Five years ago on this day, Valve released Steam for Linux in a limited Beta form for a lucky bunch of users. It's been quite a ride, hasn't it?
For those who weren't around or don't remember, Valve started by putting up a survey to gather testers for the upcoming Beta release. What they didn't expect, was over 60K people signing up to become a tester. The initial release only had around 30 games available for Linux, but look at us now at around 3.8K (give or take a few that show up, but haven't actually released). This month alone, we've already seen around 20 games release with Linux support and we're only on the 6th!
We've got masses of indie games, a few AAA titles (and hopefully more big titles to come!) and all sorts of genres available on Linux. With thanks to the likes of Virtual Programming, Aspyr Media, Feral Interactive, Ethan Lee, Ryan Gordon, Aaron Melcher and many more helping to bring titles to Linux. There's plenty of junk released for Linux now too as well, but thankfully now there's a lot of choice when it comes to good games.
Going by the date of the limited Steam beta for Linux, we've published close to nine thousand articles. We've actually hit over nine thousand right now, but the amount we put out increased dramatically since Steam arrived. There's just so much to report on for Linux gaming, it's truly crazy.
In a few days, on the 10th of November, it will also mark two years since SteamOS, Steam Machines and the Steam Controller were officially released. I still remember how completely underwhelmed I was by the launch, as I'm sure many of you were as well. You can pry my Steam Controller from my cold, dead hands though as I love it.
It still remains to be seen what Valve intends to do with SteamOS and Steam Machines, hopefully some sort of re-release. I think if they did a Steam Machine themselves where they controlled the pricing and everything else, it could go down a lot better than the wildly varying machines we've seen previously. There's probably a lot of issues with doing it that way though, for it to pay off Valve would need to market it a lot better and there would need to be more timely game releases for bigger titles (and more!).
While Steam Machines didn't go the way we hoped, they've obviously moved Linux gaming further along than anything else ever did.
What are you most looking forward to for Linux gaming over the next year? How do you feel about the current situation? Open up the in the comments, but please do remember to be respectful to your fellow users.
Let's also never forget Steam for Linux bug #3671.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: Mountain ManThere was never really a technical hurdle to supporting Linux. We've had OpenGL for years, and id Software's ports and Epic's experiment with Unreal Tournament 2004 proved a long time ago that Linux was more than capable of running AAA games. The real problem was, and still is, market share, and I'm a little concerned that if Valve ever expressed any lack of confidence in the Linux platform that a lot of developers would simply walk away.I would not underestimate the distribution part. Having a channel to users for paying and actually getting the software is more complex than it sounds.
Now I see market share, same as you, indeed as _the_ concern.
Last edited by jens on 6 November 2017 at 6:56 pm UTC
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Quoting: Mountain ManQuoting: KimyrielleThere was never really a technical hurdle to supporting Linux. We've had OpenGL for years, and id Software's ports and Epic's experiment with Unreal Tournament 2004 proved a long time ago that Linux was more than capable of running AAA games. The real problem was, and still is, market share, and I'm a little concerned that if Valve ever expressed any lack of confidence in the Linux platform that a lot of developers would simply walk away.Quoting: Mountain ManMy question is, is there enough momentum in the Linux gaming market for developers to continue supporting Linux in the event that Valve gets bored and kills off their grand experiment? That's my primary concern at the moment, that we're almost entirely dependent on Valve and Steam for the majority of our games, and if Valve goes away then we're going to be right back where we were five-years ago with a niche market that only a handful of independent developers even bother to support.
I guess the critical moment was when all major engine creators added Linux support to their products that make it (comparatively) easy to publish cross-platform. There is barely any reason NOT to support Linux these daysz
Let's be honest, as a game developer/publisher, Valve has been a non-factor for a while now, so if they chose to stop porting games to Linux, really, who'd notice? And Steam Machines never picked up any steam to begin with. Linux gaming has grown without them just nicely.
No, their great contribution is and was porting the Steam client to Linux in the first place, opening a mainstream publishing channel for developers on Linux for the first time ever. That deed is done and time won't get rolled back on that. The biggest help we're getting from Valve these days is them getting involved in improving Linux drivers and components for gaming. Which should hopefully drive down Linux related support costs and performance issues, which is the LAST sound reason larger studios still have not to publish on Linux.
Knock as hard as you can on the biggest piece of wood you can find.... NOW !
