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Free Valve Games For Debian Developers

By Linas - | Views: 52,546
Never thought that being a reader of GamingOnLinux and Debian mailing lists would intersect so directly. But look at what just arrived at my mailbox. That is right, Valve is giving away all their past and future games to Debian Developers.
QuoteHi all,

At $dayjob for Collabora, we've been working with Valve on SteamOS, which is based on Debian. Valve are keen to contribute back to the community, and I'm discussing a couple of ways that they may be able to do that [0].

Immediately though, they've offered a free subscription to any Debian Developer which provides access to all past and future Valve produced games [1]!

If you're interested, and a DD, simply mail [email protected] with a mail signed by a key in the Debian keyring, and he'll send you back a redemption code to add in Steam. If you haven't heared from him in a couple of days, you can also prod me at [email protected] as he may happen to be on holiday that week.

Happy gaming,
Neil

[0] If anyone has any specific ideas, drop me a mail :)
[1] List at http://deb.li/91yz, but excluding Steam Greenlight.


Read the original post at debian-devel-announce. Disclaimer: I am not a Debian Developer. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial, Steam
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Kristian Jan 23, 2014
Quoting: Quote from ShmerlYes, they are whether they tell me or not. But whether use the service or not I decide based in part on how they treat their users. And this enough for me to avoid Steam.

That is fine for me. I was only trying to make the point that DRM free games on Steam are a thing. That is it. I am not trying to convince you to use Steam. One of the biggest annoyances I have with Steam is the fact that they allow 3rd party DRM on their games and do so without informing us about it ALL the time. This is however mostly an issue with developers and publishers not providing accurate information to Valve. Some games DO have information about 3rd party DRM. But unfortunately not all.  
Caldazar Jan 24, 2014
Quoting: Quote from ShmerlYes, some of them are whether they tell me or not. But whether to use the service or not I decide based in part on how they treat their users. And this enough for me to avoid Steam.

Steam usually sometimes tells you about DRM in the system requirements of a game under the label "other requirements", see Batman for example. But they still get flamed by their community for not being verbose and accurate enough about it. Rightly so.
For that, there's Enhanced Steam, where the warning is a lot more prominent.

Upon thinking about it, I also know now why I'm so lax about DRM lately. It got utterly defeated during the last years. Not dead yet but, you know, smelling funny.
Especially on Linux where I can't name a single DRM'd game.

I really switched to assuming that a game I buy hasn't DRM if I'm not explicitly told about any. That's new and I didn't recognize that part of my behaviour untill now.
philip550c Jan 24, 2014
Quoting: Quote from ShmerlSo, you can unpack the backup created by Steam without the client? That's good. Is it just a simple zip, tarball etc.? Does it contain all the installation scripts (if they ever exist? I have no clue. On some systems installers have scripts).
I may not be completely accurate on this part but from the games Ive actually looked at (in linux) there was no installing required. It just downloaded the files into a folder and then ran the program from there. Usually the libraries were inside a folder contained in that download or were part of the steam runtime (which means you would have to download those libs if you dont have steam). So if you take that folder and tar it, it is no different from the tars you get from some of the humble games. I have downloaded quite a few humble games that you just uncompress and run, no installation required.
Samsai Jan 24, 2014
Considering most of these comments are now about DRM on Steam I would suggest for the sake of staying on-topic for all the rest of this DRM debate to be posted on the relevant forum thread that we set up when we saw this type of a thing last time. The people here have made it clear why Steam is or is not DRM and future comments don't have to clarify upon that. If you believe this conversation needs to be kept alive and you think you have a valid point, please post your comments to the thread linked below:

http://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/456
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