One is Steam on linux period. Even if it were its own little universe, having the support of Valve and the steam platform opens up a lot of opportunities for gaming on linux.
Another is Valve's core games on linux, which would definitely give a big kickstart to linux as a gaming platform.
Perhaps the most important could be when the top tier multi-platform game engines begin including linux as a targeted platform as a matter of routine.
I think valve's core games on linux will be there at the same time the linux steam client arrives to give it that push. It was that way with the mac. However, I think there will still be some time before we start seeing the majority of games ported to the three platforms.
Sometimes, mac ports that are done by third parties are not on steam because they can't split the revenue, so you still have to get the mac version separately.
But even with all the hurdles, I think this is a great step in the right direction.
I think only a fraction of existing games will be ported. However, now there will be a much stronger incentive to use cross-platform engines in the future. It used to be "windows + mac port" for a lot of games. "windows + mac port + linux port" sounds silly, so the obvious solution is to start with something that already is cross-platform.
Wasteland 2 chose Unity engine because it's so cross-platform. It even has unpolished Linux support. The Linux port of Unity hasn't been released, because developers were doing that in their spare time and it wasn't up to Unity creators' standards. Now, InExile has been given Unity source for purposes of creating a decent Linux port. It's a single anecdote, but it illustrates what I'm saying above. Makers of Unity will probably want to get the most out of it, so Linux port of Unity will be contributed "upstream" and it's very likely that Unity will support Linux from now on.
Most Source engine games run perfectly well under Wine already. I think a Linux port should be pretty simple at this point. As for "Windows + mac port + linux port", Portal 2 was launched on PS3, so the code is pretty portable.
Source actually uses Direct3D rendering on Microsoft Windows PCs, Xbox and Xbox 360, and OpenGL rendering on Mac OS X and the PlayStation 3. It's very portable.
Often, the difficulty of bringing a game to OSX is porting DirectX graphics code to OpenGL. Once that's done, the hard part of Linux support is dealing with distribution fragmentation and dependencies.
Steam on Linux will probably ship with the audio/graphics/input libraries it needs, so 3rd party developers don't have to worry about environment nearly as much.
Porting is not really so bad issue, problem is that all sound and input port code will not work after year or two because of libraries changing, forgotten and deprecated. What I really do hope that Steam will choose libraries which might concentrate development effort around those. That would be good thing for everyone, not just for game developers.
I am still wondering, however, whether we will really see Steam on "Linux" or Steam on "A Single Distro", which would probably happen to be Ubuntu. If that does happen, that would further consolidate the domination of Ubuntu in the Linux World (at least in numbers) as an unintended consequence.
I do not see Valve releasing clients for every distro out there.
For Linux/Ubuntu to be really strong in gaming, Steam is a big plus, however we also need strong driver support from nVidia and ATI. As far as I know, the best drivers on Linux are still not on par with their equivalent on Windows in terms of performance. If playing the same game on Linux means losing 10 fps on your favorite game, this may not be a very enticing alternative if you have both systems installed.
> As far as I know, the best drivers on Linux are still not on par with their equivalent on Windows in terms of performance.
Forget performance, ATI drivers are so unstable it's barely usable (eg. Gnome 3 restarting regularly, like once per hour), and that's just plain desktop apps (Vim/browser), trying to run some version of VLC from default repo instantly crashed the PC (needed to restart), when I tried to play games random graphics bugs were everywhere (texture artifacts, framebuffer not clearing properly, etc.) All distros I've tried so far have problems with closed source drivers, and the OSS ones don't have HW 3D I think because it's slow as hell. Also - you can't alt-tab from full screen games. I looked it up, found a post that started with "you need to modify your xconfig" closed the tab. I think linux needs a lot more polish to be viable for everyday use as multimedia/gaming desktop OS, I would love to ditch the windows partition and rebooting but I don't think it's going to happen soon.
Weird. I run HB games (from Trine to Limbo) without particular problem on my machines with Radeon cards and the proprietary driver. From what I heard around, only people running Ubuntu seem to have serious problems with Catalyst. Are your running Ubuntu?
Interesting - I haven't had problems with any closed source drivers for years, gaming works fine. I am using a ATI card right now, and it works completely fine. Maybe there's some other problem?
I only tried to play HoN - the game did work and din't crash or had any performance issues - but there were many glitches and alt-tab not working made me give up. Most of the issues with stability I had were with Gnome 3 + closed source driver (Unity as well, but I haven't tried Ubuntu since 11.10 Alpha). I also tried to play some games with Wine and that didn't work so well (NvN, HOMM) - again random glitches and crashes.
I can vouch for this too... I play World Of Warcraft (aging.. but still 3D) using the ATI drivers and it actually runs better than it does on Windows. The only thing I have issues with when using the closed source drivers is standby (it never comes back ._.)
I'd actually recommend the open source drivers. Its true that you're giving up half the FPS on 3D games, but that's a small price to pay for a stable desktop - and the 2D performance is usually better.
