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Valve Looking to Port Games to Linux?
Martin Bozic writes "Valve is apparently looking for senior engineers to port games to Linux. They have an ad up on the official site looking for a Senior Software Engineer with experience in 'systems engineering designing and developing communications software and hardware solutions including resolving problems surrounding real-time and non real time PC- based systems using C++ and network programming algorithms and their interaction with physical devices.' One of the lines under the job description is the simple statement: 'Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform.'" No reason to get excited about this before they make an official announcement; while this may eventually mean Half-Life 2 running under Linux, they may just want penguin-based folks to play Peggle.
They've already ported it to the PS3, so why not port it to another, more successful gaming platform? I mean, it's not like it can be any harder than the PS3 port, and it's likely to pull in more sales anyway.
I wonder if this means Steam under Linux?
IF Valve wants to port its Windows games to Linux, and IF that involves porting Steam, does that mean they'd be required to disclose the source to Steam's authentication system?
Otherwise they'd just release binaries that target distributions, right?
The man's a porting machine, from the old Loki days up to a lot of the current Linux compatible titles. http://www.icculus.org/~icculus/
I'll be all over it in a hearbeat. That game and CS:S are the only reasons I give windows any hard drive space at all.
Linux is already known to have a few rootkits available, so they will save on recoding.
More like they're looking to port dedicated server clients to Linux.
the quality of the games from valve will suffer under linux. i don't want linux to have an influence over what i play. linux fanbois have already shown that they're unwilling to get with the program and they're going to be nothing but a liability to valve.
I swear to god I have tears of joy. As a developer (OK Modder) who truly enjoys developing with the Source engine, this is my dream come true! Valve I love you! Finally I will be able to stay completely within my OS of choice!
Valve, if your reading my post, thank you for making this guy's dream come true.
I support this fully! Let me know if you need anything on my part!
Server software may run under Linux and the games under Windows.
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Now that we will have way better open source video drivers for ATI (which we all know valve LOVES ATI), I think that the day has come for having real games on linux. This just makes sense.
mr pibb + red vines = crazy delicious
Many Half Life 2 servers already run on Linux.
The reason most devs show no interest in doing this is that 90%+ of linux users refuse to pay for software, either stealing it, or just not buying it. This is why the platform is (rightfully) ignored.
It's a much better use of Ryan's precious time to work on porting games to the open source OLPC platform which will bring new educational games to millions of kids, instead of working on closed source software like Valve which will only bring old violent games to a few thousand hard core Linux fanatics.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
It seems unlikely that Valve would go in this direction. Valve's founders are ex-Microsoft employees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation
The article omitted a link to Peggle, so here's a link: http://www.popcap.com/games/peggle
Maybe it'll work with wine?
While the description talks about algorithms and real-time, not a word is mentioned of OpenGL or similar graphics background. All the more reason to think Linux is being used backend somehow.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
My friend and I both have Dell XPS Gen 2 laptops. With mine running Windows and his running Wine Ubuntu, he can get into a game slightly faster than I can.
Or, it could just mean that they're making a network game/MMO and want to use Linux to power the servers that talk to Windows clients. This could easily be explained if they already have a good portion of the Windows networking code working for the game (thus porting from Windows to Linux for the server.) It could be they started development with the idea of using Windows Server, but then decided to switch to Linux or add a Linux option.
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For all new games so it is easier to port them.
It seems unlikely that Valve would go in this direction. Valve's founders are ex-Microsoft employees.
Valve's founders started as Macintosh developers who ported their products to Windows. Microsoft eventually bought them.
That said, I agree with others, this job is most likely to port new game code to Linux for use in game servers only.
With so much new support for Linux lately (Ubuntu, Dell, HP, ATI/AMD) it would be hard to ignore Linux as a gaming platform.
Game developers are not ignoring Linux as a potential retail platform, they are merely doing the math and seeing that it is not justified. The major problem is that Linux gamers generally dual boot or emulate, therefore they are already customers buying the Win32 version of the game. A Linux version of the game would merely replace a Win32 sale with a Linux sale, there is no new money in such a swap, the development and support costs are not paid for. These costs are only supported by *new* sales, this means sales to people who refuse to dual boot or emulate. This makes the Linux gaming market far smaller than most people think.
Mac used to be in a better situation because dual boot was impossible and emulation impractical. However with modern Intel based Macs this is no longer the case. Note what is happening there, developers are starting to use emulation. To oversimplify things, wine (Cider) is being linked into the Win32 game, as opposed to Linux where wine (Cedega) is a standalone tool. If developers start support Linux it will be through something like Cider where there is very little work compared to doing a native Linux port.
...is much better than CS:S. At least in my opinion (and many of my gamer friends as well), the gameplay is superior to any version of counter strike, and it is free and available for Linux NATIVELY. Give it a shot, and if you like it, free up that windows drive. I'll see you on there.... :)
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Most official dedicated servers already have a linux port, and a way to interface them with the steam servers to update them.
