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Steam For Linux...chugging along

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So I will be careful on my wording this time around, while it is true that Steam for Linux isn't yet truely confirmed there is a lot of rumours and supporting evidence.

Some of the news recently regarding it, just to sum it up for you;

The latest In this is the fact that the creator of SDL Sam Latinga (who worked for Loki software a now extinct Linux game porting company) has now joined them.

Valve have been reporting bugs to the Linux kernel.

Forest Hale (creator of the darkplaces game engine) has joined Valve.

David White (creator of Battle for Wesnoth) has joined Valve.

So what do you guys make of this, are they watching the open source community to poach new developers from or are they well and truely building a team for their Linux efforts?

I will be quite dissapointed if all of this is towards some also rumoured "steam box" gaming console. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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9 comments

Bumadar Jul 16, 2012
hrhr, make it: valve on linux :)

i am still not sure it will be steam. and if it will, will the impact really be as huge as people seem to think? developers who want to do linux can do this now via several channels, will we really suddenly see a huge influx? i do agree that if it happens we will see that valve will also port their eingine over, that will have more impact, but again how much real impact? with unity now supporting linux thanks to wasteland 2 we not yet seen many announcements about more unity games comming to linux. unigine has had linux support from the start but most of the games comming out on that dont support linux.

time will tell.
forces Jul 16, 2012
I emailed Gabe Newell to ask what games are they planning to port and he said that [URL='http://i.imgur.com/Y9jyZ.png']"L4D 2 is first and then the rest."[/URL], and even though other people are saying the same, I still can't believe that it's going to happen.

About the Linux version of Unity, only other developer than inXile (who makes Wastelands 2) I know about that said about recompiling their Unity games to Linux is Wolfire (they said they'll port Reciever)...
Hamish Jul 16, 2012
To be fair about Unity, I was under the impression that Unity 4 was not available yet?
forces Jul 16, 2012
Yeah, it's not(yet) avaible.
Qantourisc Jul 16, 2012
Quoting: "liamdawe, post: 4928, member: 1"Valve have been reporting bugs to the Linux kernel.

This implies Valve may be using Linux. This does not imply they will support it :)
Liam Dawe Jul 16, 2012
Quoting: "Qantourisc, post: 4938, member: 181"This implies Valve may be using Linux. This does not imply they will support it :)


It is interesting to know though.
Bestia Jul 16, 2012
We can also expect [URL='http://store.steampowered.com/app/107800/?snr=1_7_suggest__13']Rochard[/URL] on Linux.

I've asked developers in the [URL='http://www.rochardthegame.com/en/support/#comment-1251']support site[/URL] will they make a port know that Unity 4 offers this option and in return I was pointed at [URL='http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DUKh8pyCFDY#t=108s']Unity 4 - Linux Export[/URL]. In that video you can see Na'tosha Bard testing Rochard on Ubuntu.
Cheeseness Jul 16, 2012
More and more supporting evidence. It's hard to divine exactly what their plans may be.

I can't see Valve taking Steam anywhere that Source can't go , and I can't really see them launching Source anywhere that Steam can't go (unless they're open sourcing the engine, which I think is probably unlikely too).

If it does see a Linux launch, Steam would have a pretty big impact, Bumadar. As I speculated during the Desura Linux launch (which sadly, wasn't quite as showy as I was hoping for), the real upshot of Steam coming to Linux would be its ability to highlight Linux as a potential gaming platform to non-Linux users and developers. Right now, a lot of developers feel that Linux is too niche and problematic to spend time on, and we already know that many users dual boot and use Windows for gaming (which I can't really understand, since I've been running pretty much every game I care about under Wine for the past 6 years). Letting these people know that Linux isn't as bad a gaming platform as they thought is what's going to make big shifts happen, I think.

My understanding was that the "Steam Box" idea (at least so far as it's been explained to me) was sort of like an open hardware spec so that vendors and individuals could build their own systems and use/sell them as Steam compatible gaming machines. If this were to happen and be Linux based, then I can't really see why that wouldn't also work on the Linux desktop.
Bumadar Jul 17, 2012
just call me sceptical, but i dont yet believe the impact will be that huge, i dont see a game developers suddenly jump the band wagon, but i would love to be proven wrong :)
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