Honestly, Intel integrated graphics have been getting better very quickly recently, and already have pretty good Linux drivers. Maybe you wouldn't want to run Crysis on them, but for, say, Team Fortress 2 it should be good enough.
What can you run with the latest Intel Chipsets ? I haven't been following up on their progress. Are they somehow closing some of the gap between integrated graphics and dedicated GPUs?
Both Ivy Bridge and AMD's new Trinity IGPs offer playable frame rates at low-medium settings in many newer titles, with Trinity generally having a slight edge:
I do not see Valve releasing clients for every distro out there.
I guess that would depend on how the client software is built and if they utilize the shared libraries included in the Linux distribution. If dependencies are compiled into the distributed binaries, it's really not that hard to repackage the artifacts into different packages for different systems.
DRM is the games publishers' choice, no matter what distribution platform they use.
Steam doesn't force DRM on publishers and there are plenty of games there without DRM.
There is also already plenty of DRM-encumbered Linux software (I'm thinking of electronic engineering vendors, but that's only because my field of experience has led me there). If Steam will do anything in this space, it will bring mainstream visibility to the potential of software licensing mechanics in Linux.
For anyone looking to get some excellent games on their Linux box, don't miss out on the current Humble Indie Bundle. Amnesia, Psychonauts, LIMBO, Sword & Sworcery, and Bastion. Pay more than $1: get codes to unlock on Steam.
To be clear you have to pay over the average (which at the moment is $7.86) to get Bastion. Still, this is probably the best Humble Bundle since the first one. Every game here is great.
So, no more install.sh scripts that you have to chmod +x, no more "undefined symbol" errors from games expecting old library files, no dependency hell (though, admittedly, I don't encounter those as much anymore).
This is bigger than what many might think. I'd still be using Linux now if I didn't have to edit xorg.conf just to change the screen resolution. (Yes I'm aware of the http://xkcd.com/963/ comic).
The gap between programmer and user is Linux's biggest fault. For example Unity, developers recognised an issue with the UI. Instead of doing user studies and tweaking it for the better they canned Gnome and reprogrammed it. Now they're in the same situation but with an entirely different codebase.
Having a large company with a product that has to work will add consistency, and hopefully force Linux to start tweaking instead of redeveloping.
1. As someone else noted, literally years since you ever had to touch config file by hand. Use Ubuntu, you'll love it.
2. I do believe your view of Unity is a bit odd. Canonical recognized that the state of Linux UI/DE was NOT going to make the leap from programmer. They saw this VIA user studies. That is when they decided to create Unity. And user study after user study Unity keeps coming out ahead of all the other DE in Linux and is on par with usability of current OSX. Point being, Ubuntu is going after users the right way. Unity in 12.04 shows this and the reviews speak to it.
3. Sometimes you simply have to rewrite. This is a fact (sorry Joel) in software. The challenge is to recognize when it is necessary and avoid it when not 100% necessary to achieve your business objectives.
I use Ubuntu, and every time I switch between external displays and my laptop's display, I have to move an xorg.conf file. My external displays are on NVidia Twinview, my internal display is on an Intel GPU. I have no choice but to move my NVidia xorg.conf out of the way when I want to use the internal display, and then move it back when I get home and hook up to my monitors.
This isn't really a commentary on Linux itself though. Optimus can cause issues on Windows, too. It's new tech and Linux support is at the bottom of vendors' "todo" lists.
The problem here is twofold, though I'm not necessarily saying these comments apply to you, you are apparently willing to endure some inconvenience.
First, people should always check hardware support before buying a laptop if they intend to install Linux. I'm not trying to be a neck-beaded dick (although I do need to shave), I'm just pointing out that many of the problems people have with Linux stem from well-known incompatibilities that could have been avoided with different hardware choices. Which brings me nicely to the second point...
There is a communication issue in the Linux community. We (I'm including myself here) need to stop over-selling Linux. It is not a computing panacea for everyone, and so long as hardware support lags behind Windows "selling" Linux as a drop-in Windows replacement isn't a good strategy.
Getting someone to install Ubuntu/Fedora/openSUSE isn't a victory for the community if his hardware isn't compatible and things don't work right. It would be better to tell him that he should think about purchasing a Linux-compatible computer in the future and perhaps directing him to a list of compatible hardware.
Yep that sounds like the horror that is Nvidia-Optimus. There's some kludges out there to do it all on the internal display, i don't know how well it works for mixing the two. I assume you've already looked at Bumblebee to see if it might help your situation?
Bumblebee works if you actually want to use the internal and external at the same time, but I only ever use one or the other. Also, you lose 3d acceleration if you use it, AFAIK.
Something's wrong with your system. I use Slackware, I have a dual screen setup and no xorg.conf, all was configured with the catalyst panel. My colleague has some Acer Laptop running Ubuntu, and he sometimes connects an external 19" screen he has on his desktop, and he certainly hasn't any xorg.conf (and that's fortunate because he's utterly non-technical).
