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Valve Reveals First Month of Steam Linux Gains
An anonymous reader writes with news that Valve has updated its Hardware & Software Survey for December 2012, which reflects the first month of the platform being available for Linux. Even though the project is still in a beta test, players on Ubuntu already account for 0.8% of Steam usage. The 64-bit clients for Ubuntu 12.10 and 12.04.1 showed about double the share of the 32-bit versions. MacOS use also showed growth, rising to about 3.7%. Windows 7's usage share dropped by over 2%, but balanced by the growth of Windows 8, which is now at just under 7%. The total share for Windows is still about 95%.
You know, I often find myself forgetting that Steam is essentially DRM. This struck me most lately last night as I started thinking about the new SimCity that's coming out this year and how it's suppose to be "always online" for DRM purposes. I started to think, "Well, hell, I have SC4 on Steam I could just fire that u....waaaaaait".
I don't know if I can really pinpoint why I don't consider Steam to be the kick to the dick that almost all other DRM is. Is it the constant sales and love that get chucked my way? The ability to move game folders/files anywhere and everywhere and have it work as long the signed in account owns the game (my old apartment would frequently dump our Steam games on our NAS to save everyone else who bought it the trouble of downloading it, all legit)? The relatively good server uptime (compared to other game companies)? The ability to add non-Steam games to my library? I don't know, but I just feel like I'm using a service instead of being locked up.
Is it pure? Hell, no. Is it good? I'd certainly say so. If the balance of the two don't balance to your favor I'd certainly see why you'd avoid it. I don't, personally, and my big wish is that the Linux/Mac Steam clients get some sort of built in VM in order to easily play the huge back catalog of Windows only games. This could either increase Linux/Mac growth by easing the pain of transition or it could stymie development by giving developers a lazy out. Either way...VIDYO GAMES!
Yes, Steam is DRM. However, Steam is DRM that gives something back in return.
Being able to download your games as you please, store your saves (on supported games) in the cloud, automatic updates, and the ability to easily download mods for games (when supported), makes Steam more palatable when it comes to DRM. Most DRM schemes just take away from the user without giving anything back in return, Steam is different.
Steam IS DRM.
Steam is a distribution system that uses DRM. They could choose to stop using it and still be a distribution system.
Nothing is worse than iTunes on Windows. It's literally the worst program in the entire world.
Perhaps their engineers are not that skilled?
They started with getting it to work on one distribution (on of the more popular ones), they will get it to work on others.
The articles describing how the worked with graphics card manufacturers to improve performance on linux suggests that their engineers are quite skilled, but only human, so they cannot do everything at once.
Well not really. You can only filter Windows vs Mac. No Linux specific support at all.
AC
I don't know if I can really pinpoint why I don't consider Steam to be the kick to the dick that almost all other DRM is.
Two reasons.
1) It continues to just work.
2) You get at least the game-play value out of it that you spent.
I've picked up a lot of sub-$5 games on steam. You know how much I will care if at some point I can no longer play them? About as much as a care that I let $5 worth of cheese spoil in my refrigerator this week. I wish it didn't happen, but it doesnt pain me.
"His name was James Damore."
That was my impression. I've tried the Linux Steam beta and it is terrible. It's slow, clunky and navigating it is a pain. it doesn't integrate into the desktop either, so the app looks out of place.
Which is surprising since the Windows client runs pretty well using WINE.
I have both installed, and you are full of crap. Steam is slow, clunky and navigating it is a pain on both Windows and Linux. I suppose you could laud Valve for providing the same experience on both platforms, but that's really not much of an accolade considering how crap Steam on Windows is. Regardless, it takes just about as long for either Steam to connect, but it actually takes longer for Steam for Windows on Wine to display its interface after the nigh-interminable login process.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You've gone to far. RealPlayer is literally the worst program in the entire world.
No. Steam is a distribution system. Steamworks is a DRM, community and cloud integration API which is provided through Steam, but which is entirely optional. There's a fair number of games available on Steam that already do not use Steamworks DRM, or any sort of DRM.
