SteamOS is still alive with a new Beta, although it's a rather uninteresting one

Quoting: cprnI just thought about something I don't think anyone thought before. Valve had all the creative freedom over the look and feel of the Steam Machine cases. Why the hell not a single one of them looks like it was steam powered? Literally. No steampunk theme?? No valves and glowing crystals sticking out?? No deluxe version with a mist producing atomizer, cogs and pistons?? WHY...?

It would certainly be a selling point, though it really depends on the content if people would buy a steam machine or not. Valve needs the big publishers to support steam os/linux, the big publisher would need a bigger market to do so, the bigger market will start to happen once there are more big titles. Chicken and egg issue ;). Only time and slow grow side by side on all sides will help imho.


Last edited by jens on 24 November 2017 at 7:53 am UTC

Quoting: jens

Quoting: cprnI just thought about something I don't think anyone thought before. Valve had all the creative freedom over the look and feel of the Steam Machine cases. Why the hell not a single one of them looks like it was steam powered? Literally. No steampunk theme?? No valves and glowing crystals sticking out?? No deluxe version with a mist producing atomizer, cogs and pistons?? WHY...?

It would certainly be a selling point, though it really depends on the content if people would buy a steam machine or not. Valve needs the big publishers to support steam os/linux, the big publisher would need a bigger market to do so, the bigger market will start to happen once there are more big titles. Chicken and egg issue ;). Only time and slow grow side by side on all sides will help imho.

Well, that or a huge marketing push by a very big corporation with enough muscle to line up the big publishers and content providers behind what they can convince same is a not-to-be-missed opportunity for big profit. Valve doesn't seem to want to do that, but even if they did there are questions whether they are in fact big enough and whether their organizational style is capable of that kind of fast push requiring forceful action on a group of fronts at once.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyWell, that or a huge marketing push by a very big corporation with enough muscle to line up the big publishers and content providers behind what they can convince same is a not-to-be-missed opportunity for big profit. Valve doesn't seem to want to do that, but even if they did there are questions whether they are in fact big enough and whether their organizational style is capable of that kind of fast push requiring forceful action on a group of fronts at once.

Well, yes. But that would involve some serious money ;). I don't know, something like GTA5 exclusively with superior performance for Linux three years in row for a start. I'm doubting too that Valve could pull such a trick. But even if they are capable, why should they take such a risky and expensive step? They spend enough and keep spending to establish Linux as a stable third platform next to Windows to not be completely bound to Microsoft and have something for political pressure at hand. I guess that is mostly what Valve wants to achieve in the short term.


Last edited by jens on 25 November 2017 at 9:55 am UTC

Well, yes. But that would involve some serious money ;). I don't know, something like GTA5 exclusively with superior performance for Linux three years in row for a start. I'm doubting too that Valve could pull such a trick. But even if they are capable, why should they take such a risky and expensive step? They spend enough and keep spending to establish Linux as a stable third platform next to Windows to not be completely bound to Microsoft and have something for political pressure at hand. I guess that is mostly what Valve wants to achieve in the short term.[/quote]
There are so many problems in getting developers bring a game to linux part of the problem is perception of how hard it is to port games to. The second problem is us the community collectively we are the least welcoming group on the internet and that is saying something. New users to linux are attacked instead of helped and lastly the community members that buy windows games in the hopes of playing the game in wine.
They are a pretty bad road block to a native port, why would a studio pay for a port or buy in the skills they need if your just going to use wine to play the game knowing you cant get a refund because you are playing on platform they do not support.
If Valve got serious about the threat from Windows, if they ever to decide to actually make games again instead of scrooge mcducking in their money bins. if they made left 4 dead 3 or portal 3 (did not bother with hl3 because its never coming out) exclusive to Linux or exclusive to Linux for 12 months just as an experiment to see if it resulted in the linux community growing.

Quoting: jens

Quoting: Purple Library GuyWell, that or a huge marketing push by a very big corporation with enough muscle to line up the big publishers and content providers behind what they can convince same is a not-to-be-missed opportunity for big profit. Valve doesn't seem to want to do that, but even if they did there are questions whether they are in fact big enough and whether their organizational style is capable of that kind of fast push requiring forceful action on a group of fronts at once.

Well, yes. But that would involve some serious money ;). I don't know, something like GTA5 exclusively with superior performance for Linux three years in row for a start. I'm doubting too that Valve could pull such a trick. But even if they are capable, why should they take such a risky and expensive step? They spend enough and keep spending to establish Linux as a stable third platform next to Windows to not be completely bound to Microsoft and have something for political pressure at hand. I guess that is mostly what Valve wants to achieve in the short term.

Sorry, misread your comment slightly. You were talking mostly about Valve or somebody else trying to align the targets of the big houses to support Linux together at at certain point. Here you would need to make several very big egos (may be not as big as the egos in the Linux community, but still .. ;) ) to partly skip their own agenda and work together. I would say this is very very difficult, usually nobody would want to take the risk and everyone wants to take the biggest share of the win, if there is any.