There's nothing wrong with my system. Neither you nor your colleague have Nvidia Optimus systems, which is why you're not having any issues. My problems are definitely not the norm, but the "Xorg.conf isn't used anymore" meme needs to die; there are still real problems to be addressed. Unless we identify them and deal with them, they'll still be there.
Bumblebee solves the problem of using them together, and doesn't allow you to actually get 3d acceleration on the Nvidia chip. I just want to be able to easily switch between the two cards, but that won't happen, so the Xorg file moves will be necessary.
1. As someone else noted, literally years since you ever had to touch config file by hand. Use Ubuntu, you'll love it.
Sure. But that wont cure a fundamental problem with the X11/Xorg infrastructure.
You cannot quickly and switch desktop orientation, resolution and layout (not to mention drivers) seamlessly like on Windows without killing your entire X-session. Killing your entire session. Jeez.
At the root of this problem is an architecture which is lagging on what Microsoft could deliver in Windows 98. You cannot make Windows and reboot-jokes while you have this Achilles-heel dragging your video subsystem. You seriously cannot.
And no new version of Ubuntu can overcome this underlying issue, no matter how much fluff and candy they add elsewhere, as long as they rely on the ancient relic that is X11.
As far as I know, when Google decided to make Android and ChromeOS (a complete failure as far as any metric goes, but still worth mentioning) they decided:
1. to base it on Linux, because that makes sense and
2. not to base it on X11 because they wanted it to be flexible and they wanted their users not be limited by what architects could think of in the 1984.
For end-user Linux to ever become user-friendly Xorg needs a complete architectural overhaul. I cannot see anyone arguing this.
And even if seemingly everyone agrees on this, nobody is pushing forward for it to happen. Make of that what you like.
> You cannot quickly and switch desktop orientation, resolution and layout (not to mention drivers) seamlessly like on Windows without killing your entire X-session.
On my Ubuntu system, I can change orientation, resolution, and layout from a little control panel without restarting the session. I have no idea if Xorg restarts; the superficial behavior is almost identical to Windows. From the user's point of view, it doesn't seem to matter.
> For end-user Linux to ever become user-friendly Xorg needs a complete architectural overhaul.
Every mainstream desktop environment seems to have handled the major aspects of display usability just fine. The only serious issues I've encountered have been one-off bugs related to drivers.
> I cannot see anyone arguing this.
Everyone agrees X is a mess. But why must we continue to use X and not Wayland?
uh? You can change resolutions on the fly and orientation on the fly. This have been available for ages via xrandr and other things. Via API-calls or through the xrandr cli utility.
The only thing that is really ugly in X11 is the protocol, but so is win32 api :)
Is there public information on the user studies Canonical has conducted on Unity or other desktop environments? It seems like that information would be very useful to other free software projects. All I can find are reports on empathy and rhythmbox.
I do not think that Canonical would share such data. That kind of research costs money, and they want to keep it to their advantage, most probably. You don't see Microsoft or Google release their user studies results either. Hardly surprising.
I dropped Ubuntu since after weeks of research and discussion, etc the only way I could get it to output acceptable screen resolution on my monitor was to hand enter a MODELINE. a !@#$@#$%@#$ Modeline; I couldn't remember the last time I typed in a modeline before this.
What kind of monitor? I'm curious to know to avoid them when I want one that doesn't need that kind of thing. The only times recently I've had to do that is for two specific cases, an arcade monitor that was built before EDID was a pipe dream, and a TV that likes to report that it has a native resolution of 320x240. Both of which would have to be worked around on any platform so I don't find it a problem.
It is a Sun branded monitor with really broke-ass EDID, and I was using it just fine before having manually (but with a GUI) set the resolution and refresh rate.
It's been many years since I've had to touch xorg.conf to change screen resolution. I can do it on the command line (xrandr) or through gui tools. Do you have significantly unusual hardware?
I don't even have an xorg.conf. Things "just work", and if they don't, I use xrandr at the command line to fix things live. It's really gotten a lot better than the bad old days of hacking around with XF86Config.
Swapping xorg.conf for xrandr isn't a big win for most users. It is getting better, but things still fall apart like a sand castle when something goes wrong.
And even the command-line tool is far simpler than fiddling with xorg.conf. When I plug my laptop into its docking station, I run a little script to switch over to my two external monitors in portrait mode:
Is that sarcasm? 'Cos while Steam restricts you in a few ways (e.g. no giving free copies to friends) the experience is so superior I continually choose to buy games on Steam over any other method.
Hell, one of the biggest reasons I patronize the Humble Indie Bundles is because I can get the games into my Steam account.
I liked Humble Indie Bundles precisely for their DRM free Linux releases. Other good DRM free source is GOG (though requiring Wine). Steam is of no interest to me because of DRM promotion. It's a choice the company has to make. You can see DRM free releases being successful, so those who stick with DRM need to be discouraged.
There is a positive side of Valve's interest in Linux though. It'll encourage others to pay more attention to Linux, and eventually more DRM free games will be available too.
