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A look at the top 100 Steam games and how many will work on Linux and the Steam Deck
6 October 2021 at 2:58 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: Mohandevir
Quoting: CatKillerBut it's definitely not primarily a hardware play (they aren't making anywhere near enough units, by several orders of magnitude)

Why so? I always tought it was a matter of offer and demand, in the hardware market... You want to have enough inventory to meet the demand, but not too much of it so as not to get stuck with it. If there is a demand, why wouldn' Valve try to ramp up the production of Steam Decks?
To make a credible console, you need to be aiming at sales of around 100 million units, and you need everyone to know that you're aiming for that kind of audience for your platform so that everyone buys in. Low sales breaks the entire model. Valve aren't making anything like that many. Nowhere near. You need to sell worldwide to normal people in normal shops. Valve aren't doing that, either.

As a demonstration device for Linux gaming, you only need to sell a few million devices; the important thing is to get people talking about it. That's perfectly in line with what we've seen about Valve's production capacity. As a demonstration device for Linux gaming, your primary audience is PC gamers. You need to already have a Steam account to buy a Steam Deck. For a console, having competitors making similar devices running the same OS and the same games would mean that you'd lost, and badly; as a demonstration device for Linux gaming, having competitors making similar devices running the same OS and the same games means that you've won, and someone else is doing your work for you. Valve have said that they want other companies to make similar devices.

I'm sure that Valve are very satisfied that there's lots of demand, and they'll scale up production to make as big a splash as they can. It's just not at the scale of a console and isn't doing console things. They've said themselves that it's an experiment, to gauge their assumptions about where they've got to.
A look at the top 100 Steam games and how many will work on Linux and the Steam Deck
6 October 2021 at 12:00 pm UTC
Quoting: Liam DaweDon't forget it's also partly jealousy. Gabe Newell previously said he was jealous of Nintendo with them making hardware and software together. There's many reasons for Valve doing all this, I wouldn't say any one specific reason any more.
Sure, there are plenty of things that are great about the Deck from Valve's perspective.

People buying PC games on Steam that would never want to deal with a PC? Awesome.

People buying their PC games on Steam rather than elsewhere because it's the easiest way to play them on the Deck? Awesome.

Developers using standardised Steam APIs rather than This One Weird Trick? Awesome.

People buying all those crazy unique indie games, so the big publishers can't dictate terms simply by being big? Awesome.

Every media outlet and YouTuber talking about Steam for months on end? Awesome.

But it's definitely not primarily a hardware play (they aren't making anywhere near enough units, by several orders of magnitude), and it's not the reason for the Linux investment but an extension of it.
A look at the top 100 Steam games and how many will work on Linux and the Steam Deck
6 October 2021 at 11:37 am UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: kokoko3kIf we assume that the enormous effort Valve made for Linux gaming was finalized to the Steam machines first and the Deck now
It wasn't. They aren't making anywhere near enough units for the Steam Deck to be a console platform, and they're (still) perfectly happy for other OEMs to make gaming machines with Linux on. The Steam Deck is a demonstration device, not an end point.
A look at the top 100 Steam games and how many will work on Linux and the Steam Deck
6 October 2021 at 11:33 am UTC Likes: 5
It's no secret why Valve push Linux. They're aware of how crucial an open platform is to having a healthy software ecosystem, and then - with Windows 8 - Microsoft showed that they wanted to close it all up so that they were in control. Whether would succeed or not isn't as important as the fact that they wanted to. And if they did that, that would kill Steam.

So Gabe Newell said
QuoteWe want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space.
They need an exit strategy from Windows in case they get locked out of it, and they need to visibly have an exit strategy as a deterrent from being locked out in the first place. And they feel qualified to hold the doors open because "people don’t realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior."

They need a way for all the Windows Steam users, should Microsoft go nuclear, to still be Steam users not on Windows, rather than Windows users not on Steam. They made their own games and client work on Linux. They tried to get OEMs to sell machines with Linux pre-installed (which didn't work). They made it pretty easy for game developers to make their games for Linux (which only kinda worked). So they brute-forced all those Windows games to work on Linux regardless of anyone else helping or not, with Proton.

