Slashdot Mirror
Steam Not Coming To Linux
dkd903 writes "A rumor has been going around for about four months that Valve was working on a Linux version of Steam and this had a lot of people in the Linux community very excited. But, Valve has now officially killed the rumor. And it is not what people wants to hear – there is no Linux version of Steam in development. Doug Lombardi, the Marketing VP of Valve Corporation, in an interview, has put an end to all the rumors by saying that they are not working on Steam for Linux right now."
It's not really a surprise. To begin with 99% of commercial games don't even have a Linux version, so there's nothing to sell to Linux gamers. You can't really rely on emulation either, if you sell the game as a Linux version you really have to do a native build. Then there are hundreds of different Linux distros and configurations which all work a little bit different. Also, just imagine the outcry about DRM and Valve not open sourcing Steam or it's games. The whole open source and everything-must-be-free mentality goes against businesses. You can already read here on slashdot how some people refuse to use Steam because it might go down in 50 years. This thinking is 100x worse with Linux users.
I think the problem with Linux is that those who develop it push their philosophy too much and refuse to give room for other philosophies, along with way too much spread ecosystem (distros, configurations, all the problems). There's a reason why we still haven't seen the year of Linux on desktop and probably never will. As much as I dislike Apple, if you want an UNIX based desktop OS you get a Mac.
Your number one source on the web for wild speculation and misinformation in the linux world.
Last I checked it ran pretty good in Wine (the Source engine too), so it's not a total loss.
It would be nice to have a gaming standard as big as Steam available for Linux, but between spotty drivers and lack of Linux versions for most games, I can understand why Valve won't make the investment.
Oh well, WINE works "good enough", I suppose...Still, this is just one more reason I keep a Windows 7 64 bit machine around.
Living With a Nerd
Linux is for serious business. If you want to goof around, buy a Mac
"Fuck."
iD software has historically produced Linux versions of their games; I remember fondly playing the quake(s), and doom 3 under Linux. While there have been lots and lots of reports over the years showing there is a Linux gaming market, it isn't a large enough market share for these game developers to put serious effort into it. I bet some of them actually see developing for Linux as a hindrance, even though most big game dev companies essentially abstract-out the bits between PS3, XBOX, Wii, PC, etc that are different.
da w00t. mtfnpy?
they are not working on Steam for Linux right now.
This confirms they will be working on it later! I bet it'll be out in time to make 2011 the year of Linux on the desktop!
They can keep their DRM. I decide what ops run on my silicon; not Gabe.
Sure it's not a total loss, but that sort of thing is part of why OS/2 died and Windoze prevailed. OS/2 2.x+ had excellent Windows compatability up to the Win32s API's, which gave many developers little reason to target it with native versions of their code.
I actually bought a new computer, partly in anticipation of steam and half-life2 coming to Linux. Silly me. And in response to those that keep saying that there are too many distro's and that Linux for games for that reason is a lost cause - I don't buy that. I'm running Openbox on Slackware, there's no gnome on my machine and I never use kde. Yet, only rarely do I encounter a program that does not run (usually because of lots of silly gnome libs not being present). I mean, what does a game need from kde or gnome or what have you? Is Linux + X not sufficient? I don't get it.
"Serious gamers" is a contradiction in terms (much like "law-abiding criminals"), so "dedicated gamers" might be a better term.
So does that mean that Postal 3 is going to be the only Non-Steam Source Engine game? We know it's been announced for Linux. And what of those libraries that Phoronix found? Curse your sudden, but inevitable betrayal!
I use Ubuntu exclusively for business and casual use. But for gaming I'll dual boot to Windows 7 (came with the laptop) and play without having to fiddle with anything.
The Windows 7 partition has only one application: Steam. And that's the way I like it.
Even if Steam got ported to Linux, I'm not sure I would switch. I can't imagine all the games being ported, so there is not much to be gained.
I can't seem to follow this, nor get it straight in my mind.
It all started as rumors such as this one.
But, then, they announced that it was official and that Valve had announced that it would be launching a Linux version. I do not recall seeing any actual Valve announcement, but this news hit Slashdot like a "Microsoft-is-dead!"-news-issue: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/its-official-steam-coming-linux
And they say:
We recently touched on one way of being a Linux gamer. Recent news that Valve Software will soon be releasing a Linux client promises to provide another option for Linux gamers. The news could not come at a better time as the world will shortly focus on gaming with the upcoming, industry-only E3 conference, the crown jewel of the gaming industry.
While there are still no details on the list of game titles that will be available, the announcement alone is reason for any Linux gamer to get excited. Steam is a content delivery system for gamers which allows you to buy and download game titles and related media, once you have the client installed.