DRM needs to be discouraged by its definition IMO. I was saying above, that if that raises an objection that making a financially successful game without DRM isn't possible, then such objection is not true. Or if you want to phrase it in a positive way - those who don't use DRM need to be encouraged.
The thing is, for some games (competitive internet multiplayer), some forms of DRM are a net positive, and arguably strictly necessary. After easily used cheats started to be widely distributed for CS, the game experience for the typical player went trough the floor, and the community voluntarily and without any kind of financial incentive created and enforced a type of DRM.
Steam takes that to the next level -- because they can add fines of real money (losing your account), and actual permanent bans (of credit cards and real identities) as the cost of cheating, the gaming community embraced it and cheers for it.
So, we are in a situation where the vast majority of the player base considers DRM not just acceptable, or good, but a strictly necessary part of the product. The things that are commonly considered the evils of DRM (ability to take away ability to use product) are instead considered a primary selling point. How's that for food for thought.
I think your argument can be rephrased in a way, that multilayer games require third party arbiters (server admins, GMs and so on), who should be able to ban violators of game rules, reconcile conflicts and so on. I fully agree, but I don't see why it should be equated with using DRM for the actual software.
And to single player games this issue doesn't apply at all.
> I think your argument can be rephrased in a way, that multilayer games require third party arbiters (server admins, GMs and so on), who should be able to ban violators of game rules, reconcile conflicts and so on. I fully agree, but I don't see why it should be equated with using DRM for the actual software.
GMs do not have the power to that job, unless they have something that's approximately equal to DRM. Catching a subtle cheater is a much, much bigger job than cheating. If someone cheats every day, you'd be lucky to catch him once a month. To actually stop cheating from happening, you need penalties that are high enough to make that once a month count -- so permanent global (so they won't just move on to the next server) bans (and ip bans don't cut it), or failing that, monetary punishment.
Tell me how your third party arbiters achieve that without essentially implementing DRM?
> And to single player games this issue doesn't apply at all.
Except when there is publicly visible scoring/achievements system that you want to keep pure. >90% of new games on the market are either mp or do that.
I still think using any kind of DRM is an unethical overkill for controlling the MMO..G and the like. Firstly, the game can be designed better avoid (some) exploits. Secondly automated mechanisms can be built on the server side to prevent cheating (monitoring unnatural stats boosting, unrealistic mods and so on). I agree, that it's not easy to do it manually. So, write server side protection code for that. It's not DRM, and not some kind of client targeted kill switch. If the user is caught - ban will follow. Let them register again, and get another ban if they want to waste their time. And if that cheating is so hidden that it's not even unnatural IG - who cares (i.e. it's still not fair, but at least such user doesn't have big impact).
From the player perspective, I'd choose a multiplayer game based on the community. Sometimes community can identify cheating just by observing something unnatural, and those users will quickly be boycotted. So GMs are needed to intervene when human decision is necessary. They not necessarily have to detect the issue themselves first.
Is that sarcasm? Steam is DRM. If Valve decides they don't like you, they can delete all your games. If Valve goes bankrupt, they can delete all your games. If Valve gets bought by another company, they can delete all your games. If you like paying full price for a game rental with a variable return date, then Steam is great.
If they have publicly promised it, and people have taken action upon it (for instance buying games that they wouldn't have bought otherwise), then if they fail carry through on it you have grounds to sue for promissory estoppel. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel#Promissory_estoppel for more on that.
Winning said lawsuit is not a sure thing. But the pledge may wind up being more binding than it would appear on the surface.
"Unless there was some situation I don't understand, we would presumably disable authentication before any event that would preclude the authentication servers from being available."
So, that's pretty clearly not a guarantee of anything. And furthermore, as another poster there said, the thing Valve employee doesn't understand is bankruptcy. Unless there is a legally binding agreement, they won't be allowed to just give away such a valuable asset. Bankruptcy doesn't mean they fire everyone, shut down everything, and burn down the buildings. It means they sell off the profitable parts and try to keep them running. And the ability to control tons of DRMed games people have installed is very valuable.
A real, legally binding promise would be something like KDE had with Trolltech. Trolltech explicitly (real contract, real lawyers, etc) guaranteed, even in bankruptcy or change of ownership, that if they stopped making open source releases, then Qt would become available under the BSD license. (This was more important back before Qt was already GPLed, as it is now)
I know a lot of people are against DRM in any and all forms, but the Steam implementation is pretty much the definitive case study in how to do this stuff the right way.
If you mean there is some convenience - why do you need the overhead? Just install the game without any extra client which restricts you. It's a case study for DRMed approach, which isn't the way to go.
For example requiring one to connect to their server prior to playing (implicit requirement of having an Internet connection) is a ridiculous restriction.
It's not just the convenience in installation. It's the whole experience from purchase to download to re-download. Everything just works. Buying CDs and punching in codes feels so quaint.
Clearly, if you hate DRM for philosophical reasons, you will hate Steam. If you're pragmatic, you may love it.
