Valve officially confirm a new version of 'Steam Play' which includes a modified version of Wine

I feel a little off about some of the keys I've obtained through Humble Bundles. I've sank about 20 hours into Subnautica now, which plays pretty well in Proton, but I got it as part of a bundle. And since it was Windows only at the time, I slid its slider right down to zero. And now here I am playing it.

Feels weird.

I guess I shouldn't feel that bad though - the Subnautica devs haven't raised a finger to support the platform, it's just a quirk of Valve's continuing push to support it. But still. Yeah, feels weird.

Quoting: scaineI feel a little off about some of the keys I've obtained through Humble Bundles. I've sank about 20 hours into Subnautica now, which plays pretty well in Proton, but I got it as part of a bundle. And since it was Windows only at the time, I slid its slider right down to zero. And now here I am playing it.

Feels weird.

I guess I shouldn't feel that bad though - the Subnautica devs haven't raised a finger to support the platform, it's just a quirk of Valve's continuing push to support it. But still. Yeah, feels weird.

Even if you give "nothing" to the devs, they save taxes from each sell in humble bundle. In the end they got something from giving nothing.

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: lucifertdarkSince Valve brought us Steam play my list of Steam games playable in Linux has gone from 950 to 1400, I now have 75% of my Steam games playable in Linux with little to no effort on my part. To say I'm impressed is an understatement. :D

Is that playable, or installable? The games might not actually run.
And they were probably playable before through wine. Steam Play changed none of that, it just means more focus going forward of Valve supporting running games in Steam through wine.


Food for thought: might Valve try this on Windows at some point? Not all games built for XP will run on 10 I suspect.

They might, although one might argue it would be strategically unsound. If they want to erode Windows dominance, fixing Microsoft's breakage so Windows does games better isn't really the way to do it.

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: lucifertdarkSince Valve brought us Steam play my list of Steam games playable in Linux has gone from 950 to 1400, I now have 75% of my Steam games playable in Linux with little to no effort on my part. To say I'm impressed is an understatement. :D

Is that playable, or installable? The games might not actually run.
And they were probably playable before through wine. Steam Play changed none of that, it just means more focus going forward of Valve supporting running games in Steam through wine.


Food for thought: might Valve try this on Windows at some point? Not all games built for XP will run on 10 I suspect.

They might, although one might argue it would be strategically unsound. If they want to erode Windows dominance, fixing Microsoft's breakage so Windows does games better isn't really the way to do it.

Your assumption there is that they want to erode Windows dominance. I'm saying they don't care to - they only care about Microsoft not screwing them over. And they wouldn't be fixing breakage - the games would still run on the platforms they target, it's just users aren't using that platform. The same as for dosbox really - Microsoft didn't break dos, so games that used to run on dos...still do run on dos.

I guess it depends how far their chain of reasoning goes. I've always had the impression that they feel Microsoft dominance is likely, eventually, to lead to Microsoft screwing them over. So they want to either erode Microsoft's dominance or at least be in a position to credibly attempt to curtail Microsoft's dominance on short notice. Aside from that one outburst with the Steam Machines they've been keeping their moves background, infrastructural, so as not to provoke strong Microsoft reactions. It's like certain high-tech countries with no nuclear weapons who, however, have nuclear power, enrichment facilities (for medical and research purposes of course!), missiles capable of mounting nuclear warheads if they had them, and in general everything they need to suddenly become a nuclear power in a matter of months if they felt the need. I think Valve want all the pieces in place, in case they either decide to make a move or are pushed into making or at least threatening a move.

One of the potential pieces would be that edge--Linux being capable of playing old Windows games while Windows was not. No reason to give that card away.

Quoting: Guest....did you just compare Valve Software to a nuclear arsenal? Because they really don't have that kind of power. At all.

90% (or more) of Valve's customer base is on Windows. Windows already dominates. That bulk is more important to Valve than the 1% of GNU/Linux users, but the latter is a good playground for Valve.

Windows as a gaming platform is rapidly going away thanks to Windows 10, Valve know this & that's why they are putting all their efforts into Steam OS & Steam Play.

Quoting: legluondunetWith Steamplay it's more than 1100 games available for Linux gamers (and soon MacOSX users).
source: https://spcr.netlify.com/ (completely stable and playable).
I kept only less than 10 games in my Wine Steam prefix that don't work (yet) with Steamplay.

Make sure you all get in and test your games, reporting them accordingly - especially games which have few or no reports regarding their performance.

