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I have reasonable confidence when I buy on Steam that I will continue owning that game, at least to the extent you can own a digital object.

And that extent is near-zero. Steam games come with DRM. You don't own the things you bought. Valve allows you to do some things because they feel like it. They have a track record and they're flush with cash at the moment, but if that changed they could simply pull the plug and walk away. They could also selectively screw over individuals. If your account is banned you cannot log in, download, or play any of your games. As a policy, they will not tell you why your account is banned, simply stating you violated their terms of service.

What are their terms of service?

This Steam Subscriber Agreement ("Agreement") is a legal document that explains your rights and obligations as a subscriber of Steam from Valve Corporation, a corporation under the laws of the State of Washington, with its registered office at 10400 NE 4th St., Bellevue, WA 98004, United States, registered with the Washington Secretary of State under number 60 22 90 773, VAT ID No. EU 8260 00671 (“Valve”). Please read it carefully.

SECTION 11 CONTAINS A BINDING ARBITRATION AGREEMENT AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER. IT MAY AFFECT YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS. PLEASE READ IT. IF YOU ARE A CUSTOMER WITH RESIDENCE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION, SECTION 11 DOES NOT APPLY TO YOU.

1. REGISTRATION AS A SUBSCRIBER; APPLICATION OF TERMS TO YOU; YOUR ACCOUNT

Steam is an online service offered by Valve.

You become a subscriber of Steam ("Subscriber") by completing the registration of a Steam user account. This Agreement takes effect as soon as you indicate your acceptance of these terms. You may not become a subscriber if you are under the age of 13. Steam is not intended for children under 13 and Valve will not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13.

A. Contracting Party

For any interaction with Steam your contractual relationship is with Valve. Except as otherwise indicated at the time of the transaction (such as in the case of purchases from another Subscriber in a Subscription Marketplace), any transactions for Subscriptions (as defined below) you make on Steam are being made from Valve.

B. Subscriptions; Content and Services

As a Subscriber you may obtain access to certain services, software and content available to Subscribers. The Steam client software and any other software, content, and updates you download or access via Steam, including but not limited to Valve or third-party video games and in-game content, and any virtual items you trade, sell or purchase in a Steam Subscription Marketplace are referred to in this Agreement as “Content and Services”; the rights to access and/or use any Contents and Services accessible through Steam are referred to in this Agreement as "Subscriptions."

Each Subscription allows you to access particular Content and Services. Some Subscriptions may impose additional terms specific to that Subscription ("Subscription Terms") (for example, an end user license agreement specific to a particular game, or terms of use specific to a particular product or feature of Steam). Also, additional terms (for example, payment and billing procedures) may be posted on http://www.steampowered.com/ or within the Steam service ("Rules of Use"). Rules of Use include the Steam Online Conduct Rules http://steampowered.com/index.... and the Steam Refund Policy http://store.steampowered.com/.... The Subscription Terms, the Rules of Use, and the Valve Privacy Policy (which can be found at http://www.valvesoftware.com/p...) are binding on you once you indicate your acceptance of them or of this Agreement, or otherwise become bound by them as described in Section

It seems to me that web caching of this sort is essentially the only argument for using plain old HTTP.

TheRaven has already made a strong case against the think-of-the-CPU-overhead argument, but breaking web caching is a legitimate downside of HTTPS. Ideally there'd be an automatic checksum check after downloading over plain HTTP. Fun fact: this is precisely what Steam does. If they used a proprietary protocol, or HTTPS, then caching (whether by ISPs or by 'local' sysadmins) wouldn't be possible, to the detriment of both the customers and Valve.

If you read the Valve employee handbook, failure is an accepted part of trying. They are not afraid to fail.

http://www.valvesoftware.com/c...

It doesn't matter: accounting for Valve Time, in "a few months" the base OSX machines will probably handle VR no problem.

This screams What could possibly go wrong? and I'm sure there will plenty of Hey Earl...Watch this!