So, how do we go from announced to "not happening". Was this "announcement" a fake? It seems like it was...otherwise someone is BS me...
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
World of Warcraft and EVE online run just fine on Linux with WINE. Neither company uses DRM on their client. EVE online had a native linux client but
the WINE version ran better.
Despite all the mythlogy about "too many distros" the truth of the matter is that 90%+ of linux users use spinoffs of one of four distros (debian, redhat, suse, and mandriva) all of which run WINE just about the same.
Oh I'm not a fanboy; haven't even booted OS/2 in years, and yes the compatability was at first shaky (much like Wine) then got stronger. I was just seeing a similarity here. Why develop games for Linux when many 'run OK' on Wine?
I'd LOVE to see Steam on Linux, and more games ported to Linux. I'm not sure why I was modded as flamebait when I was making a valid point that is of course open to debate.
Who is "They" and how many is a "lot"????
I use closed source nvidia drivers with no particular ethical issues.
Most linux users (more than 50%) would be perfectly happy if their favorite game
worked on linux whether it was closed source or open source, native linux or WINE.
As a linux user I will say his "holiness" Richard Stallman does not speak for me.
At least I still have games like Urban Terror and Hedgewars though. I think they should have still ported the steam client to Linux. And then just port the source engine and allow devs to choose to port other games or not. People are tired of running everything with Wine and tinkering for some games trying to get them to work properly. But at this rate with companies totally ignoring Linux I'm sure Wine will mature even more than it already is to the point where Wine will achieve 1:1 performance with Windows applications and we won't need to beg for a Linux native client anymore
I don't think anyone is saying you have a fundamental right to play Windows games on Linux. But maybe, some people prefer to use Linux. You say "Linux is ideal for a lot of use cases. Gaming isn't one of them." The primary reason is simply that native builds of many games aren't available for Linux. From a technical standpoint, there's nothing wrong with Linux as a gaming platform (unless you count the lack of DirectX/Direct3D as a technical deficiency).
Linux might be a better platform for gaming for a lot of people, from a technical standpoint, as they'd quite possibly get better stability and slightly better performance.
There's nothing wrong with people hoping that a game developer would start supporting their platform of choice. Yes, they could dual-boot into Windows to play their games (that's what I do), but honestly, it'd be really *nice* to be able to just use Linux all the time and ditch Windows completely. I'd really like to be able to buy a build of a game I want for Linux instead of Windows. I'd be willing to pay for that.
Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that the Linux gamer market is too small, currently, for most studios/publishers to bother with.
Finally they put that rumor to rest. So they can move people that were working on that project over to help finish Episode 3, right? That's what was holding it up, right? Guys?
Group them all into a stereotype and then begin to bash the group. The groups in this case Linux, and Christians, so what's your "ultimate solution"? Send them to the gas chambers?
I keep a copy of XP around for gaming. Despite being mostly Linux user, I quite like XP.
I've no doubt Windows 7 may be better and more stable than XP but having set up a new Windows 7 laptop for a neighbour this past week, the Windows 7 UI is an absolute joke. Microsoft seem to have made changes for changes sake, it's more unusable than the default XP interface - fortunately, you have the Classic view in XP, I didn't have time to check if the same is available in Windows 7.
As to your comments regarding gaming on Linux, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. I have made a number of comparisons between native Linux games and their Windows counterparts (Unreal Tournament 2004, Quake I, II & III, etc.) and there is no real difference in frame-rates between the two when using the same versions of NVIDIA drivers.
My personal opinion is Linux is *BETTER* suited to gaming than Windows due to the amount of customisation you can do both within the kernel and the rest of the OS - not to mention the lack of the Windows registry which means that all the configuration for you apps and games is held in your home directory, if you want to copy those settings to another machine then you just copy them over.
Please get your facts straight in future.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Fuck your shitty DRM Gabe, shove it up your fat ass!
So, in other words, what you are saying is that Linux would like to remain as *pure* as possible and stay true to their philosophy? I don't see a reason to put a (touch)screen in the front-console of an originally-kept Mercedes 300 SL, if the owner would like to stay true to the philosophy of the time, even though, it would certainly be possible to implement it in a way that the original designers would have agreed to - would they have access to that technology at their time.
What's the point of allowing a closed-sourced DRM deployment package on an open platform other than for convenience? Even if it is possible.
Please, continue keeping Linux as open as possible! Make free, open games (and sell advertising space in it or something, if you *really* need to get paid in money).
Just where did those "rumors" come from?
It's a common practice these days for has-been journalists to attempt to boost their page hits by using inflammatory article titles or leads to mundane or ridiculous articles that may only vaguely refer to Linux. You've seen them - "Is Debian Yesterday's distribution?" is but one recent example.