Having done that, they still need everyone (particularly gamers, and particularly Microsoft) to know that they've done it. That locking Steam out of Windows isn't a viable plan, because gamers can go somewhere else. They need, say "new ways for prospective users to get into Linux gaming and experience these improvements." Which is what the Steam Deck is for. So that everyone can say, "you know what, gaming on Linux is perfectly fine. I wouldn't miss Windows because I can play all my games on Linux."
A look at the top 100 Steam games and how many will work on Linux and the Steam Deck
5 October 2021 at 6:05 pm UTC Likes: 17
Quoting: druncopsykenIt's not in the hands of Valve to improve much now, unless they choose to ban games that refuse to support.
"There are 28 games released every day on Steam, and a finite number of Featured slots on the Steam front page. Why should your game, which doesn't work on Steam hardware, get one of those slots instead of another game that does work on Steam hardware? Hmm?"
Steam Next Fest is live again with demos, livestreams and more
5 October 2021 at 12:27 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: AnzaSure, there could be developers who are not testing on Linux. I find more productive to assume the best of people instead of assuming the worst. Developers most likely are just very busy as event has strict deadline.

Yes, reporting issues takes a moment, but they won't be fixing Linux related bugs they don't know about, that's for sure. As bonus they will know that there's at least one Linux user interested in their game.

Also if enough of us actively report issues, we could test every game during first day of the event. There's at the moment hundred games included in the event that will potentially support Linux at some point (why else they would advertise Linux support). Of those, handful actually have a Linux demo (one can hope that Valve includes demo availability for the platform filter). I have bit problem that if the game works, I will play it, so I'm not effective at finding all those issues of missing executables and alike.

If error message states invalid platform, then the demo doesn't exist in the first place. With those it's bit too likely it's intentional.

If I'm an existing customer that discovers a way to make a game I'm enjoying better, or if a developer reaches out to a community I'm part of asking for assistance, then of course I'm going to help. Happy to.

This isn't that. The store page is explicitly and directly an interaction between them as the seller of a product, and me as a potential customer. The demo is an advert that's trying to wow me with how much I'm going to want to buy their product. If some marketing magic has got me to the point that I'm checking out their game and the advert doesn't even work?

Guess what? I am not wowed.

On the bright side, I'm unlikely to remember anything at all about the interaction, so it's not a black mark against the developer for the future. But is it a missed opportunity? Absolutely.
Proton Experimental expands NVIDIA DLSS support on Linux to DirectX 11 titles
4 October 2021 at 4:59 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: amataiBy the way, what is DLSS ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning_super_sampling
Euro Truck Sim 2 and American Truck Sim get expanded multiplayer with mod support
4 October 2021 at 2:41 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: fagnerlnIt can sound weird, but IMO they should focus on a sequel. They already put a lot of work on it, which is amazing, no doubts, but how much is too much?
I'm pretty sure they're doing well revenue-wise with their map packs. A sequel would split their player base, and a lot of them might decide to move on to something that isn't driving trucks.
Steam Next Fest is live again with demos, livestreams and more
4 October 2021 at 1:36 pm UTC Likes: 2
Quoting: AnzaShould actually complain about those that could have just packaging problems to the developers
Meh. If they don't have a working Linux demo then they're clearly not testing Linux. I just move on to the next thing, and they've squandered a chance at a wishlist. Maybe they'll manage a second bite of the cherry if they get their act together by launch, but maybe not. Plenty of other games.
For a third month in a row, Linux remains above 1% on the Steam Hardware Survey
3 October 2021 at 8:09 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: Purple Library GuySo does anyone else wonder what's up with Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS 64 bit? The stat says it's at 15.38% and went up +15.38%. So, like, it just came into existence?
It did. The previous entry in that slot was Ubuntu 20.04.2. 20.04.3 was released at the end of August.
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