Actually it is a very good idea. The best games know when to dial up the action or horror, and when you've had enough action and are getting fatigued, give you a little break. Timing is everything. F.E.A.R. (the original one) had especially good timing with scary moments, as did Halflife 2 with action sequences. Valve put out a paper (PDF) which includes some information on how they were analyzing "emotional intensity" (page 77 of PDF) in Left 4 Dead and having the AI Director adjust the amount of action based on the player's situation and how stressed they may be. The game can't measure player stress directly, so it used information in the game such as player health and whether they were under attack. Usually this results in good decisions and an enjoyable player experience, but the measurement of player stress are indirect so sometimes the AI Director makes the wrong choice.

Having an AI Director such as the one in L4D hooked up to an EEG could allow for a game that adjusts difficulty / action / horror based on the player's actual emotional state. All other things being equal, it should result in more enjoyable games.

Steam uses HTTP. It used to use a proprietary protocol, but HTTP enables caching.

> but I have a strong suspicion that the thing is bullshit. I'll admit I don't really know, but I wouldn't trust what I was told about this unless I saw it for myself over an extended period of time,

Valve's management is "flat". They have been doing this for years.

* http://www.valvesoftware.com/c...

What I've seen for the last 10 years of watching Valve is seeing a company with seemingly no care about release dates. We all want to have a good laugh at Peter Molyneux for over promising and under delivering... but he delivers on time.

Valve isn't being serious about running their business. It's like children are running the company and they occasionally put something out.

They had one guy blogging about nothing but VR stuff so you can see for yourself: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com...

> I can't think of a single game today that uses OpenGL.

Uh, HELLO McFly; Minecraft. That "insignificant" game that "only" sold 54+ million copies. ~18 MILLION on PC.

> Why is that?

Because you didn't even be bothered to spend 2 seconds to look

Gee, what is Valve using on OSX, and Linux !?!? ... It sure as hell isn't Microsoft's Not-Inventered-Here RenderMorph's Reality Lab which they renamed to Direct3D

Common, it's *Valve* we're speaking about.
They WILL deliver. Except that they will deliver on "Valve Time".
It will be as usual: wonderful, better than expectation, and *horribly* late.

What were they expecting? Given Valve's track record, they shouldn't have jumped on thing before knowing with certainty that Valve is ready.
They should either.
- start producing steam machine as soon as they can (as they did) but clearly state that these are *prototypes* and probably part of the functionality will be missing.
- or NOT jump on the bandwagon so quickly, and wait until Valve get their shit together (which could be anywhere between now and 2017) and then release a machine with all the features and the specs.

What Alienware did was as stupid as announcing a "special offer with 'Half-Life Episode 3' packaged in for free together with the machine!", and then not knowing what to do as Valve is delayed, packaging some random "Medal of Duty" instead.

Also, SteamOS actually, does work. The problem isn't Linux, the problem are:
- controller (are still tweaked)
- linux games (currently, steam OS works better as a light box to play your game on the living room's big screen/projector by *streaming them* out of a Windows war machine somewhere else in the appartment, rather than playing them directly there. Porting takes time).

Mod parent up. Atleast Valve found that Left 4 Dead 2 run faster after porting OpenGL on Windows (and even faster on Linux).

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com...

already had very low persistence (60Hz display refresh, same as the new OR, but horrid resolution)

"Persistence" in this case doesn't just mean a higher refresh rate, but the time the image is on the display. With a classical LCD the image is on the display all the time, that's ok when you read text on a monitor, however for VR this leads to artifacts. When the image is on all the time and you move your head your eyes will receive an incorrect image until the next frame shows up, this leads to a lot of blurring and judder. With low persistence on the other side a frame is just flashed for a short amount and then the display goes black again (kind of like a CRT), meaning your eyes will receive always the right information and the judder and blur disappear. The black in between frames is filtered away by your brain. Abrash has some nice blog entries on the topic.

It is all about pixels.

No, for Presence (immersiveness) it's all about the FoV and the latency. Angular resolution can take a flying leap if those two aren't present. That is why you can't just slap an IMU on a HMZ-Tx or ST1080 and have a good VR experience, but putting on the rift with a paltry 600x800 per eye has a massive impact.