It appears to me that the Valve corporation salted the rumor mine in order to gain FREE publicity about their Steam product. Letting "leak" a Mac Os X launcher script that contains references:
elif [ "$UNAME" == "Linux" ]; then
PLATFORM=linux32
# prepend our lib path to LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="${STEAMROOT}"/${PLATFORM}:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
fi
served nicely as the "Fool's Gold" for the rumor mine.
That Valve did not IMMEDIATELY SQUELCH the rumor, but let it play for FOUR MONTHS, is prima facia evidence that they were exploiting its news value to advertize Steam. They could have refuted the rumor within a few days of the Phoronix article, or they could have simply kept silent for ever about it. The first option would have reduced the news buzz considerable. The second option would have looked even more like blatant exploitation of the Linux phenomena. Four months is just right to maximize the Steam buzz, plus they get an additional buzz kick with their refutation comment.
Just another example of what is becoming classic and all to frequent corporate sleaze behavior.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Humble Indie Bundle - so many Linux gamers bought this that several of the titles in it were even open sourced! This is where the Linux gamers have been shown to be supportive and vote with their wallets when native games are released. Who needs Steam - not me!
If a man empties his purse into his head no man can take it from him. An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Not really a big deal. If Valve had made a native steam client for Linux I would certainly have taken a look to see what is available. The last native ports of games that were any good that I played were NeverWinter Nights and Unreal Tournament 2004.
I work most days on Linux in one of the few commercial game engines that supports Linux natively and I have to say that.
1) Graphics work well (for nvidia anyways - the game engine we are using targets DirectX 11/ OpenGL 4 hardware).
2) Sound needs some work (I wish they still made consumer soundcards that support hardware mixing).
3) The usual problems would be. Most Linux users are either poor and honest, cheep, don't have have premium pc graphics hardware or are ideologically opposed to closed software.
I guess that really just means I have one less distraction from doing productive things. Either that or my gaming dollar is going to be spent on my Wii rather than my PC.
I wonder if ARM platforms become a viable cell-phone gaming market they might reconsider, especially when it comes to older games!
I have a Mac. It runs Fedora. To me: Mac = Good Hardware, Linux = Good Productivity.
Make your own games.
I am a freeBSD user and I have benefited a lot from Linux gaming in the past.
Linux an FreeBSD both have multiple package distribution systems.
All you would have to do would be to make an open source graphical gaming database that housed a mass of completed and beta games compatible with linux, with screenshots, theora trailers, etc. In addition, it would also be a place for gaming stores like LGP to sell games digitally instead of having to wait for them to mail you one.
The name should be called "Vapor" - ei "cold steam" hehe....
Since all y'all are going to use anecdotarithmetic to prove that there are over 13 billion Linux users ready to hand over their hard earned allowance^W earnings to Steam, I'll go ahead and use the same standard of evidence to show why it's not so.
In an in depth poll of household machines (100% of responders replied), I have discovered: 1 x Ubuntu 9.10 desktop, never used for gaming; 1 x Ubuntu 10.04 netbook, never used for gaming; 1 x Ubuntu 10.04 / XP desktop used for gaming, with Steam installed on the XP partition, and a total Frankenstein clusterfuck of bleeding edge Wine and shattered corpses Windows games installed and then abandoned on Ubuntu to linger on, begging for death.
Based on that conclusive survey, I think the market for Steam on Linux is you and Captain Sweatpants over there, and I'm pretty sure Captain Sweatpants secretly has an XP partition anyway.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
For clarity's sake, I'm the same AC as GP.
When I said that Linux isn't ideal for gaming, I didn't mean because of technical limitations in the kernel or sw/config, although I do find the lack of DirectX to be a problem. I meant that the library of Linux games is mostly a small subset of the total games available, particularly among newer releases. Even if Valve went through the lengthy process of doing for Linux what they've done for OS X, it would still be a small subset.
Indeed, you are quite correct in saying that games available for both perform similarly on the same hardware, but this is just one fact whose omission does invalidate many other facts which one could also take into consideration, such as available library and promise of future titles. Linux very well could play anything in the world as well as Windows, but that doesn't mean it does.
Respectfully, please do not accuse me of professing misinformation when I refer to practical use (I say "isn't", not "shouldn't be") by rebutting with your theory of technical potential. There are many reasons for gamers & game devs to focus on a platform, and those unique to Linux usually aren't at the top of the list.
Gaming is not coming to Linux any sooner than it's coming to OS X. So much for the Year of the Linux Desktop. What year was that again?
