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Steam For Linux Will Launch In 2012

Posted by timothy on from the we're-getting-this-urgent-wire dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Gabe Newell has responded to an email asking if Steam for Linux will be released this year with the simple answer 'Yes.' That means at some point in the next 7 months anyone running Linux will be able to download Steam and start playing a number of games, including at least one Valve title (most likely Left 4 Dead 2). After that the emphasis will be on game developers to start porting their Steam games over to Linux. 2012 could be a great year for gaming on Linux. The news follows the revelation in April that Valve was indeed working on a Linux port of its digital games service. At the time though, and as with all Valve software, we had no idea when it would get released."

11 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. Developers, developers, developers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The bigger question is, will it motivate developers to port to Linux?

    1. Re:Developers, developers, developers by buanzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes. Steam already has the market. I'm pretty sure they are making this move with good pre-analysis. Gamers that only boot Windows to play games will definitely support it, to say the least.

      --
      Buanzo Consulting - 15 Years of GNU/Linux experience, for you.
    2. Re:Developers, developers, developers by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I would bet on your last point above all. Valve wants their own console, they are afraid of windows 8 for good reason. Making a linux steam client paves the way for their own steam box.

  2. This is great news! by hort_wort · · Score: 5, Funny

    DRM in Linux is practically nonexistent, and I'm glad to see this gap filled! I was starting to feel lonely without being groped by a lawyer.

    1. Re:This is great news! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Steam is a lesson in how DRM should be done. Ever used it? It's really nice, could storage of saves by default, all your games accessible wherever you are with your steam password. It actually makes your life *easier* than piracy which is practically unheard of for DRM. Valve seem to understand that money, like water, follows the path of least resistance.

    2. Re:This is great news! by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I wish Valve would issue an IPO so that I could invest.

      No, you don't, because then Valve would be forced to answer to investors, which means a focus on quarterly-earnings, which means rushed games and restrictive DRM and bullshit like that. Look at what happened to Ubisoft, EA, and Activision-Blizzard. Valve manages to be better than most of the other publishers in large part because they are a privately owned company who can afford to mess around if they want (and because of their unique management structure, i.e. they don't have one). Also means their employees are extremely well paid, which pays off in the long run with talented employees sticking around.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
  3. that sucking sound by Phoenix666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That sucking sound is all my productivity flying out the window when this goes live. The last few years since the dvd drive on the family Wii console died I have gotten so much done. After all, on linux we all know the fun is in the coding and productivity tools (albeit a rarified kind of fun that you gotta immerse yourself in). If steam goes live with good games, well, I could see the 15 minute break I take when stumped by a coding challenge stretching into a week...

    --
    Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
  4. Debian is 250 % more effective than MyCleanPC by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 5, Funny

    Debian is 250 % more effective than MyCleanPC, already the first millisecond. Debian then just goes on and on, beyond the pathetic performance of MyCleanPC.

    Check out www.debian.org.

    Debian makes MyCleanPC look like a virus.

    Debian wipes the floor with MyCleanPC.

    Check out www.debian.org.

    Debian has about 30,000 apps for free.

    There is no need to use MyCleanPC.

    Debian makes MyCleanPC look really bad.

    Check out www.debian.org.

  5. Only One Reason by zero0ne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There is only one reason STEAM is doing this, and it's pretty simple.

    When they decide to release their own console (oh and they will), they want to make sure their platform will work on it, and that game developers have already started thinking about porting them over to *nix. Why pay a licensing fee for some OS to put on a console (or a licensing fee to XBOX or Sony to get STEAM on their platform), when they can instead make sure their platform works flawlessly on *nix, and then create a console using *nix.

    the desktop *nix community will be like a beta test for their console, without all the demands of "I want a fix yesterday" that you would get from the Windows community.

    Long term, they will end up taking a significant chunk of the current consoles market share.

  6. Re:2012 the year of the Linux desktop by hendridm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nearly all people don't give a rip about Slashdot pundits. They buy a PC at Best Buy or Dell.com's "For Home" section and it comes with Windows. Done deal.

    I'm a Linux advocate, but come on! To suggest that Uncle Larry will switch to Linux because she doesn't like the tile interface is absurd!

  7. It's hard for Apple to use these by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Apple will likely pick up most of them..

    Apple opposes you buying and using their OS if your computer isn't a Mac.

    If you buy a computer and it has Windows 8 preloaded and you hate it, Mac OS may be available to you as a pirate, but Apple's position is that your computer is a doorstop, not a ludicrously overpowered computer which can be salvaged by installing decent software. They aren't going to try to directly use that machine to increase their OS market share.

    They don't hope to get you as a customer until n years later when that machine is finally obsolete (and I think n is getting to be a pretty big number), and they're counting on you remembering how unhappy you were with your previous purchase being non-Apple hardware.

    Except that when that day comes, you may have been running Mint for n years and probably don't actually have negative feelings about your hardware purchase. Turns out, the non-Apple hardware was fucking awesome (probably; most of today's shittiest garbage computers are just incredible, or at least in my experience). It's the preload you have bad feelings about.

    There are a few angles; maybe you will keep Windows on the machine despite your unhappiness, so the bitterness will last longer. Maybe your otherwise useful machine has something weird for which drivers are hard to get or don't work well (e.g. realtek wifi), so you can't ever upgrade the OS. Maybe you'll recommend Macs to your friends and family, so someone else might get a Mac due to your purchase of a Windows-preloaded box.

    There are opportunities for Apple, but most of them seem pretty fringe.

    --
    "Believe me!" -- Donald Trump