I do use steam. A lot. Unfortunately, everything sometimes doesn't just work. For example, I've been left without access to my games a number of times due to internet problems (either in general or just with my gaming desktop) and while offline mode could get around that, I need to be connected to the internet to put it into offline mode and its rare, if ever, that I'll know about internet problems in advance.
So not everything just works for me.
Besides that, though, Steam is the first store in which I've ever impulse bought games - and I've done so multiple times now and probably the majority of all games I own are through Steam. They just make it so easy to find games I want, check the forums for criticism, buy the game, download it and then connect to friends. That experience is one they've done very well and why I still use it despite having had problems. Luckily my account has never been locked - thats a horror story I don't want to experience...
If you mean there is some convenience - why do you need the overhead?
What overhead? You mean the 100MB RAM and 0.1% CPU the Steam client takes? Wow, that really is a high price to pay for the ability to re-download any game I own on any PC, and the automatic updates.
requiring one to connected to their server prior to playing is a ridiculous restriction.
Steam offers offline mode. You only need connect to their server when you download the game. Now, some games are more restrictive, but those are not made by Valve- only offered on their platform. That was someone else's choice.
Yes, it's their (game creators') choice but offered as an option by the distributor (Valve). I'm simply not interested in encouraging such kind of behavior. Those who have a stronger stance on DRM free releases deserve more attention.
Offered as an option? Hardly. Such games typically are distributed via Steam, and later phone home to their publishers- not Valve. Valve is not providing a ultra-DRM service, they just don't prevent it.
It is a good model, IMO, and similar to what Amazon does when an e-book is priced at $14.99 ("This price was set by the publisher"). Let other companies do what they like, and let the market decide for itself.
Contrary to popular belief, not using DRM really shows respect by game creators for their users. I simply won't buy any DRMed game. Luckily some publishers like GOG emerged, who promote DRM free games, and have such major contributors like CD Projekt Red who aren't scared to show respect for their users by selling DRM free games. They (CD Projekt Red) managed not only to pay salaries and improve their products, but also attracted a lot of potential customers for their future titles. GOG is behind in providing Linux versions yet, but I'd rather get DRM free game to run under Wine, than DRMed native one.
Hold the phone everybody -- shmerl won't pay for DRM'd games. Better pack it up folks, we're done here.
In all seriousness though (and this is a question that everyone should ask themselves semi-regularly in a product-consumer situation): why do you matter? If you don't have a compelling answer to this question, it may be that you don't.
Your choice matters. In this case I'd call it "vote with your wallet". Preferring non DRMed games shows support for their developers, as simple as that.
No. For Valve many peoples' choice matters. My individual choice to purchase or not purchase TF2 is of negligible concern. Now, if my individual choice is indicative of a wider trend of people purchasing TF2, then maybe my choice would matter.
The problem with people arguing about DRM is that fundamentally most people don't seem to care. Video games are a billion dollar industry, but non-DRM'd games are not.
You can vote with your wallet, but the data seems to indicate that your wallet is too small to matter.
The argument "since most don't care - you shouldn't either" is flawed. If you are sure something is right - it doesn't matter how many care to do what's right.
> Video games are a billion dollar industry, but non-DRM'd games are not.
It only should increase the incentive to avoid buying DRMed games, and specifically support those who aren't scared to release theirs DRM free.
For example look at the latest Humble Indie Bundle. Linux users pay highest average for the set. It shows that they encourage developers to produce Linux games more than users of other OSes (obviously since Linux games scene is lacking). You can argue, that Linux games market is miniscule, and if so, why even bother to send your message in such form? But you still see people showing appreciation, and developers can take note of this.
Usually for every Humble Bundle, the Linux share of the total is not so minuscule, something like 15-20% if I remember correctly.
If we assume every bundle gets a total of a million dollars, shared between 5 games or so, that makes 200 000 per game, minus the donations to charity and the fees to the Humble Bundle organization. Let's say 150 000 dollars per game in the end. 15%-20% is 23 000 to 30 000 dollars, just for the Linux Port. If you are an small team of indie developpers, I'd say that is not negligible at the end of the day.
By "major contributors like CD Projekt Red" I assume you mean "owners". Good Old Games was created and is owned by CD Projekt so it's not exactly fair to simply call them "major contributors". :)
Thanks for the information, I didn't know they are the owners. That's even better, it shows how a serious and successful games production company can promote DRM free approach. They used to rely on DRM before, but I guess they reconsidered at some point, and turned it completely around.
You're setting up a false dichotomy. DRM isn't required for game developers to get paid. It's not "DRM or developers don't get paid". Games sell even without any kind of copy prevention mechanism. If you are worried, you can still use Kickstarter (or grant) model. In that model, it's irrelevant if the game is copied out of control after release. Devs have already been paid.
In my opinion Kickstarter (or grant) model is infinitely better, because it doesn't insist on treating a game like a physical object. The "selling software" model is horribly flawed. Writing software is like research - a big cost and effort once, then very little cost to benefit from it. It is fair to have effort of research/software development proportional to reward the researchers/devs are getting. With "selling software/drugs" it's not proportional.