I think hes talking about the OS/2 Warp versions.... version's 3 and 4. There was a blue spine version 3 that included the windows code (red spine did not). And then Warp 4 included the windows code. (I just installed v4 on an old omnibook 800ct just for giggles). Actually, OS/2 is still being developed as ecomstation. You can see it at www.ecomstation.com
If you look on distowatch at top distros by page hits
1) Debian based distros (add Ubuntu+Debian+mint+Mepis)
2) Redhat based (add up Fedora+centos)
3) Mandriva based (add up Mandriva+PclinuxOS)
4) Suse
5) Gentoo-based (Sabayon and Gentoo)
Slackware is ranked like #13 not bad but behind archlinux.
I've already got several games in development for your "Vapor" system. Please see teh hype?!
Down with the career politician! SUPPORT TERM LIMITS
Steam is digital distribution. If the cost of making the game is low, and it works good enough and doesn't require too much support from Valve, it can very well create a huge profit. They released X-COM: UFO Defense and X-COM: Terror from the Deep. They used DOSBox as an emulator, and I bought both. Easy porting, small download, but Steams digital distribution made it easy to reach customers all over the world. I doubt that would ever have happened if they had to use "the old way" with CDs and physical distribution.
If Linux zealots got it into their head that "supporting Steam is a good thing for open computing and democracy," you can bet there would be a lot of profit in their idealism alone.
Teasing the nobles, and rightfully so!
but this is still bad news
I don't like companies that don't take their customers seriously
Casual linux users dual-boot their systems, serious linux users go for a big uptime.
Serious gamers who are also serious linux users have two machines.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
in my naïveté i've always considered osx to be closer to linux than windows (i'm no developer) so when the osx steam client came out i googled a few times for any evidence that cleverer folk than me were trying to get the osx client working on linux.
however all my results were about the client on osx and 'steam is coming to linux. yea!'
clearly my google-fu is deficient:( can some friendly slashdotter shed some light on this? perhaps explain what the obstacles are that in my ignorance i cannot see
snake
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There's a reason why we still haven't seen the year of Linux on desktop and probably never will.
Speak for yourself.
I saw the year of the Linux desktop in 2000, and every year since. When I *need Windows, I spin up a VMWare player.
No Steam for Linux means I won't be distracted from making money using my Linux desktop.
(*I don't really need Windows, but some of my clients do)
"Lame" - Galaxar
Jerks. Oh well. One less thing to buy :D
Honestly, Valve is shooting itself in the foot, they do not see that the upcoming generation of gamers will be more and more interested in "alternative" OSes as they value quality and privacy (especially when they snap out of the Facebook and Twitter dreamland), which are two things Linux delivers (unlike "mainstream" OSes) Anyhow, Valve is going to lose customers over this, myself first, I would have paid for linux native games, and so far I was actually buying things from Steam even if I had to use Wine. Out of principle I will not even bother with Steam at all (on whatever platform). I'll donate my account to someone else possibly. I just dont have time to dick around with games that dont work natively on my OS, sorry Valve. Valve's attitude is even more surprising when you take into account that to make the OSX port they had to strip all Windows specific code and rewrite big chunks of the Source engine to OpenGL. I do not see what the big problem is with porting to linux now that the OpenGL/OSX port is done. Porting to linux would have also been great publicity for them as the "developer that supports alternatives", now they are just yet another "developer of 3D games for proprietary OSes". Yawn...
Burn him!
I'm glad to see my XP virtual machine still has at least one useful purpose left. And to think I was gonna delete it the other week to save a few gigabytes of disk space.
humm... lets change some words:
A lot of people are exactly the same with anything about torture; *they* don't want anyone tortured because *they* feel it's unacceptable for for people to use it and that it will have a negative effect on innocent persons because it goes against what they believe in. It never occurs to them that *other* people might be quite happy to apply torture without any issues at all and just see it as their duty to protect everyone.
see... it also sound bad... unless you are ok with torture or if you are Jorge Bush
The problem with closed drivers and apps is that they don't affect just you, they affect everyone, just like the torture.
If fully permitted we will get a mess of closed drivers, full of bugs and incompatibilities (see windows drivers) and no incentive whatsoever for hardware builders to release open drivers, propagating bug and problems that anyone can fix. Every driver would need to be reverse engineering, taking too much resources and time... Linux would still be in 2.0 probably, not even talking about *bsd, BeOS, OpenSolaris, etc... those would be without any driver unless those reserve engineered
Your freedom stop where the other people freedom start, you CAN use whatever close source drivers you want, do whatever you like in your machines. Other choose otherwise.we lose games? its sad, but i prefer having a stable and fast platform, games will came sooner or later.
ps: there are already many native, funny linux games, you just dont have the main, blockbuster ones.
