux is bright!"

What incentive does Valve have to pull some kind of bait-and-switch? They may be wrong about the future, but I don't think they're being intentionally deceptive.

new hardware coming soon :-) But what about the drivers,optimus technology still not officially supported.

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