:'(
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What year was that event?
http://www.teamfortress.com/linux/
Found it: It was at 2013 :D
Last edited by wolfyrion on 6 November 2017 at 8:04 pm UTC
http://www.teamfortress.com/linux/
Found it: It was at 2013 :D
Last edited by wolfyrion on 6 November 2017 at 8:04 pm UTC
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Quoting: Mountain ManDepends what you mean by technical hurdle. I'd agree that since forever it's been probably as easy to develop a game for Linux (alone) as for Windows (alone). But it was always much harder to develop for more than one platform than for one platform, no matter which additional platform you're talking about. And since for games, "one platform" meant Windows . . .Quoting: KimyrielleThere was never really a technical hurdle to supporting Linux. We've had OpenGL for years, and id Software's ports and Epic's experiment with Unreal Tournament 2004 proved a long time ago that Linux was more than capable of running AAA games. The real problem was, and still is, market share, and I'm a little concerned that if Valve ever expressed any lack of confidence in the Linux platform that a lot of developers would simply walk away.Quoting: Mountain ManMy question is, is there enough momentum in the Linux gaming market for developers to continue supporting Linux in the event that Valve gets bored and kills off their grand experiment? That's my primary concern at the moment, that we're almost entirely dependent on Valve and Steam for the majority of our games, and if Valve goes away then we're going to be right back where we were five-years ago with a niche market that only a handful of independent developers even bother to support.
I guess the critical moment was when all major engine creators added Linux support to their products that make it (comparatively) easy to publish cross-platform. There is barely any reason NOT to support Linux these daysz
Let's be honest, as a game developer/publisher, Valve has been a non-factor for a while now, so if they chose to stop porting games to Linux, really, who'd notice? And Steam Machines never picked up any steam to begin with. Linux gaming has grown without them just nicely.
No, their great contribution is and was porting the Steam client to Linux in the first place, opening a mainstream publishing channel for developers on Linux for the first time ever. That deed is done and time won't get rolled back on that. The biggest help we're getting from Valve these days is them getting involved in improving Linux drivers and components for gaming. Which should hopefully drive down Linux related support costs and performance issues, which is the LAST sound reason larger studios still have not to publish on Linux.
I agree with Kimyrielle that the big change is support for Linux on the major game engines. For a really big chunk of the game market from most of the indies up through some fairly major outfits, that lowered the cost of publishing games cross-platform so that the break-even point happens at a much smaller market share. That one factor makes releasing for Linux even at its current market share financially viable, maybe even closing on uncontroversial, if you're using one of those engines. There have been other increments as well. Vulkan may prove to be another again, as well as advances in packaging--Snaps and whatnot--and the move to Wayland. But the engines were the big one.
So if Valve walked away it would obviously not be a good thing, but the situation would be IMO very different from how things were pre-Steam. Developer assumptions are different now, and there are probably more developers with some idea how to build a game with Linux in mind, but above all it's simply a lot cheaper and easier to make games with Linux as one of the release platforms.
The other question of course is, how likely is Valve to walk away? But the question underneath that is, how likely is Microsoft to convincingly not be covetous of Valve's market? How likely is Microsoft to abandon things like introducing and gradually integrating app stores in Windows and trying to get games to be sold there rather than on Steam? I'd say fairly unlikely; that's a lot of revenue and control MS would be leaving in an outside third party's hands when they have a shot at getting it themselves. And it's even more unlikely that they'd be able to not only abandon the idea of doing that, but also convince Valve that there's no threat of them ever doing that. Companies, much less Microsoft, don't permanently abandon potential large revenue streams.
So my expectation is that, for as long as MS don't make any serious moves, Valve will play Linux-related stuff like now--quietly simmering on the back burner, ready to be brought to a boil when necessary.
Crystal balls are notoriously inaccurate, though. So I don't discount the worry--who knows what could happen? But Linux is on those game engines now. Things are a bit different.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 6 November 2017 at 8:48 pm UTC
6 Likes, Who?
Quoting: GuestIf 5 years since first reading GOL makes you feel old, how old do you think I feel when I still remember typing this....