You'll need to enable Steam Play for all games in settings (Steam-->Settings-->Steam Play-->Advanced-->Enable Steam Play for all titles), restart and then install your games... But via the link above (click "Contribute!" at the top of the screen), it's a pretty straightforward process to report the status of your games; your specific system information can be found in System Information (Help-->System Information).

As the old saying goes, they "Can't fix it if they don't know about it!"

Quoting: lucifertdark

Quoting: Guest....did you just compare Valve Software to a nuclear arsenal? Because they really don't have that kind of power. At all.

90% (or more) of Valve's customer base is on Windows. Windows already dominates. That bulk is more important to Valve than the 1% of GNU/Linux users, but the latter is a good playground for Valve.

Windows as a gaming platform is rapidly going away thanks to Windows 10, Valve know this & that's why they are putting all their efforts into Steam OS & Steam Play.

Apple have made absolutely no attempt at grabbing some marketshare when it comes to PC gaming, and even their high-end computers are mostly rubbish when it comes to gaming... Not to mention the fact that most of Apple's range is financially out of reach for a significant portion of the population, even if they were (hypothetically) great for PC gaming.

That was more long-winded than I intended...

To get to my point, whatever the reasoning behind "Proton" (and Steam Machines, for that matter!), the PC industry could do with a little more competition because as the old saying goes, "competition breeds innovation".

Half-assed efforts at increasing competition - such as those efforts from GOG.com - do little in the grand scheme of things... Real efforts - such as those from Valve - actually make a difference when you look at the big picture.

Yeah people have been saying it's "the year of the Linux desktop" for as long as I can remember and realistically, that's probably a long way off... But when it happens - and there's a good chance it might - I guarantee Valve Software will be a part of the reason why it has happened.


Last edited by Cyba.Cowboy on 30 August 2018 at 10:18 am UTC

Quoting: GuestIf GNU/Linux desktop becomes more widespread, then it would be very, very bad if Steam holds dominance on gaming for the same reasons - and actually worse, because a core concept of GNU/Linux is to be open.

But, while Valve can play a part, I always point out that Valve never did so much alone, but are standing on the backs of giants: wine, AMD (opening up drivers, donating Mantle to Khronos, and more), radv, Intel (their drivers always were open), nvidia (drivers and long time OpenGL support), Unity3D (engine support before Steam was even thought to be on GNU/Linux), and of course TTimo and iD Software. And more.

And yes, Valve has been heavily involved in Vulkan from the start, and has contributions to Mesa, X, and porting their own games across. Valve definitely help improve - but the foundations were already laid out.

On that subject though, Valve are nowhere as bad as, say, Apple. At least Valve do give back to projects that they use to promote their services. Apple infuriate me by leveraging well established open source technologies without ever contributing back. There are exceptions, of course. But few and far between. When you're the most profitable, multi-billion (trillion?) dollar company in the world, it's pretty despicable to not only not acknowledge the basis of your success, but to continue to leach from it without any kind of reciprocation. Apple won't get a penny from me, but I continue to support Valve's efforts and that won't change unless they undergo a massive (negative) shift in attitude.

Quoting: Guestbut the foundations were already laid out.

And exactly what were they all doing before Valve focused them on a single goal?

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: lucifertdark

Quoting: Guestbut the foundations were already laid out.

And exactly what were they all doing before Valve focused them on a single goal?

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean - Valve hasn't done that. Valve is using, mixing to a tool of its own, but it's not taking charge of any of the others.

Or do you actually think Valve is now somehow directing AMD's driver efforts (for example)? Because gaming isn't AMD's only concern, nor was it even a reason for them to open their drivers.

Well it does seem like someone is getting these companies to support Linux in a meaningful way for a change & I can't believe it's just them being altruistic.

Quoting: GuestBut, while Valve can play a part, I always point out that Valve never did so much alone, but are standing on the backs of giants: wine, AMD (opening up drivers, donating Mantle to Khronos, and more), radv, Intel (their drivers always were open), nvidia (drivers and long time OpenGL support), Unity3D (engine support before Steam was even thought to be on GNU/Linux), and of course TTimo and iD Software. And more.

You seem to hold it against them, but it's the very principle of open source development. They didn't do anything stupid like forking the software, developing it themselves and trying to make the original obsolete. No, for the last two years they've been working head to head with crossover codeweavers, as well as contributing to many other projects, to make things happen. I won't maintain that they did more than the others, but I think it's safe to say we wouldn't reach the current point without collaboration at least partly inspired by Valve.


Last edited by pb on 30 August 2018 at 5:09 pm UTC