ps2: the main problem today for linux games isnt the hardware support, but the lack of standard in window managers, sound and others... check http://www.hemispheregames.com/2010/05/18/porting-osmos-to-linux-a-post-mortem-part-23/ for one example (there are others)... LSB specially need to work better and not just think in server, but also for user. Create something like directx package, where several standard tools and libs for video, network, sound, input, etc exist and check all the requirements for games to use then... it helped a lot the games in windows (before directx, windows games also had to battle each one with all the apps and libs)
Higuita
On at least 2 of the Linux podcasts I listen to, they were saying it was coming in a couple of months. I really dislike fanboys who will claim anything to "get people on their side". They detract from the Linux community. It isn't that I want Steam for Linux (I'm happy to keep my right to resell and right to privacy thank you). It is just deceptive to go around spewing crap like that when you have no solid proof to back it up. "Well, I heard from a friend, who heard from a friend."
Unlike the mythical linux enthusiast, many of us aren't really interested in tinkering, updating and modifying operating systems... It's not a question of cost, I've just found the OS I like and I'm not going to spend time installing Windows and maintaining it. If that means I can't play games, then I'll live with it.
The question is, why are you mad when I discuss this at a discussion forum when a major game distributor apparently changed its mind about linux support? Why should I shut the fuck up?
Actually, I would love such a system. That's probably fairly easy to do. The native package manager may be used to do that... Keep us up to date, if you push the idea further !
This just in: Macs don't ship with Windows!
Tell me something I don't 100% know or expect from Valve.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
"Linux also holds it's own in terms of Indie games."
That's like saying Linux is only as retarded as the average retard.
(Apologies to Jennifer Aniston for stealing her thunder)
On one hand, I'm disappointed that this won't give the option for some gamers the option to migrate to a more free platform full-time. On the other hand, I'm glad that the recent trend of DRM free indie self-publishing for GNU/Linux won't be nicked in the bud.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
But but but but Phoronix SAID they were! They said it was confirmed, even! CONFIRMED!!! Do you even understand that word? Phoronix confirmed it, so it MUST be true! Are you trying to tell me Phoronix is nothing more than wild, uneducated guessing combined with faulty rumor mongering?
Again, I'm GP.
I apologize for issuing a general STFU; I was replying to several "stupid Steam" or "I won't touch anything non-free anyway, so forget them" posts. I moved it up one level to avoid feeding any particular troll. Please forgive this breach of etiquette.
Linux is great, but many on the money side of the table don't want to invest in it. Frankly, I don't want DRM and ring0 type stuff on a Linux box anyway, and IMO you're better off having the bulletproof Linux box for everything you really need, and the Windows install for games/some media/audio/video/whatever else. Sorry, but right now the idea of Linux replacing Windows or Mac OS in these areas is a pipedream.
Nobody's claiming it's a fundamental right, any more than the gaming companies are claiming they have a fundamental right to the contents of our wallets. What we're suggesting, is a trade: games for those wallet contents. The story was that it looked like there was one more entity who wanted that trade, and it turns out they weren't interested. That's all. It's no big deal.
As for coughing up for a Windows license, though, that's ludicrous. Ain't gonna happen. It's not about the money; it's about the inconvenience of dual-booting (solvable with VMs), plus hate and distrust of Microsoft. I don't want malware inside the firewall, nor the inconvenience of working with a very-UI-oriented box outside the firewall. Native games are desirable and you're not ever going to be able to explain to people that it's not a good idea, because it just plain is a good idea.
Why would ANYONE use lin-sux when OS X is available NOW? Why would you want a platform that has terrible security (like the recent 6 years it took to patch a simple security flaw), terrible performance, terrible usability, and covered by a communistic license? I'm not surprised Valve has completely shunned lin-sux, the only people who use it are probably cheap bastards who refuse to buy a proper computer like a Macbook or pay for proper software like OS X (or even Windows 7). Oh well, back to GAMING on my Mac! Have a nice loser life, lin-sux zealots!
Think Different. Think Better. Think APPLE!
Yah, completely stopped Oracle selling...
No, the game designers are lazy. Heck, look at NWN. It was complained that Bink (which they chose to use in the game) was not available on Linux. Two problems:
1) They said they were looking to make it linux and windows to begin with. So why pick something that is windows only?
2) There's a Bink client for linux
The only reason windows exists on my box is to run games, bringing the cost of games to $cost_of_games+$microsoft_tax.
For ten years Walmart carried the torch for Linux in big-box retail. For all it's enormous purchasing power, it couldn't deliver a quality product at a competitive price.
So much for the "Microsoft Tax."