Last edited by jens on 25 November 2017 at 12:22 pm UTC

Quoting: jens

Quoting: jens

Quoting: Purple Library GuyWell, that or a huge marketing push by a very big corporation with enough muscle to line up the big publishers and content providers behind what they can convince same is a not-to-be-missed opportunity for big profit. Valve doesn't seem to want to do that, but even if they did there are questions whether they are in fact big enough and whether their organizational style is capable of that kind of fast push requiring forceful action on a group of fronts at once.

Well, yes. But that would involve some serious money ;). I don't know, something like GTA5 exclusively with superior performance for Linux three years in row for a start. I'm doubting too that Valve could pull such a trick. But even if they are capable, why should they take such a risky and expensive step? They spend enough and keep spending to establish Linux as a stable third platform next to Windows to not be completely bound to Microsoft and have something for political pressure at hand. I guess that is mostly what Valve wants to achieve in the short term.

Sorry, misread your comment slightly. You were talking mostly about Valve or somebody else trying to align the targets of the big houses to support Linux together at at certain point. Here you would need to make several very big egos (may be not as big as the egos in the Linux community, but still .. ;) ) to partly skip their own agenda and work together. I would say this is very very difficult, usually nobody would want to take the risk and everyone wants to take the biggest share of the win, if there is any.

Yeah which is why i kind of think we have come as far as we are going to in terms of the Big triple A games. Not sure why Aspyr appear to completely abandoned linux save for their own IP that they act as publisher on. For now it seems we have Feral and vp when it comes to triple A ports. Growing linux gamer share is going to take a further push from someone with money be it Valve or another Linux friendly development company but it seems unlikely as you said large risk for a potential return.

Quoting: Whitewolfe80There are so many problems in getting developers bring a game to linux part of the problem is perception of how hard it is to port games to. The second problem is us the community collectively we are the least welcoming group on the internet and that is saying something. New users to linux are attacked instead of helped and lastly the community members that buy windows games in the hopes of playing the game in wine.
They are a pretty bad road block to a native port, why would a studio pay for a port or buy in the skills they need if your just going to use wine to play the game knowing you cant get a refund because you are playing on platform they do not support.

Yes, I guess this is indeed one of the reason why e.g. Feral is very selective with the games the port to Linux. They have much more Mac ports in their portfolio. Wine is really a double-edged sword. One the one side it is a blessing for people that want to still play some of their older games and thus is for a lot of people the reason to abandon Windows. On the other side wine is taking market share from studio's like Feral that want to bring some big titles afterwards to Linux. I avoid wine completely for gaming. Day one releases would solve this issue, but no sane publisher would risk their release day for the really big titles with customized engines etc. for the 1% Linux users.

Quoting: Whitewolfe80Yeah which is why i kind of think we have come as far as we are going to in terms of the Big triple A games. Not sure why Aspyr appear to completely abandoned linux save for their own IP that they act as publisher on. For now it seems we have Feral and vp when it comes to triple A ports. Growing linux gamer share is going to take a further push from someone with money be it Valve or another Linux friendly development company but it seems unlikely as you said large risk for a potential return.

I don't think that there will be another big push. From now on I guess it is constant slow grow for the Linux user base. Lets hope that at least at some point we will grow a little bit faster than Windows or Mac users.


Last edited by jens on 26 November 2017 at 6:28 pm UTC

Yes, I guess this is indeed one of the reason why e.g. Feral is very selective with the games the port to Linux. They have much more Mac ports in their portfolio. Wine is really a double-edged sword. One the one side it is a blessing for people that want to still play some of their older games and thus is for a lot of people the reason to abandon Windows. On the other side wine is taking market share from studio's like Feral that want to bring some big titles afterwards to Linux. I avoid wine completely for gaming. Day one releases would solve this issue, but no sane publisher would risk their release day for the really big titles with customized engines etc. for the 1% Linux users.

Quoting: Whitewolfe80Yeah which is why i kind of think we have come as far as we are going to in terms of the Big triple A games. Not sure why Aspyr appear to completely abandoned linux save for their own IP that they act as publisher on. For now it seems we have Feral and vp when it comes to triple A ports. Growing linux gamer share is going to take a further push from someone with money be it Valve or another Linux friendly development company but it seems unlikely as you said large risk for a potential return.

I don't think that their will be another big push. From now on I guess it is constant slow grow for the Linux user base. Lets hope that at least at some point we will grow a little bit faster than Windows or Mac users.[/quote]
No I agree i think we have gone as far as we are going to go at least in terms of big pushes. I do not think we are going to get one of those valve conferences where they make the mistake of promising big triple a titles coming to linux Witcher 3 SF 5 etc. I think 2k Sega etc will continue to port some games over to linux anything xcom related seems a given or total war.