They are hiring someone to port new game code to create servers for future games and/or maintain the existing servers for old games. They are merely continuing what they have already been doing, they just need another person.
On the other hand, I buy a LOT fewer games for the PC now than I used to. I use Linux as my main OS and I hate even going into the other room to use my gaming PC. If I'm going to go that far, I just go to the living room and play on a console instead.
At this point, I have no plans to update my gaming rig. This is the first time I've ever been able to say that, and it surprises me greatly.
As for Linux ports... It's a lot easier to plan to be cross-platform in the beginning than port it, even using Cider. There are even free libraries to help ease the transition now. There's not much excuse left for why they continue to be Windows-only when it won't cost them much more development time. (It'll cost more test-time, but cross-platform programming tends to force proper coding, and fewer bugs to start with.)
So no, not everyone that dual-boots can be bothered to reboot just for a game. Not everyone with 2 systems can be bothered to flip back and forth just for a game. Ignoring (without specific reason) 2 of the 3 major OS's is a huge mistake, and Valve is making sure they are covered. It's not a big surprise.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Were it not for the commercial software hostile GPLv3 there might be lots of games for teh Lunix.
Ah... who am I fooling? Nobody cares about making games on teh Lunix. OpenGL is as dead as Prince's music career... and just as desperate.
DirectX just kicks TOO much ass, and game developers like it too much. It takes too much of the trouble out of programming the games. I mean, unless you love reinventing the wheel every time you do something, why use Teh Lunix? Sure, it's "open", but that is only used to mask it's inability to compete. Even the biggest advocates of Teh Lunix on teh desktop have quit in frustration (blaming MS for their inability to accomplish anything, of course, but they're still dyed-in-the-wool FOSSies, even in ignominious defeat).
There are even free libraries to help ease the transition now. There's not much excuse left for why they continue to be Windows-only when it won't cost them much more development time. (It'll cost more test-time, but cross-platform programming tends to force proper coding, and fewer bugs to start with.)
I agree that cross platform development can help, however it makes far more sense to target Mac than Linux. Adding a third platform, Linux, would not improve things much over two, Win32 and Mac. Even when portions of a game are ported to Linux in order to create a server there is still a lot of work to be done with respect to getting the user interface and other client side code running.
The free libraries are often overrated, they are not without their own troubles and tend to lead towards a least common denominator approach. Companies that develop for both Win32 and Mac or port from Win32 to Mac tend to use their own code developed over many years. However, I think Cider is threatening the idea of native ports to Mac, we'll have to wait and see how things go with these early adopters of Cider.
Ignoring (without specific reason) 2 of the 3 major OS's is a huge mistake, and Valve is making sure they are covered. It's not a big surprise.
It is a bit premature to say Valve will support native Linux clients. They are probably just hiring another person to work on Linux servers. The existing servers need to be maintained and new servers need to be developed for games under development.
That's the best news I've heard all day. Especially seeing as if they port Source and Steam, we probably won't be paying twice.
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You do realize that Valve is the *only* major game engine vendor that still doesn't provide a native Linux port, right?
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Game developers are not ignoring Linux as a potential retail platform, they are merely doing the math and seeing that it is not justified.
You do realize that Valve is the *only* major game engine vendor that still doesn't provide a native Linux port, right?
Engine developers are very different from game developers. The option of doing Linux is a useful marketing bullet item. Having the option to target Linux if and when it becomes financially justifiable is nice. However offering such an option does not imply that native Linux versions are justifiable today. Keep in mind that engine developers are selling to people who won't have a finished game for years.
Is it really the third platform, or the fifth? I hear that the PS3 and XBox360 are pretty big gaming platforms. When you look at it that way, you quickly realize that the Mac, Linux, and PS3 ports are largely the same code (OpenGL renderer) - as are the Windows and XBox360 ports (DirectX). At that point, the question of a release on Mac or Linux is basically installer testing rather than any sort of significant extra programming effort.
That seems to be why both ID and Epic make both Mac and Linux releases of their games. They're already writing a cross-platform game with an OpenGL renderer - releasing for a couple of extra similar platforms has trivial costs compared to a non-zero number of extra sales and some good PR. It also future-proofs their engines in case Linux happens to hit an inflection point in uptake during that engine's useful lifespan.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Sure, that doesn't change the fact that Valve *is* an engine developer and that Half Life is just as much an engine demo as Doom III or Unreal Tournament 2004 were. My point is simply this: Using the proposed logic (considering what other similar developers do), it isn't obvious that Valve shouldn't port to Linux.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
This is good news, though steam runs fine (minus a couple minor bugs) with normal Wine and plays the games.
What would be nice is if they released a live or installable DVD image that supported all your common hardware and provided a stripped-down system designed purely to run Steam, games and maybe some chat software etc. so you'd have a nice solid system to play your games without any background tasks getting in your way. Would also make it really easy to turn PCs you have lying around into lan party machines :)
- doctea