Seriously, Linux users cling to that as their one and only piece of proof that they pay, not realizing how pathetic it is. There are some major, major problems with that:
1) People made it a cross platform thing, they went out of their way to give more to "Show how good $platform is!" Fine, but that has nothing to do with their normal purchasing habits. They gave more this one time but that doesn't mean they regularly spend money on games.
2) More importantly, all the numbers are totally pathetic. Linux users paid $13 for 5 games. That is $2.60 per game. Are you fucking kidding me with that? That is supposed to show it as a valid market? Yes, Windows users gave less. Why? Because only the cheapskates were buying. Everyone else owned the games they wanted. I bought World of Goo back when it launched for $20 and considered it a deal. I paid more for one single title in that pack than Linux users paid for the whole damn thing. $20 is also a budget game title, I regularly pay more, as much as $50 for top tier titles.
So all it really shows is that Linux users are willing to spend a very small amount of money to try and "Prove there's a Linux market." Sorry, not buying the bullshit. You want to impress me? Show me that Linux users would pay retail for each of those games ($40-50). Yes I realize that's above the Windows price since they are indy, however that shows that the market is so hungry for games, they'll pay a lot. Also show me that they'll pay when they just want a game to play, not when they are specifically trying to have a content to make Linux look good.
Wouldn't Valve rather you spend you money on games instead of operating systems?
Is because there are so many of us who are tied to windows purely because we game. If linux were to support even just steam games, linux would have an unavoidable boost in users. The problem is the disparity between who this burden of responsibility lays on, game devs or the *nix community, and most of us seem to feel it is the latter. Want the year of the *nix desktop? Make *nix more game dev friendly.
Hopefully, people will come to terms with the fact that there is no such thing as Linux Gaming and thus no Linux on the desktop era... Choosing open source and gratuity comes with drawbacks, and that includes businesses shying away from it as a viable platform for their products...
Trying to market to people that feel so entitled to gratuity and that are, as a whole, notably cheap, does not really make business sense.
Hardly surprising, I doubt it would be in any way economical.
According to Wikipedia, while noting there are major caveats to the data collection, there are more than 5x as many OSX than Linux users. Furthermore, I think it's a reasonable assumption to say that far more Linux users will be dual-booting or whatever into Windows for gaming, or using Wine. There's also the potential PR backfire if it doesn't work great, or even just by the more extreme open source (or anti-DRM, or whatever) evangelists.
On the Mac, by contrast, nearly all sales are going to be extra. In fact it's practically a captive market - if Steam didn't instantly create a monopoly on Mac gaming then I doubt they'll have to try very hard to achieve it.
From what I understand, there are three major challenges to developing a game for Linux.
The first is using cross-platform libraries. Instead of focusing on DirectX, the developer would need to use libraries like OpenGL, SDL, and OpenAL. While this does take a little more work, most developers nowadays end up using multiple libraries, especially when cross-developing for consoles and PCs. The standard practice is to implement one's own container API, which would be able to use multiple types of libraries and still present the same interface for the game itself. This makes swapping between something like Direct3D and OpenGL relatively trivial, and is pretty much required if a game is being developed for consoles and PCs.
The next challenge is that the game needs to recognize a POSIX-based filesystem. This can be somewhat tedious to implement, especially if some paths are hardcoded into the game (bad practice!), but in the end it would be less work to do than accommodating cross-platform libraries.
The last major challenge is linking the libraries. There are two main methods of linking libraries when compiling a program. One can either dynamically link the libraries, so that the game would use DLLs/SOs to access functions for OpenGL, OpenAL, DirectX, etc, or one can statically link the libraries, so that the game has the code directly built in and has no need for DLLs/SOs. Whereas in Windows, one can simply put the DLLs required in the install directory of the game, on Linux programs aren't installed in their own directory, but rather the components of the game are installed in specific directories. For example, the executable is stored in a bin directory of some sort, libraries are stored elsewhere, and data is stored elsewhere. This means that on a regular installation, the SOs would NOT be installed with the game, but rather installed as their own package and the game would utilize it. The problem comes when the SOs are updated and their interface is changed from whatever interface the game uses. On Windows, the game would continue to use the old, out of date DLL that is provided in the game directory, but on Linux the game would try to use the new SO and would fail due to the changes. Most open-source projects are maintained by the community, so even if the original developer stopped supporting the software long ago and had no intention of updating it to fix the incompatibility, the community can step in and make the changes. This is usually not the case for commercial games.
The solution is to compile the library right into the executable itself. However, that brings its own problems, such as potential security issues, a larger executable, old libraries using resources not available in new versions of the Linux kernel, etc. I'm not familiar with all the solutions to this, but I'm sure there are plenty of ways to do it. (A wrapper class translating old SOs to new interfaces seems ideal to me.)
