Steam Client for Mac Launches, Linux Client On the Way

CyDharttha writes with news that the Mac version of Steam went live today, along with Mac versions of Portal, Team Fortress 2, and many other games. Valve plans to make more games available every Wednesday. Several publications are also reporting that a Linux version of Steam has been confirmed, and is expected within the next few months. Quoting Phoronix: "Found already within the Steam store are Linux-native games like Unreal Tournament 2004, World of Goo, and titles from id Software such as Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Doom 3. Now that the Source Engine is officially supported on Linux, some Source-based games will be coming over too. Will we finally see Unreal Tournament 3 surface on Linux too? Only time will tell, but it is something we speculated back in 2008. Postal III is also being released this year atop the Source Engine and it will be offering up a native client. We have confirmed that Valve's latest and popular titles like Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, and Team Fortress 2 are among the first of the Steam Linux titles, similar to the Mac OS X support. The released Linux client should be available by the end of summer."

Comments

I am happy.

[CasualFriday]

AWESOME. If CS:S and HL2 run well in Ubuntu, I now have no reason to keep my Windows partition.

Re:I am happy.

[Shadow of Eternity]

Personally I just verbally abuse my lawn and tell it how fat and ugly it is.

Re:I am happy.

[TheRaven64]

When they say WINE is not an emulator, they mean WINE is not a system or CPU emulator. It is an implementation of the Win32 APIs, but it implements them on top of the equivalent *NIX APIs (complete with some ugly hacks to get around impedance mismatches), rather than implementing them on top of the lower-level functionality that those *NIX APIs use. For example, when you run a Direct3D game on WINE, the Direct3D functions call OpenGL functions, which call low-level driver functions. When you run a Direct3D game on Windows, the Direct3D functions call the driver functions directly. With a modern game that uses shaders, you are often doing a source-to-source transform of the shader (or a bytecode-to-bytecode transform) before then JIT compiling it for the target GPU. This means that, theoretically, there is more overhead when using WINE. In practice, if the WINE code or the low-level implementations are slightly better optimised then this overhead becomes irrelevant.

What to do

[quadrox]

I am torn apart - show my support for linux games and make linux game purchases with steam once that is possible, or keep boycotting it because of the evil DRM that it brings...

I just don't know anymore...

(FYI: sadly, I already have plenty of steam games on my account, from a time before I realized the true extent of the DRM danger)

Re:What to do

[Monkeedude1212]

Don't get me wrong, I like Valve, and I support Valve, I buy most of my games through Valve, but it erks me when people proclaim Valve's DRM Scheme as "How to do it right".

The only reason its the right way of distributing is because they haven't abused it for DRM purposes. One person can share a steam account as much as one can copy a CD. Multiple people can even play online should it be a non-valve game. They've tied their own titles into Steam so well that their DRM is tight for Multiplayer Valve Titles. Not that thats a bad thing, gotta protect their games and all.

I've committed to them because, as you say, they deliver a good customer experience.

But it is still completely within their power to take away every game you've purchased through Steam. When you use Steam, you agree to the EULA, which basically states that you are not buying the game, you are purchasing a license through Valve. Valve may at any time at their discretion close your steam account, or stop their servers, with no obligation to deliver you a working copy of the game. This has happened to severe hackers on their more popular titles, such as Counter Strike and Team Fortress 2.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, though I like and support Valve's online distribution method, and Valve as a whole, their implementation does leave one paranoid, since you can lose hundreds of dollars worth of games at the sole discretion of someone else.

Should something happen to cause new management at Valve, their system is set up perfectly to screw you over worse than game you could buy in store. Just saying.

Re:What to do

[DragonWriter]

If you get your games through Steam, your are subjecting yourself to some nasty DRM that will eventually lock you out of everything (no company lasts forever).

Yeah, but neither does my interest in any particular game. As long as there is a overwhelming probability that Steam will outlast my interest in the Steam-linked game I'm buying, there's not a whole lot of reason for me to be concerned by this particular concerned.

Re:What to do

[melikamp]

The DRM is not even the only issue. If you run anything that is binary and closed-sourced on your GNU/Linux machine, with your user privileges, you are basically asking for a punch in the gut. Keep doing it, folks; with so many willing targets, all of us who actually give two shits about security will be that much safer.

I came to realize that I do not particularly want proprietary games to leave Windows. This way, I have my Windows machine, which is basically a dedicated game device and a public-terminal-level-security Internet appliance. With native GNU/Linux ports, I would still have to have two separate machines, and still treat one of them as a rogue, although I would be able to save a few bucks on OS.

Re:What to do

[7-Vodka]

Why were you a sarcastic asshole when the GP was trying to make valid points?

In case you don't know; and I'm assuming you don't in good faith, Your games will stop working if they don't talk to the verification servers.

Oh, I'm sorry I shouldn't have called them "your games". I think what everyone is trying to point out is that they don't like the whole system that DRM inevitably forces on you. You no longer buy a game and own it as your piece of property. You rent it.

Makes it hard to do what you want with them and when the companies get bought out, go out of business or just change their minds and shut off the verification servers you're SOL.

Don't forget what happened with the kindle.... I want to shit on people when I hear them bragging about their kindles.

As much as players might enjoy the convenience being brought in with this new model, giving up your other rights isn't necessary. There's also the related debate of having the right to run servers yourself and playing at lan parties.

why buy WoG through Steam, instead of NOT through?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why by World of Goo through steam, when you could buy it NOT through steam? Seriously, they sell a DRM-free version, doesn't require any intrusive software on your machine, your computer stays YOUR computer, no worries about what the thing might be doing behind your back, etc.

I can understand the argument of, "Well, game XYZ is only available through stream", even though I wouldn't do it myself. Buy when there's a totally un-DRMed alternative available, why would anyone chose Steam over that?

My Question

[Jaysyn]

Is will you get access to the Linux binaries if you already have the Win32 version?

Even a discount would be nice I guess.

and my big question is

[RobertLTux]

if you have several games on the windows platform will they flip you a pass to the linux versions??

(game publishers dream: having somebody "need" to buy 3 copies of a game (Win/Lin/Mac))