Steam doesn't necessarily mean DRM-laden. Some games use Steamworks DRM, true, but many simply use Steam as a delivery mechanism. ARMA2, for example, can be run directly from its directly in the Steamapps folder.
Chmod +x and install.sh scripts have rarely been a problem recently. It's not that complicated and most people familiar with Linux know about these basic commands.
Dependencies is still a problem, however. There are still a few cases where I had to spend significant time to make a game run correctly because of dependencies. And the online resources on this matter are scarce.
But even on a Linux backend, it's possible to introduce specific formats encompassing all needed libraries. That's what being done on the Open Pandora, where a single PND file contains, in a zipped format, the executable, all the needed libraries, and the data for the game. That way, you avoid the problem altogether.
Believe me, I'd wait a few more seconds for it to do that than it erroring out to a prompt with "UNDEFINED SYMBOL: GTK_BUILDER_NEW", or worse, crash with a core dump where I'll never find it or know what to do with.
DRM free core dumps surely should be more fun than DRMed ones. ;) But seriously, having or not having DRM is not really directly related to how often it will crash.
In the past I've had games crash because of the DRM. At least, thats what it sounded like from error messages and google searches. Tages and securom how I loathe thee!
That's one of my biggest annoyances with Steam. It takes so long to load.
I'm tempted to install another partition of Windows with nothing on it except steam and the drivers necessary for me to play games, to see if it'll make starting steam any faster.
I doubt Valve need two years to port it to Linux. With Gabe's track record of taking his time developing software, I don't think we should get our hopes up too soon.
If they want to support more than just a single version of a single linuxdistro, two years would be an incredibly fast port. Ask anyone who has done commercial software shipped binary-only for linux.
It very interesting to me to think about Valve's motivations for doing this.
One theory is that they want to develop a console (which I have heard denounced as a far fetches rumour on here).
So if we assume that this is not the case, and that you have a smart and well established company like Valve porting their flagship products to the Linux platform; what does that say about how they see the future for Linux in the consumer space?
In other threads we have people worried that the coming UEFIgate will leave the majority of devices locked out of running a Linux OS. If this is the case then why would Valve now be deciding to take on the task of porting everything over to a platform that was as good as dead to the consumer?
In which case are they predicting a mass exodus of PC users from Windows to desktop Linux? Or are they more interested in creating a Linux port as a step towards porting it to future Linux based platforms (ChromeBook/Box?)?
If the future is ARM based devices and UEFI then people won't be able to install Linux even Windows 8 sucks to an obscene degree.
Think about what happens to PC hardware vendors if windows8 tanks. Windows8 could destroy the PC and PC gaming by forcing everyone to consoles, mobiles or Macs.
I think they're preparing in case Windows 8 does do well. If Microsoft can put a working app store into Windows 8, and require it for delivering everything signable to run on Windows 9, Steam's toast.
This is fantastic news! All the games I want to play are available on Linux, but, due the lack of the convenience that Steam offers has been off-putting. I can finally enjoy most of my favorite games right in my favorite environment...
Well, since android is basically a posix compliant linux system with a ui layer on top, this seems like an obvious step in the direction of having a full android steam client, which will be a massive win for them, especially since I imagine much of osx code base ports across relatively easily.
(Yes, I know there are differences, but the point is that the same base code can be ported easy if they do it right)
not sure about episode2, but Half Life 2 works perfectly with Steam, through Wine (if you are using ubuntu, install wine, then download Steam and run it... it should work just out of the box)
Desktop and console gaming are shrinking. [1] Mobile and browser games are growing absurdly fast. The industry is shifting to mobile. [2] Steam is about 1 decade too late.
"2000-2008 figures are sales of new physical content at retail exclusively"
Desktop gaming is not shrinking. It's rapidly shifting from physical retail to digital delivery, and it's very likely growing very rapidly. Most of that "other delivery formats" column is Steam, not mobile and browser games.
Of course, no-one outside Valve actually knows that, because they choose do not publish sales data, and they were estimated to have 70% of the digital delivery market in 2009, and probably much more of it now.
Well, this seems wrong on a couple of counts. For one thing, Steam has iOS and Android clients as of January of this year. For another, Steam was released a decade ago in 2002 - and if that's "1 decade too late," I'd like to see a prototype for a game distribution client that would work on the 1992 internet with 1992 hardware. (Seriously, that would be kind of neat. Very different, I suspect, but interesting nonetheless.)
That's a pretty far cry from being a real client. Granted, I'm sure it's been hell trying to figure out how to play in Apple's garden - not to mention porting their engine to iOS/Android. But still, they've got a ways to go before I think we can call them a real player in the mobile gaming market.
EDIT:
> For another, Steam was released a decade ago in 2002 - and if that's "1 decade too late," […]
Good point. Steam was a huge game changer and still continues to impress me. But I think the parent was referring to being a decade too late in the sense that the industry is shifting to mobile (though I'm not sure I completely agree - not for the AAA titles on Steam, anyway).