There are other minor issues that may come into play when developing a game for linux, but these are the major ones that cost the developer the most time and effort. Someone mentioned that different distributions would be an issue, but this is not the case. Granted different distributions use different package managers and installation methods, but the overall method of installing something on Linux is exactly the same for all distributions. The company can either release an installer that automatically builds a package for whatever distribution the game is being installed on (the ATI installer for videocard drivers does this pretty well), or they can make their own shell-script to install the game (which should be fine as long as they provide an uninstaller, as the package manager of the system would not recognize the installation through this method), or they could go the Unreal Tournament 2004 method, where the game is simply copied into the user directory and run locally (this has its own minor issues, the biggest being that the game would only be available to one user unless
You can't sell software to freetards
If you're wondering why you were modded "troll", your flaming the FOSS community in a Linux thread begs for a downmod.
After all, "INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE" is the freetard mantra
Free as in speech, idiot. You know what? Almost every Linux user has bought at least one copy of Windows, even if it was pre-installed and they wiped it.
BTW, a "freetard" is someone who is too retarded to understand the concept of freedom. That's you, son.
Free Martian Whores!
Wouldn't Valve rather you spend you money on games instead of operating systems?
I have said this before. I'll say it again:
Walmart - with its enormous purchasing power - was never able to undercut OEM Windows on price.
In August 2010, Walmart.com stocks over 200 Windows systems - almost all running 64 Bit Windows 7 Home Premium and almost none costing more than $1000.
Think of the volume discounts that implies when an OEM goes shopping for a mobile video card.
It would be interesting to hear from the producers themselves what would make them develop for Linux. More unified platform? DRM acceptance? Or is it uniquely a question of number of users? The last one rings a bit strange, since both Mac and Linux are very small market segments.
Excuse me. Wal-Mart allegedly carried that torch and didn't really do it... And definitely NOT for 10 years like you represent.
You couldn't find Mandriva (?) on the shelves after the first couple of months as the management within the region killed it off the shelves because it "wasn't selling" and you just couldn't find it- which is about the story with damned near anything Wal-Mart sells (If it doesn't sell within 2-3 months, it's not ordered for a store pretty much ever again so they can make space for stuff that does sell. Splenda based stuff is a hard-sell situation as another example of this- and I know, I'm a diabetic AND allergic to Aspartame.). Store-front, those Linux based machines were pretty much nonexistent- and it was hell getting them from the online store.
It's hardly carrying the torch- and Dell, HP, and Lenovo did a better job of that and we all KNOW how well they did that over the last 10.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
seriously.. walmart??
WALMART is your argument against linux on the shelf in stores?
Walmart failed because they sell crap, and lots of it.
For instance: what brand of PC was linux in walmart running on? Dell? somehow I think not.
So an off-brand no-name chinese OEM, with an unheardof, untested, unusable distribution of linux fails to sell in the most god-awful place to shop ever invented by man, and this is your proof linux is unsellable?
seriously, wat?
US$0.02++
Is that if Linux is a real, viable, games market then Linux users need to be willing to pay real prices. $50 is what most new games go for. Some smaller kinda "half indy" shops do more like $40, and real indy games are usually $20-30. That is what new games go for. That is the price the market is willing to pay and a price that developers feel they can make enough money to make their time investment worth while.
As such I need proof that Linux users will pay that kind of money if you want to convince me Linux is a realistic games market. If all Linux is willing to do is pay for extremely cheap bundles, that means it isn't worth the cost of porting.
I have no objections to cheap games, I've taken advantage of many sales myself. However the point you were trying to make with that is that Linux users pay more for games so they are worth porting. No, not really. All this showed was that Linux users were slightly less cheapskates when there was a contest happening (it turned in to a "let's beat Windows" contest on forums very quickly). It also wasn't so hard, as they were mostly competing against extreme Windows cheapskates. All the games had been out for a long time, and all that I was aware of had been on sale before. People who were willing to pay regular or even discount price already had them.
All this proved is that if you let people set their own price, you aren't going to get much per copy. People will set absurdly low prices (same thing happened when World of Goo did their own "name your own price" deal). Now maybe it is worth it for games that have already sold at regular, at discount, and at budget price, the last effort to get the last bit of money from a property. However it did NOT show Linux as this vibrant gaming market waiting to be exploited.
Remember that there is always cost in porting a game. Windows will always be the primary PC target for a game since it has by far the biggest share. That means that for another platform to get a port they have to believe that enough people will buy it to cover all costs of the port, and to make a non-trivial amount of profit. Otherwise it isn't worth it.