The Glyph is just one of the dime-a-dozen DLP microdisplay based HMDs that have been sold for quite some time. Being a sequential-colour device, it is unsuitable for ANY application that requires you to turn your head not have colour fringing (see the lower half of Abrash blog post

Michael Abrash would be up there on my list. He has written some very nice posts on his blog that are simple to understand, and illustrate some obstacles we'll need to overcome to create the best HMDs we can.

*This may lead to being beaten around the head with a crowbar by an angry physicist. A fix will be implemented if we ever solve the problem (unlikely).

Nah, they'll just say the fix will be in the "Next update".

> The PDF mentions another technique I've read about in Team Fortress 2, called "SDF" or "signed distance field" fonts.

Correct; Valve published this technique in 2007.

http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2007/SIGGRAPH2007_AlphaTestedMagnification.pdf

Yeah right, just look how abysmal it performs:
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

Left 4 Dead 2 on Windows 7 with Direct3D drivers, we get 270.6 FPS as
OpenGL implementation on Windows. Left 4 Dead 2 is now running at 303.4 FPS
Left 4 Dead 2 is running at 315 FPS on Linux.

• "Faster Zombies!" [Valve Linux] - http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/
• "The AMD Radeon Performance Is Incredible On Linux 3.12" - http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_linux312_major&num=1
• "Here's Why Radeon Graphics Are Faster On Linux 3.12" - http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_312_performance&num=1

Both NVidia and AMD have lifted their game a lot recently for Linux. Plus Valve has been working hard to improve things - with its Steam Box in the pipeline (which is Linux based). I suggest you take a look at Linux drivers again, they are very competitive on modern GPUs.

Why not just release the app so that people that want it can install it on the system they are already using?

You mean like this? https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_under_Linux#Native_Steam_on_Linux If they're doing that, then it seems unlikely that they're planning to implement some unspecified "lock-in." Why would they? The software is already protected via Steam, and that's what matters to publishers.

Exactly, and that is especially a problem for the Oculus Rift and other virtual reality headsets that are coming onto the market, because it becomes really noticeable when you move your head quickly. I think that that is what they're mainly targeting here, although according to John Carmack, G-Sync won't work on the Rift. Anyway, for those interested in the technical details, graphics programming legend Michael Abrash (currently at Valve) wrote an excellent technical piece about the frame timing issues you get with VR headsets some time ago.

Also
4) Improved HW support: they're already working on improving video drivers
5) Kernel improvements for gaming and lower latency user feedback.
6) Larger Linux install base and the attention that commands from S/W and H/W vendors.

How about the ones that perform better than Windows? http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

Well, we don't know that. There are visual cues that significantly affect tiredness and motion sickness, and having smart people like Carmack on the case goes a long way to solving the technical problems.
He has done some interesting posts already on latency.

Don't know. Have you ever heard of the internet? http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/ would show that you're full of shit, and that's from over a yera ago.

The issue is about good coding, not about some magic "linux/osx doesn't do as well" thing. You're a TWIT, not someone that understands technology.

I'm unsure of how it would perform with something as dynamic as a video game.

Really? Valve ported Left 4 Dead 2 to Linux and it came out faster. I'm at work so I can't exactly get to the page, but I pulled this reference from the Wikipedia article about Steam. Since I'm at work I can't verify that Valve is using OpenGL for the Linux port of Steam, but I'm going to assume that's the case.

Valve put it out ther on their developer site since day one... https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_under_Linux

1 Native Steam on Linux
        1.1 Unpackaged
        1.2 Arch Linux
        1.3 Fedora
        1.4 Gentoo
        1.5 openSUSE / SUSE
        1.6 Ubuntu

So big deal, it only took you 3 months more time then the other distro's
15:56, 16 December 2012 Hanno (Talk | contribs) (9,101 bytes) (Native Steam on Linux Beta Client)

Oh, yeah. Michael Abrash did this two months ago.

No, it's not. THIS is the Valve logo.

And yet, that logo never appears in their games, while the logo of the guy with a Valve stuck in his head does. Its the first thing you see after launching a Valve game.

For that matter, there's more than one Valve in head logo; Valve switched to a new one for games released after 2011.

Steam is a product, Valve is the company.