You can spend all your time fighting extraordinarily un-restraining DRM, or you can play games.
Stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. From the numbers, having Steam support linux games at all is pretty silly from the business perspective.
It's an act of good will that it exists at all.
So, keep complaining, if you think that's getting you anywhere. I'm going back to playing games
Are we running the same Steam? I've been using it for years, and never encountered anything just described. It's quick and gets out of the way as soon as I tell it I want to play a game. In fact, my only irritation is that it has to install the DirectX runtime or VC RED (whichever it is) for each new game, but I sort of understand why it's doing that, and it only happens once.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
You obviously haven't used Excel for Mac.
1) No multi-threading, which is a problem when the application pretty easily maxes out a core.
2) Bizarre keyboard shortcuts that don't match the standard ones used in most applications
3) Piss poor support for multiple displays, with a resizing bug that's been around for way too long
4) Excel documents don't show up in recent items in Finder
5) Excel addresses files using a path - not a reference to the file, meaning that it doesn't notice when open files are renamed or moved. It also gets confused if you have two mounted volumes (including the home folder) with the same name.
6) Very buggy AppleScript support. I know of no other application that so easily crashes while scripted to do fairly mundane things.
7) Uses its own internal clipboard, meaning that copying and pasting can be pretty bizarre. Copying something, and then closing a document alters the contents of the clipboard. It's also slow as hell. It's not unusual for me to sit there waiting 5 seconds to put a value from a cell in to the clipboard. I could understand this if it's pasting in to a cell that is referenced in heavy calculations, but for just copying a value?
iMovie 3.0 was pretty bad. I'd take Steam of that any day.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
The thing with steam DRM though is that you don't really even notice it is there. Contrast to that of CD's of yore where if you forgot to put the right disc in the drive, your game won't start even though it doesn't actually need it. Or when you had those challenge response code books. Or worse, the ones where you had to read the damn manual with a red filter.
Also offline mode is an option with steam too, unlike say diablo 3.
One thing about older DRM was that the pirated version offered better value than the legit version because you didn't have to bother with that crap. Steam on the other hand the legit version offers many benefits that you don't get with a pirated version, like cloud save data and no need to hunt down the game discs if you re-format your PC.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Is there an alternative? Personally I think the internet is just becoming more ignorant in general. It's not just Slashdot. It's the downside of making the internet accessible to all.
Yes, we all pine for the days when posters could disagree reasonably about how hot the grits should be that Natalie Portman should be slathered in.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
It's funny because Steam knows it's being run in Wine (it checks for Wine version, look in Help -> System Information). They don't know anything about your Linux system, though, and I don't know how they use that information.
I'm a game developer who happens to work in Poland and I track CD Projekt (GOG parent) stock close enough. GOG did bring them profit (a bit less than 1 mln USD for 1H2012), Wiedzmin (Witcher) for 360 got them even more (about 5 mln USD) but they are losing money on traditional retail market, their primary source of income up to now (source in Polish). Also, compare those numbers, which may be good for Poland, to 40 mln USD needed to create a modern AAA game.
Also, DRM is essential to delay piracy for the first month of game release. Games only really sell in the first few weeks after launch, if you didn't know - after that, people move on to something else and the "long tail" of sales begins (see just about any game's charts: [1], [2], [3]). So the games need to make up for that large upfront investment in first 4 to 6 weeks, if they don't break even, they are dead. Alan Wake, L.A. Noire, Max Payne 3 - all those arguably known and high profile titles are commercial failures. Most current triple A games flop or barely make even, but unless explicitly asked, publishers rarely admit it. However, if you work in gamedev you probably saw the closures of Grin, Pandemic, 38 Studios, and in general, it starts to happen too frequently.
So no, it's not just about "having control". There would be no need in control if existing model provided a sustainable way to earn money. Truth is, nowadays interactive entertainment market is a gamble.
Coding etudes
A lot of those games on GoG are running on DosBox or ScummVM so you can run them on Linux just as well. Not that GoG makes any specific effort to actually list these or have any proper Linux support however.
I take it you never used Lotus Notes then...
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.