If you feel that games are worth very little money, if you feel that only $2-3 is all you should pay that's fine. I won't tell you not to. However don't be surprised if developers don't feel that targeting a market like that. Making a game is a lot of work, and they provide a lot of entertainment. As such a reasonable price is expected. After movies are in the $10 and up range, at a theater or on DVD for 2-3 hours of entertainment. Games give you 10-50 hours depending on the kind (and sometimes way more) for $50. Sounds like a good use of money to me.
Come on Valve, get off your butts and make it happen. If you build, they will come. There are a lot of PC gamers out there that are sick and tired of Windows being so incredible insecure and robbing them of performance, they will jump ship when there is a true triple A developer making games available for Linux.
Slashdot is kind of like Playboy; we aren't here to read the articles.
So, if now is 5 days from now... maybe they're releasing it in 4 days! http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time
There, fixed that for ya.
The issue with Linux is twofold:
It comes down to this: pioneers
Whosoever tackles this Everest will end-up on top, but they will also be the first of many. If not Valve, then somebody! (Looking at YOU, GameTap!) Blazing this trail (and making money doing it) will break-out Linux as the gaming platform it could be. What do so many FOSS games lack? Professional polish and/or looking like they're last-gen throwbacks; the bread-and-butter of commercial games. What could retail gaming bring to Linux? The same games we know and love from Wintel on a crash-resistant platform with unbounded emulation possibilities.
Valve really had something going there... and they are the first to truly bring native ports of top-tier games to the Macintosh. No more re-makes of Dark Castle... no sir! Them's are the real deal; TF2, Portal, Half Life and more. They blazed that trail, and there's more to come.
Whether it happens with current-market titles or simply occurs through a slow adoption of free/abandonware native ports, I believe there's a future in Linux gaming.
This post © Copyrite Duggeek, all rights reversed.
Doesn't anyone think it's strange that the article mentions that soon we'll be getting games on the mac that have been here for months?
How old is this article?
A condescending attitude will surely bring about the year of the Linux desktop. After all Linux advocates have been using this strategy for a decade and the success is readily apparent.
A freetard is someone who follows Stallman and his bizarre software cult.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Freetard
FFFFFFUUUUUUUU-
No, that's what it used to mean. If gays can change the meaning of the word "gay" and newspaper reporters can change the meaning of the work "hacker", I can change the meaning of the word "freetard". The original meaning is just stupid.
Free Martian Whores!
Have you considered just... not running it? It's a difficult concept, I know.
there really shouldn't be a Linux game market, just a game market. I know that's not likely to happen anytime soon and it wouldn't even make sense to most of the businessmen whose decisions could cause it to come about, but ideally there should be only one computer version of the game, alongside whatever console versions might be released. Computers have enough hardware in common, and the three major flavors of OS have some differences but they are not necessarily ones that affect games so much, at least now that most of the larger problems like graphics and sound are largely solved. Why make separate box versions for Windows and Mac when you can just put executables and installation systems for both in the same disc? With a little effort Linux can be added to that mix as well, as open source and indie games have proven - the game content itself is / should be platform independent anyway. It is my hope that in the future OS compatibility will just one of the bullets in the Compatibility section on the back of the box.
Steam for Linux would be like this if they made it, as Steam for Mac shows. If you buy the game for one OS, you can download and play it on the other as well (if it has a Mac version and supports "Steam Play"). I have no problem paying for games (other than having no money) and would pay full price, but it doesn't make sense to have different prices for different platforms. Id Software's games usually get a Linux port, and I've found that a great way to play them. Due to my GPU having been released before Nvidia's initiative to provide updated notebook video drivers, I simply cannot get new drivers for Windows (I dual boot). Since I do get the latest drivers for my Linux install, those games actually run much better in Linux for me - wish I could say the same for games running under Wine.
I realize it's unlikely and with Valve having opted not to get involved, any progress is likely to be slow, but Linux is an enjoyable operating system to use, even for gaming. Linux users pay full price for games all the time - they just usually have to play the games on a different platform unless they are made by Id or otherwise have a Linux port available. I agree that the game companies don't have much incentive to invest in cross-platform compatibility at this time, but as it slowly becomes easier and some companies start to do experiment with it, it will be interesting to see what the effects will be. Linux does have more to gain than the game companies do. The number one reason I hear from people who wanted to switch to Linux but decided not to is that they don't want to go without certain software which isn't available for Linux, be it games or things they need for work. It's hard to judge what effect more proprietary Linux software would have on things like market share. I'd love to find out, because once Linux has more market share, there would be more software available to me (so which comes first, the chicken or the egg? or will I get neither?). In the end, people just want the choice to use the software they like with the OS they prefer, and don't really like it that the reasons they sometimes can't are business reasons rather than technical ones. I may in fact be rambling now, so I'll leave it at that.
-Dan