That said, he's still wrong, because this is Valve's logo.

No, it's not. THIS is the Valve logo.

and extra added overhead to verify ownership

Steam already claims that if you receive a gift that was bought using a stolen credit card they will revoke the copy of the game. They have also revoked copies that were sold in the wrong region. They also offer guest passes and free weekends. So the infrastucture to remove games from accounts is clearly already there.

The games has to be downloaded by more users

That much is true. Whether it will be "a lot" of stress or a negligable change is another matter.

Note that http://www.valvesoftware.com/business/ claims

"Steamworks is entirely free. There are no licensing fees and there’s no charge for bandwidth, retail copies, or OEM distribution."

In other words steam will distribute your software for free in exchange for bringing customers to the platform. I think in light of that it will be hard to argue that the bandwidth from resales is an undue burden.

Any word on having the Half Life / Portal / Left 4 Dead games working on Linux? These are part of my "must have installed" games, that I go back to from time to time, so I'll need them working on Linux as well, thank you :)

They are being ported to Linux. Team Fortress 2 is already there, and they talk about getting better framerates in L4D2 specifically in their blog though it isn't released yet. I don't remember seeing a comment that they are porting all of them, but I think anything that runs the Source Engine is a safe bet.

A reminder for all that although Ubuntu is the only one on the list, you can run it on other platforms.

Valve has native binaries for Gentoo, SUSE, Fedora, and Arch
You can read more here: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_under_Linux


On a personal note, while extremely happy that linux is finally gaining gaming ground, it sorrows me that they decided to put emphasis on Ubuntu, given its current questionable vision

why don't you first convince Nvidia to make their drivers install the first time without issue.

Valve is working on this. The Linux version of Steam is in beta right now , and NVIDIA has been pumping out press releases about their partnership with Valve on Linux for the last few months.

For the last decade (literally), people have been saying that the only reason why there's no games for Linux is because it's a chicken-and-egg problem - there's no games because there's no hardware support, and there's no hardware support because there's no games. Now Microsoft, with Windows 8 (and its built-in Steam competitor) has pissed off the Gaben, and I think things will change soon.

Valve throwing their weight behind it is probably going to make a lot of headway towards solving the problem within a few years; they have enough pull with both the chicken and the egg that they can encourage developers to support Linux, and hardware manufacturers to write proper drivers.

Improved Alpha-Tested Magnification for Vector Textures and Special Effects (Warning: PDF)

The paper in the PDF talks about converting vector graphics to signed distance fields. The main example is a 64x64 image that still renders crisp edges when zoomed to 512x512.

has the 10-foot UI capability of Windows and Steam improved to the point where one can use VGA out through a scan converter as a media PC's primary UI?

There are adapters out there that will convert HDMI or DVI to S-Video

I'm aware of these adapters. SewellDirect.com sells them, for example. However, the whole reason why general computer use moved away from TVs in the first place was that the 480i resolution of S-Video makes general computer use difficult, as most PC applications are not optimized for such a low-density display.

In the advanced search on store.steampowered.com, I failed to figure out how to filter for games that include full support for multiple controllers.

As far as Steam goes you'd probably have to use the website

I was using the website.

Look up "passing arguments to Steam"

For one thing, the only Google result for that exact phrase is this page which appears not nearly relevant. Removing the quote marks brought me to this page, which likewise mentions nothing about search. But I'm probably being "far far too literal" again. I tried steam search filter multiplayer and found a recently posted request for enhancement for this very feature, which sort of rules out the feature already being present in Steam search. In any case, how would the average end user discover how to pass in the right filters to Steam or Google?

for an HTPC [Windows 8's Start Screen] gives you a bright easy to read target to hit so frankly for that particular niche its not bad

You have a point there. The modern UI works on Windows 8 for the same reason it works on Xbox 360 (apart from two-thirds of the tile space on the 360 being taken by advertisements).

But Steam works, all the games on Steam don't seem to be bothered by metro

Do all the games on Steam have a "10-foot" user interface that can be read from far away or on a 480i S-Video monitor?