These are fair points. To address the parent I was commenting on a bit better, I agree with your last point about the industry not necessarily shifting to mobile. There's not actually a lot of data here; the stuff I've seen (and the stuff parent cites) suggests that the shift started in 2008, at the beginning of a recession we're just now seeing the end of. Will the end of the recession mean that people start buying consoles and console games again? It might. I'm interested to see the 2012 numbers. My general sense, though, is that the 'hardcore gamer' industry is a different beast; it may be that the recession trimmed off a lot of casual gamers who bought a Wii a few years ago because it was the thing to do or something like that, but I have a very hard time imagining my own gamer friends wholly abandoning dedicated gaming hardware and immersive games that last forty and fifty hours at the least for even the most advanced iOS games - which as an iPhone and iPad owner I can say are better than I could have imagined, yet still not really the equal of console and computer games.
It's not because one industry is shrinking that it may disappear completely. You can still grow in share inside a shrinking industry and make lots of money out of it. Desktop PC gaming has been said to shrink continously, but obviously it is still there, and quite stable at this stage.
Mobile and browser games may be growing very, very fast, but that's a very fractioned world, based on micro-payments. That's not where you'll see most of the "AAA" titles in the near future anyway.
Overall, there are a lot of different needs to cater to, and people playing on browsers are probably very different from the ones playing on consoles, and so on. None of this segments is going to fade away any time soon.
If Valve manage to deliver a platform with an easy-install that works cross distro it would seem a very good place for developers who want to port to Linux but are scared of distro fragmentation issues.
I hope that I will be able to run games under Linux that I have already bought for windows without having to re-buy them.
It would be cool, but one thing about games that makes this much less painful- they usually don't depend on twenty system libraries.
In other words, I doubt Valve is going to create a hyper-robust platform that can intelligently install any package; that's completely unnecessary for their purposes.
I wouldn't be surprised if Steam for Linux just created it's own chrooted environment and user account and then simply installed it's own set of libraries which would then be shared amongst steam programs but not with the system in general. X11 might be complicated of course (because Steam would have to run in the same X11 session as other software), but perhaps Valve are planning this around Wayland?
What this would provide is a "distro within a distro" where only things like the kernel version would vary. This would potentially allow anything within steam to sidestep a load of the distro compatibility issues. Instead of creating a .deb and a .rpm you just package for Steam.
I hope they have a CLI only version available for simpler server management on both local and remote systems. Having it as a desktop UI for gaming would be absolutely fantastic.
Six. You forgot about the other three horses ("Sony", "Microsoft" and "Nintendo") because they're so far ahead. And there are two little horses coming up fast from behind.
Honestly, gaming "on the desktop" is a shrinking market. I'm sure I'll enjoy a few Steam games on my Linux box (which I use basically 100% of the time), but this is hardly a paradigm shift. Consoles and mobile (maybe "web" will persist as a separate sub-market, but I'm not sure about that) are the future of gaming platforms.
> Honestly, gaming "on the desktop" is a shrinking market.
Let's throw bullshit in the air, it's not like anybody has numbers or give a flying shit about them anyway.
> Consoles [...] are the future of gaming platforms.
Consoles have been the future of gaming platforms for 25 years now. And oddly, computers are still there as gaming platforms with developers and distributors making significant amounts of money from them. Hell, computer-based gaming has never been better as far as I'm concerned, the big shitty franchise-based publishers are getting the fuck away from it and indies are coming back to the front of the scene.
Consoles are not the future of anything, they're a gaming media amongst others. And mobile is nice, I play a lot on my phone, but let's not kid ourselves: it's the future of killing handled consoles and that's about it.
Also let's not forget that the best, cutting-edge games utilizing the latest technology are pretty much out of console gamers' reach. Consoles have a hard time keeping up with the system requirements of newer games simply because its impossible to replace a video chip (or other piece of hardware) in a console. Case in point: Crytek's new engine with soft body physics simulation will be coming to PCs soon. How long until we see something similar on consoles?
Until new consoles are released? It's not like Crytek is small company that no one ever heard about - they're well known, they have released games on current generations and I'm sure they have preliminary hardware of next-gens.
Second-best graphics card (GeForce 680) is $550 these days.
Xbox 360 was $300/$400 depending which version you chose. PS3 was $500/$600 and I really can't imagine next generation being significantly more than that.
PC gaming is still growing, but the rate it's growing at is marginal compared to the growth of gaming in general.
Console growth is considerable. Hand-held, including phones and phone-like devices, is growing even faster.
What's prevented consoles from fully conquering the desktop is a few key applications for which the PC is still a superior platform. One is ultra-high-performance graphics, especially when directed at enthusiasts, and the other is anything that requires a keyboard to be reasonably useful, e.g. strategy games and MMORPGs.
If the next generation consoles include a mouse and a wireless keyboard, the PC gaming market would implode in a matter of years.
