Quoting: GustyGhost"Valve bows down in submission, accepts Microsoft proprietary standards as de facto."

Oh yes. Microsoft will be so happy about this move!

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Quoting: baccilus

Quoting: svartalfYeah, it "costs" me titles. Big whoop-de-f'ing-do. It'll ultimately get me stuff that'd never have happened before because those "lost" titles were never going to happen in the first place.

Whether this is a win or not remains to be seen- but it's not the horrible thing some make it out to be.

If steamplay doesn't lead to increased market share, this move will backfire.

If this doesn't help then what will?

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Quoting: adolson

Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: adolsonIf I'm a developer, I don't see why I should put any effort into a Linux version.

Because supporting your users is proper. If you don't want to do that - you'd be a bad developer.

Tons of developers already don't support Linux. And now that their games can possibly easily be run on Linux with zero effort on their part, you think they're going to suddenly start to care? Give me a break.

It's best when it doesn't matter if they care anyway! We've come far with (almost) sympathy alone. This initiative (plus the bad ass behaviour of Microsoft) can get Linux gaming more users, which also really get counted. Plus there's still those good devs. We should let them know we didn't forget them because of tons of new Windows games possibilities!

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: MaxPower

So, with any luck, all the people who were already buying Windows games for Wine (and any users coming over to Linux from Windows) will start doing so from within Steam directly. Now if you pick it up to play in Steam Play and a native Linux port comes later (for those times when a release is delayed) you’ve still been counted for Linux gaming—which is truly awesome!

Except when the Linux version is published by a different company

It still applies to the wider point. You have still counted for Linux. That above all else is probably the most important thing. You can't grow a market that isn't seen.

That was what I didn't like about Wine the most! You purchase a Windows game, have to configure it to work, count as a Windows user, but have no support at all for your platform. Now developers see you as a Linux user, and you'll get your support by Valve. Plus, every incompatibility Valve finds and fixes will help more games to run on Linux. For the first time you can support an early access game of a dev you like, even though there is no Linux version until after early access.
I just hope Valve additionally gives developers of native Linux versions a slightly bigger share for all sold copies of any supported game, regardless of the platform as an incentive... I guess this also would help Feral, Aspire and the likes..

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Quoting: MayeulC

Quoting: KetilWill it warn you about games not on the whitelist if you enable it for all titles? I expect to enable it for some not whitelisted games, but that doesn't mean I want it to list all windows games.

Yes, it will. You get a message when you first run them. Though I'm not sure if you get it with "whitelisted" games :)

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Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: TcheyIt's a great new for players, but i'm concerned about NATIVE Linux games. Too many, i think today, will use this instead of going the road to a proper Linux build.

Basically, it's a WINE inside Steam, so it's still not Linux.

Suppose you're playing a Vulkan game on your Linux box. Performance is great, everything works. The dev knows your gaming on Linux. Do you care if the game is ELF or Win32?

Technically, ELF or PE; or Linux or Win32, but do not mix in the API and the executable format (you could very well have a PE-encoded Linux binary; technically you have ELF32 and ELF64 as well, IIRC UEFI executable are in the Portable Executable format as well). Sorry for nitpicking.

Oh I'm so very sorry! :-P ;-)

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Quoting: TcheyIt's a great new for players, but i'm concerned about NATIVE Linux games. Too many, i think today, will use this instead of going the road to a proper Linux build.

Basically, it's a WINE inside Steam, so it's still not Linux.

Suppose you're playing a Vulkan game on your Linux box. Performance is great, everything works. The dev knows your gaming on Linux. Do you care if the game is ELF or Win32?

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Quoting: InverseTelecineI'm really, really happy about this! Please hear me out

For the past year or so the future of Linux gaming has looked very bleak. After Steam Machines failed to take off, then the Nintendo Switch started to be "the place" for indy games, and finally Linux seemed to be bottoming out in the Steam user surveys (just because of new Chinese windows users, but still it was not a good sign). After all that, I was honestly surprised about how many game releases we still got, but still, the "onward and upward" momentum was lost. We were holding steady at best, but were not gaining ground anymore. I thought a decline was inevitable. This could turn that around. This could be some hope for us.

It is true that this may discourage native development to some extent, so it might not be perfect, but let's be honest; we should be more worried about the future of Linux gaming, not the future of "perfect" Linux gaming. This could be what gives Linux gaming a future, and I will be happy for any future for Linux gaming.

To me it looks like Valve truely have multiplatform development and releases in mind. They clearly want Vulkan as THE api for it. They help to develop ways to port code from Vulkan to other APIs like MoltenVK. This will help Linux gaming in several ways, and I think you're right, it might even save it. People won't install Linux if not most of the games they want to play work on it. Developers will keep doing what they have to do, beeing responsible for their busynesses and employees and only invest into platform versions they think will be worthwile. They also will develop their games with tools that make the most sense to them.
Valves initiatives help on all those fronts. When the Windows 7 support dies maybe a few percent of the users won't just sigh and install Windows 10, maybe they will come to places like GOL for help and orientation, and maybe they will install Linux instead, and that will be acknoledged by developers.
OpenGL is dying. DX11 for now gets enough data to the GPU via its one driver thread, but not for long. Soon it'll have to be DX12 or Vulkan. From this time forward Linux will be as fast as Windows, native or Proton.
Every Linux user playing any game that works on Linux will be shown and know as Linux user. It might lead to more native games in the long run. And maybe a Win32/Vulkan game is quasi Linux native by then.

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"Holy shit. Please excuse the language, but honestly, I'm physically shaking right now I don't quite know how to process this."

Completely with you! Absolutely incredible to see this come true!

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Quoting: CorbenAwesome, just awesome!

I'm wondering if the rumors that Valve could add Windows gaming in any way to Linux/SteamOS is correlated with this?

There is a github project out there already, that let's you use a Windows game with wine communicating with the Linux Steam client. So SteamWorks etc. is working. Of course not officially supported, but Valve could be working on something similar.

So, if we would then get Windows games on Linux with support by Valve and/or the devs and publishers... what do you think about that? On the one hand, oh hell, yes! I could finally play all the games, all of them! On the other hand, I'm afraid about native Linux games.

Maybe it's completely different and nothing like that happens :D

If those rumors are indeed true such a built in Wine wrapper would give us some security that a big chunk of all old Windows titles, plus almost all new titles will at least run on Linux. At the same time Valve helpes to make Vulkan an ideal standard API, which makes native Linux games easier to develop and gives wrapper games better performance.
I like the idea!

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Quoting: theghostFor us German Steam users, the game wasn't available before.
Some region lock prohibited a sale of the game in Germany (probably some kind of license deal).
So I guess that's not a loss :D

But it is! The 2019 version will be the first officially availlable in Germany!
Unfortunately this will be one of the very few games I will purchase for Wine. It' s a must! The one and only decision based football simulation with an almost real life database...

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