If it sounds like I'm trolling, that's certainly not my intent. I'm just trying to present the alleged barriers to firmly establishing the PC as the fourth console. Some other Slashdot users stick to their claims that 1. the complexity of connecting and maintaining a PC is unsuitable for the majority of living rooms apart from a slim minority of geeks, 2. there exist video game genres that don't work well on a PC, phone, or tablet, and 3. for this reason, these genres are unsuitable for independent developers. By relaying their arguments to you, a staunch fan of living-room PCs, the goal is that the answers will lead me to counterarguments to organize by the next discussion.

One Slashdot regular maintains that paying one's dues to the establishment is the only viable way to get an idea out to the public in the form of a video game, and console makers' requirement for previous experience is the only way to vet games for quality and prevent a repeat of the 1983 crash (for which see Wikipedia and TV Tropes). He maintains that part of paying such dues involves moving to Austin, Boston, Seattle, or Silicon Valley, just as stage actors need to move to Broadway and screen actors need to move to Hollywood. So I humored him and asked him for tips on rearranging my life so that I can work for the establishment, and in this post he said that if I have

It seems that many game companies already exploit a psychologist in their game design process. Valve has a position open, too. :)

> There's really no alternative to Windows for most desktop and laptop usage,

Eh?

You have 2 choices: OSX and/or Linux, pick your poison.

Now depending on your apps you may be stuck in Windows land (such as SolidWorks, etc.), but both OSX and Linux are gaining traction at increasing rate which is fantastic to see.

I've been gaming on PCs for 30 years. I pleases me greatly to see OSX finally getting prioritized. And with nVidia working with Valve to increase driver performance ( http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/ ), Linux *may* still be a viable option for us game devs to target Linux and make a profit at some point in the future.

What apps & file formats are you stuck with that you can't migrate to another OS ?
 

Why would you worry about which version has your graphics drivers? Ubuntu, which will be the only distro for the near future with Steam support, will have the major drivers available. If you choose to use another, it's up to you to get it to work until they decide to branch out to another distribution.

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/steamd-penguins/

Why Ubuntu? There are a couple of reasons for that. First, we’re just starting development and working with a single distribution is critical when you are experimenting, as we are. It reduces the variability of the testing space and makes early iteration easier and faster. Secondly, Ubuntu is a popular distribution and has recognition with the general gaming and developer communities. This doesn’t mean that Ubuntu will be the only distribution we support. Based on the success of our efforts around Ubuntu, we will look at supporting other distributions in the future.

Just a thought. Could the reason for valve making a native linux client be a low-profile way to gradually enter the android platform? How much linux is android from a game standpoint? Either that, or they are contemplating a linux console.

Or perhaps just that given that people with linux hasn't paid $300 for their operating system, perhaps they instead can put some money on a game?

Anyway. It is a kind of interesting process: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/

You can already participate to the open beta, isn't that real enough for you?

http://www.valvesoftware.com/linuxsurvey.php

In fact you can register for their beta-program right now.

Thank you for mentioning this without actually linking to the survey. I don't want a flood of Slashdotters lowering my chances of getting in the beta early.

"We're looking for Linux gamers to install and test our new Steam for Linux client. We are primarily interested in experienced Linux users.

In order to take the survey, you need to first login with your Steam account to link your response with your Steam ID."

http://securityflakes.livelyblog.com/2012/10/28/valve-linux-steam-client-beta-application-not-security-related-but-you-know-you-want-it/

Valve Linux Steam Client Beta Application

Weâ(TM)re looking for Linux gamers to install and test our new Steam for Linux client. We are primarily interested in experienced Linux users.

In order to take the survey, you need to first login with your Steam account to link your response with your Steam ID.

Note: You must have cookies enabled in your browser to continue

Login with your Steam account to apply:

http://www.valvesoftware.com/linuxsurvey.php?action=login

http://securityflakes.livelyblog.com/2012/10/28/valve-linux-steam-client-beta-application-not-security-related-but-you-know-you-want-it/

Ummm...yeah, first off, Steam isn't available for Linux yet.