Kids that have grown up with an XBox of PS3 aren't going to want to fiddle with drivers or find out how to patch their game using the "Downloader App" or endlessly wrestle with DRM. They won't bother to switch unless there's a very good reason, and every day there's fewer reasons.
Give people pretty much anything that is turing complete and they will want to be able to play games on it.
PC's were never originally intended to be games machines anyway, my first PC didn't even have a soundcard (as was common for PCs in ~1993) yet id certainly did well with wolf3d on the PC.
Since people are currently doing their work on a PC/laptop and that is also what they are using for web browsing etc it makes sense for them to re purpose it into a gaming platform. This is especially true of either very casual gamers who just want to play farmville or a few flash games and don't want another device, it is also very true for techy types who enjoy building high performance systems for the purpose of gaming.
Of course this really goes down to how you define a "PC", I think of Steam as basically a games console implemented inside my PC. Let's say for example a system is released with high performance graphics than runs a stripped down Linux distro with only Steam + a few other apps. Is this a PC or a console?
On the other side of the fence , MS is making their Xbox more PC like. For example adding internet explorer.
> Kids that have grown up with an XBox of PS3 aren't going to want to fiddle with drivers or find out how to patch their game using the "Downloader App" or endlessly wrestle with DRM.
Have you used Steam? It patches games automatically and you don't have to fiddle with DRM. My Steam client keeps dozens of games perfectly current without asking me. This is part of why everyone loves it: specifically because it makes it as close to painless as you're going to get.
Also, I'm guessing that a good number of current PC devs/gamers grew up playing a Nintendo console, and they still migrated over, somehow.
Steam is a great delivery platform which handles most but not all DRM issues. I've bought several Steam distributed titles that were very strict about re-installs, something only apparent after I'd bought them. Thanks Ubisoft!
Even as painless as Steam is, there's still the driver wrestling, yak-shaving that is maintaining a properly working Gaming PC. Some people enjoy the challenge. This is not going to fly with those used to the "put in disc, play game" crowd.
In time the "PC" will slowly fade away to be replaced by other things just as the precursor to the PC, like the "Minicomputer" and the "Mainframe", will become an anachronism. I'm not saying this will happen tomorrow, but you'll see a shift over the next ten years.
There comes a point where the performance advantage offered by the PC, which is considerable, is negated by the fact that developers can't make use of it. What good would a graphics card with 3,000,000 shaders be today? Why should you need a 256-core CPU to play games? If your equivalent console had only 1,000,000 shaders and 64-cores, which would surely attract scorn and derision, would you really be missing out on much in the scheme of things?
The advantage of the PC is the ease of writing and publishing a game for the PC. With the exception of screen resolution graphics haven't really mattered for the last five years. It's creativity, good writing, and good gameplay. It's cheaper to take risks and innovate on the PC since it requires so little capital to make a game vs consoles. Only mobile is competitive on this front.
Unlike the situation with the PS3, the next generation of consoles are not going to be as powerful as their PC counterparts. And the current generation consoles have got keyboards and mice available, but have not imploded the PC gaming market. The future of gaming is going even more multi-platform anyway, as that is one of the few ways a game developer can avoid the whims of the games hardware market.
My biggest grievance with FPS games is the stick controls not the angle of the camera like the mouse does, but the rate of change of the angle of the camera, one degree removed from actually moving it.
There are a few trackball controllers (http://trackballcontroller.com/) which promise to fix this, but I wonder about that. Most balls are removable for cleaning, and anything removable on a controller will end up underneath the couch eventually.
Well of course retail sales are down, I don't remember the last time I bought a PC game in a store. I got a free trial in a box at PAX last year, but everything else I've played has been an internet download.
Because of the quotes, I'm not sure if you mean that PC gaming is dead, or if you mean that the way we consume PC games is dying. Either way though, PC gaming numbers are on the rise. They overtook console gaming revenues back in 2010, and have continued to grow.
Gaming on the desktop might be one of the only means of survival for the desktop.
Recipe to make desktop into console.
1. plug desktop into tv.
2. buy wireless mini-keyboard and mouse, or install menu system that operates by D-pad to select games.
3. There is no step three.
>Honestly, gaming "on the desktop" is a shrinking market.
So we're doing that thing where we just make shit up now about the largest gaming market in the world?
Consoles are a primarily American/Japanese phenomenon with some other western countries participating. PC gaming is how the entire world games and it's growing faster than ever.
As much as I hate it (I'm a PC gamer..hate not having a mouse), the consoles have taken a big chunk out of the PC gaming market. That's just fact, whether you or like it.
The "entire world" doesn't really matter. If some dude in Somalia has money to buy a PC game, he probably has money to buy a console.
One is Steam on linux period. Even if it were its own little universe, having the support of Valve and the steam platform opens up a lot of opportunities for gaming on linux.
Another is Valve's core games on linux, which would definitely give a big kickstart to linux as a gaming platform.
Perhaps the most important could be when the top tier multi-platform game engines begin including linux as a targeted platform as a matter of routine.