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This is quite interesting, it seems Valve are actually doing some more curating on their store now ahead of the SteamOS launch.

A user on reddit posted about ~35 titles having their SteamOS icons vanish. To quote the user:
QuoteMy last three data points are:
25/09/15 - 1521 games
09/10/15 - 1555 games
16/10/15 - 1535 games


I've checked myself, and I can see that Ticket to Ride, Anodyne, Lume, WAKFU, Starbound, Evoland, Oniken, StarMade and Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten have had their icons removed. I'm not sure what other games have seen the change, as that's a lot of games to go through to find out.

I spoke with the developer of StarMade who said this:

@gamingonlinux It is because the game requires Java. When the new launcher comes out this should be resolved!

— StarMade (@star_made) October 17, 2015



I spoke with other developers, but some are still looking into why, and some asked me not to mention them here.

It makes perfect sense, you wouldn't want a new SteamOS user to find out a game that advertised SteamOS support needed some outside launcher/installer for something like adobe air, or flash or anything else that needs a fair bit of manual interaction not directly possible in the SteamOS interface.

I guess the minor issue for us here, is that people on desktop Linux can't get these games on Steam now, but they do still show in my library, and are installable. It's probably a good thing though, as it means any game with a SteamOS icon should install on desktop Linux without the hassle of hunting down extra's. I wonder how far this will go though? Will they remove all games that have a launcher that doesn't work in fullscreen? It's going to be interesting to see what happens.

They aren't removing the games from your library, so let's not go ringing alarm bells. However, I did say a long time ago I was worried about SteamOS becoming separated from Linux and people thought Valve wouldn't do it, I thought they wouldn't, but this could be the start for all we know. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial
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69 comments
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nocri Oct 17, 2015
IMO, quality control is really good, it'll put some pressure onto developers to actually give a **** about how it runs ...
Second icon representing desktop linux (tux or other) would introduce too much confusion, besides I would prefer that people actually regarded SteamOS as a linux, and introducing a second icon would make that more difficult. I hope that they will solve this compatibility problems fast enough :)
Sik Oct 17, 2015
That's not SteamOS and Linux becoming separate but the exact opposite (if they were separate, they'd have Linux icons without SteamOS icons). By doing this they're basically implying the Linux games there aren't actually Linux games and they just work by pure coincidence (・~・)
Zanval Oct 17, 2015
Very glad to see them clean up this mess.

We Java developers always bundle a specific version of the Java Virtual Machine with our games,
so that the experience is the tested by us across different VMs.
What if the user changes his Java version or switches to Oracle Java? We haven't tested our games on his specific version so it could be incompatible.
This is true for any game that depends on third party libraries/frameworks. Just bundle them if legally possible!

Sadly, many devs just don't know what they are doing.

Also the Java Installation on windows is hell, so it's bad manners to not bundle a slim "updater-less" version.
OlDrunk Oct 17, 2015
So it's just stuff that needs external dependencies to run, unlike Metro Redux(2033 and Last Light)where it is a buggy mess and needs external tricks to get it to work on most system(Win and Linux) and still has it's SteamOS icon.

Just a Note: StarMade DEMO still has the SteamOS SteamPlay Icons


Last edited by OlDrunk on 17 October 2015 at 7:20 pm UTC
hagabaka Oct 17, 2015
I don't think it makes much sense to have "Tux" icons for the Adobe Air games, because they work equally well for SteamOS or "plain" Linux. That is, they work but require manual tinkering (for example, instructions for ArchLinux.

If Steam wanted to support Adobe Air games for SteamOS, they could set up a wrapper for it and/or provide instructions for game developers to ensure out-of-box functionality. But they probably don't have enough reasons to care.
slaapliedje Oct 18, 2015
So, was just playing with my Steam Link, looking for a game to play, and in the list of 'new things' it showed Microsoft Flight Simulator X Steam Edition, and oddly showed the icons for Windows / Apple / SteamOS and the controller at the bottom! So I tried clicking something to get it to show, but pressing A to select did nothing on the Steam Controller. Then I hit Y, which made it disappear (should have taken a picture). So then I shut the Link off, sat in front of my computer to look it up in the Steam library and it shows only the Windows Icon.

Glitch, or is Flight Simulator X coming to Linux/Mac?

slaapliedje
LinuxGamesTV Oct 18, 2015
Quoting: slaapliedjeSo, was just playing with my Steam Link, looking for a game to play, and in the list of 'new things' it showed Microsoft Flight Simulator X Steam Edition, and oddly showed the icons for Windows / Apple / SteamOS and the controller at the bottom! So I tried clicking something to get it to show, but pressing A to select did nothing on the Steam Controller. Then I hit Y, which made it disappear (should have taken a picture). So then I shut the Link off, sat in front of my computer to look it up in the Steam library and it shows only the Windows Icon.

Glitch, or is Flight Simulator X coming to Linux/Mac?

slaapliedje

It's a bug in the OS on the Link. It will be fixed, Valve sayed.
slaapliedje Oct 18, 2015
Figured it was, thought it was more funny than anything. I tried going back to even find that page and couldn't. I'm wondering why they changed the interface for big picture mode so drastically, I liked the way it looked before.

slaapliedje
Nyamiou Oct 23, 2015
WAKFU got back is SteamOS logo!
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