The external beta is due to be released in the next few days (by the end of October, barring complications): http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/beta-late-than-never-3/ This makes the above claim true but less-than-relevant. It's true that the first games to be ported will be Source games--particularly L4D games; but Valve has made it clear that they're currently more interested in producing games for Linux than for Windows 8, which Gabe Newell calls a "disaster." This bodes well for commercial Linux gaming. (Also, a lot of folks agree with him regarding Windows 8, so that's also a good sign for Linux.)

Even if it was, the most that's going to be available for a _very_ long time is a few of Valve's Half Life 2 engine-based titles (Left 4 Dead, more than likely Portal 2, etc.), it's not as if every Steam title is going to be magically ported over to Linux overnight. I doubt Valve will even be able to convince one large company like EA to even consider it, so there go everything but your "quirky" indy games like Slender, which was appalling, and the occasional gem.

Several commercial EA games are now available in the Ubuntu Software Center. More are on the way. Some of them are quite a bit more "produced" than an "indie" game would be.

Incidentally, Ryan "Icculus" Gordon? Yeah, he was the one that was supposed to be porting Unreal Tournament 3 over to Linux. In fact I'm sure if you e-mail him he'll still claim that he's working on it. Icculus has a whole bunch of abandoned ports under his belt, people only seem to remember the ones he actually finished.

I share your frustration regarding UT3, as I bought it so I could play it on Linux. Still, Gordon did port a number of other games I enjoy, so I still consider it a "win" of sorts. I read that UT3 had some kind of legal fiasco going on, but that could just be rumor. Anyway, as one of the few folks who have ported any "AAA" games, at all to linux, Gordon is doing pretty well IMHO.

Epic has given up on Linux, iD has given up on Linux, none of the other big companies were ever interested in it in the first place.

The only recent game ID didn't release for Linux, so far as I can recall, is Rage. Quake 4, RTCW, Wolfenstein:ET, Doom 3 (and expansion), Prey, etc. are all available with Linux clients. Id hasn't produced a lot of games, lately, so as you might imagine, these aren't particularly recent titles. I'm bummed about not having Rage on Linux, but them's the breaks. Now that a first-class software distribution platform is coming to Linux, we have reason to be hopeful for future offers.

I use Fedora 17 on my desktop, I've been using Linux since the only alternative I had was DOS 5 or Windows 3.0 on top of it, and even I can see that it's nowhere what it needs to be in order to be a viable gaming platform. That's why I and many others install it -in addition- to the operating system on the PC. One for entertainment (usually Windows), one for everything else (usually Linux). Why? Well, technically you can bash a nail into something with a wrench, but most people would use a hammer.

I tried Fedora for Linux gaming, and it was atrocious. I hassled with it for about 6 months, and eventually went back to Linux Mint. (In point of fact, I had better luck with gaming on Gentoo and Slackware, back when I was using them.) While I respect anyone's preference for a distribution, the present fact is that if you want "mainstream" software to run on Linux, you need a Debian/Ubuntu derivative.

Your comment about dual-booting with Windows for entertainment is certainly well-received, though; until gaming becomes truly "mainstream" on Linux, I doubt I'll be reformatting my Windows partition anytime soon. Likewise, being unable to play some of the games I own is a bummer, so your note about that is also right-on. I hope recent and near-future developments change this.

They're doing the initial beta (and possibly initial release) only under Ubuntu, to limit the number of complications.

Why Ubuntu? There are a couple of reasons for that. First, we’re just starting development and working with a single distribution is critical when you are experimenting, as we are. It reduces the variability of the testing space and makes early iteration easier and faster. Secondly, Ubuntu is a popular distribution and has recognition with the general gaming and developer communities. This doesn’t mean that Ubuntu will be the only distribution we support. Based on the success of our efforts around Ubuntu, we will look at supporting other distributions in the future.

Source: Valve Linux blog, entry "Steam'd Penguins", posted July 16 2012

And all that means, really, is that they currently only "support" it on Ubuntu - it will quite likely run fine on other distros, although probably with some work involved. And, if it's a reasonable success, they may make it supported on other major distros.

Welcome to Valve Time.

You might want to take a look at the mysterious concept of Valve Time: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time

Knowing Valve, the time between beta/final release will be (close to) eternal anyways.