10 print HELLO
20 goto 10
run
10 print HELLO
20 gosub 10
run*eg*
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Mountain Man Nov 6, 2017
Quoting: Purple Library GuyAll good points. I don't mind conceding that I'm probably being a bit paranoid.Quoting: Mountain ManDepends what you mean by technical hurdle. I'd agree that since forever it's been probably as easy to develop a game for Linux (alone) as for Windows (alone). But it was always much harder to develop for more than one platform than for one platform, no matter which additional platform you're talking about. And since for games, "one platform" meant Windows . . .Quoting: KimyrielleThere was never really a technical hurdle to supporting Linux. We've had OpenGL for years, and id Software's ports and Epic's experiment with Unreal Tournament 2004 proved a long time ago that Linux was more than capable of running AAA games. The real problem was, and still is, market share, and I'm a little concerned that if Valve ever expressed any lack of confidence in the Linux platform that a lot of developers would simply walk away.Quoting: Mountain ManMy question is, is there enough momentum in the Linux gaming market for developers to continue supporting Linux in the event that Valve gets bored and kills off their grand experiment? That's my primary concern at the moment, that we're almost entirely dependent on Valve and Steam for the majority of our games, and if Valve goes away then we're going to be right back where we were five-years ago with a niche market that only a handful of independent developers even bother to support.
I guess the critical moment was when all major engine creators added Linux support to their products that make it (comparatively) easy to publish cross-platform. There is barely any reason NOT to support Linux these daysz
Let's be honest, as a game developer/publisher, Valve has been a non-factor for a while now, so if they chose to stop porting games to Linux, really, who'd notice? And Steam Machines never picked up any steam to begin with. Linux gaming has grown without them just nicely.
No, their great contribution is and was porting the Steam client to Linux in the first place, opening a mainstream publishing channel for developers on Linux for the first time ever. That deed is done and time won't get rolled back on that. The biggest help we're getting from Valve these days is them getting involved in improving Linux drivers and components for gaming. Which should hopefully drive down Linux related support costs and performance issues, which is the LAST sound reason larger studios still have not to publish on Linux.
I agree with Kimyrielle that the big change is support for Linux on the major game engines. For a really big chunk of the game market from most of the indies up through some fairly major outfits, that lowered the cost of publishing games cross-platform so that the break-even point happens at a much smaller market share. That one factor makes releasing for Linux even at its current market share financially viable, maybe even closing on uncontroversial, if you're using one of those engines. There have been other increments as well. Vulkan may prove to be another again, as well as advances in packaging--Snaps and whatnot--and the move to Wayland. But the engines were the big one.
So if Valve walked away it would obviously not be a good thing, but the situation would be IMO very different from how things were pre-Steam. Developer assumptions are different now, and there are probably more developers with some idea how to build a game with Linux in mind, but above all it's simply a lot cheaper and easier to make games with Linux as one of the release platforms.
The other question of course is, how likely is Valve to walk away? But the question underneath that is, how likely is Microsoft to convincingly not be covetous of Valve's market? How likely is Microsoft to abandon things like introducing and gradually integrating app stores in Windows and trying to get games to be sold there rather than on Steam? I'd say fairly unlikely; that's a lot of revenue and control MS would be leaving in an outside third party's hands when they have a shot at getting it themselves. And it's even more unlikely that they'd be able to not only abandon the idea of doing that, but also convince Valve that there's no threat of them ever doing that. Companies, much less Microsoft, don't permanently abandon potential large revenue streams.
So my expectation is that, for as long as MS don't make any serious moves, Valve will play Linux-related stuff like now--quietly simmering on the back burner, ready to be brought to a boil when necessary.
Crystal balls are notoriously inaccurate, though. So I don't discount the worry--who knows what could happen? But Linux is on those game engines now. Things are a bit different.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: GuestI know I must have typed that and a lot more on my C-64, but I guess I'm too old to actually remember it.Quoting: crt0megaFive years ago I discovered GoL because I was searching news regarding Steam for Linux :D F*ck, I'm getting old.If 5 years since first reading GOL makes you feel old, how old do you think I feel when I still remember typing this....
10 print HELLO
20 goto 10
run
3 Likes, Who?
Quoting: GuestNow that takes me back to my TRS-80. Well, technically my dad's TRS-80.Quoting: crt0megaFive years ago I discovered GoL because I was searching news regarding Steam for Linux :D F*ck, I'm getting old.If 5 years since first reading GOL makes you feel old, how old do you think I feel when I still remember typing this....
10 print HELLO
20 goto 10
run
2K of ROM, 4K of RAM.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 6 November 2017 at 9:54 pm UTC
0 Likes
Quoting: EikeQuoting: GuestIf 5 years since first reading GOL makes you feel old, how old do you think I feel when I still remember typing this....
10 print HELLO
20 goto 10
run
10 print HELLO
20 gosub 10
run
*eg*
I don't touch basic for really long time, but code with gosub you will do a "stack overflow" because it's recursive, better do a goto. :P
Edit: maybe it was only with ON GOSUB... i don't remember well, to much time :P
Last edited by bubexel on 6 November 2017 at 10:08 pm UTC
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