The title (and article) is really bad journalism. I'm an Ubuntu Developer at the summit and listened to this talk live about an hour ago and he said nothing of the sort.
He did say that Microsoft and Apple are moving away from the open platform model and that Valve has always been in favor of open platforms. Linux is the best option for a continuing open platform in the future.
Actual video of the talk will be online within a day or so, so I suggest you watch that instead of reading contrite stories like this one.
The "closed" part of the ecosystem is Windows RT, in the sense that apps for that platform must come from the Windows Store. Windows 8 runs Steam very well, and has no such restrictions. Steam's not available on the iPad either.
You do realize both Microsoft as well as Apple are trying to separate the consumer market from the high end, professional market. The cheapest Apple device that allows side-loading costs 999 euro's. The cheapest win8 device that allows side loading will be at least 800 euro's.
I understand why. The biggest problem of the convential desktop is the ugly compomize between freedom, power users and professionals on one end, and casual consumer usage at the other end.
But that does mean, many of Valves current customers, that buy midrange devices, will end up on RT or iOS.
And the crowd on this site, will likely find the devices aimed for them moving to a more expensive and exclusive niche.
I think you have drastically misrepresented the computing market. The cheapest device you can put Windows 8 on is a $200 (maybe 250 EUR) netbook. It will then run whatever you want - including Valve. There are zero restrictions there. Can you game on that $200 machine? Sure, just probably not the games you want to play. That's hardly Microsoft's fault though, it's a $200 computer.
Amazon sells a Mac Mini for 600EUR (at least Amazon.fr does). That's about what an unsubsidized iPhone costs, right?
So where is this doom-and-gloom everything-is-locked-down-except-the-ultra-expensive actually coming from?
I think you're focusing on the wrong thing and getting the wrong take away. It's not about the price. It's about the experience. It's classic Android vs iPhone (for some at least): do you want a phone that provides a really good experience, or one that provides a mediocre (well, now really good) experience but with many fewer limitations, more features and more options.
Do you want an iPad/iPhone/WinRT/Android tablet with "apps", or do you want an x86 device with the ability to run whatever binary code you want and an OS that enables that.
It's not about price, because you're right, I can find devices in both categories at literally all sorts of data points. But it is about the experience.
Valve's business RELIES on the experience that enables users to run, in this case, native code. Since they're being pushed out as a result of this shift... they're naturally trying to warn people and shift interest to a platform where they can more easily operate... or survive.
In fact, your example is ironic. People are more likely to go buy a $500 iPad than they are a $300 full featured Windows laptop. That's exactly what worries Valve. Or it should.
The cheapest Windows 8 device that allows you to install desktop software is exactly as expensive as you want it to be. It's a normal PC. Buy a laptop, buy a desktop, build your own; it doesn't matter. It's a PC. You can buy/build one and install Windows 8 on it. You won't see desktops at Best Buy running Windows RT.
The article speculates that the emergence of Windows Store app platform from the Windows desktop could become similar to the emergence of Windows from DOS, and that newer technologies will similarly only be available on the Windows Store app platform.
It describes the locked-down properties of the Windows Store, and, extrapolating from the current certification requirements for Windows Store apps, it asserts that a game like Skyrim would be denied certification on Windows Store in 2032 because of its PEGI rating.
In my view the ability for anyone to hack on their own device is valuable, too. I learned to program because GORILLAS.BAS came with the source code (and I think required you to view it in order to run it!)
I use closed devices with some mixed feelings about it, the thing I'm most sad to support is the move toward devices with bigger barriers toward tinkering than what I had as a kid. I'm probably more accepting of it when it's a device I never had as a kid, but when barriers are constructed for once-open platforms it starts to irk me.
I've heard this argument before and it's a load of crap.
If I had a choice between a C64 with BASIC and an iPad with a browser, I'd take the browser every time.
Within twenty seconds you can have http://jsfiddle.net/ up in a window and be programming JavaScript.
Within a few minutes you could create a Linode account and be using vi through ssh.
Within a few days you could be creating a much more significant application using the enormous selection of open-source tools that never, ever existed on the same platforms that GORILLA.BAS came from. You could do things that were virtually impossible in the 1980s in a matter of days or weeks, even with no prior experience.
People decry the App Store as "closed", but it's basically open to anyone with a hundred bucks and the ability to ship an executable to Apple. Sure, theoretically you could've shipped your game on your C64 on floppy disks, as some people successfully did, but the enormity of this undertaking is well beyond the ability of most beginner programmers. It was basically impossible to go it alone without a publisher for distribution. Now anyone can self-publish.
If you ask me, the ecosystem has never been more open and accessible to developers of all ages and backgrounds. It's also more open, more friendly to users of all stripes, not just enthusiasts. Your grandmother can buy apps through the app store. This sort of thing simply didn't happen in the so-called glorious old days of "open" computers.
The barrier to entry for GORILLAS.BAS was "hey, what's this number do and what happens if I change it?"
I didn't even have to know I wanted to learn to program.
I agree with you that there are tons of awesome things at our fingertips for shipping applications to people, or for learning to code once you know that's what you want to do. jsfiddle looks great, if you know you want to learn JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Linode is awesome, once you know you want to host a site. The App Store is incredible, once you can write an acceptable app.
Those are all great things, and they are all a few steps beyond the stage I'm talking about. You're talking about learning to walk; I'm talking about learning to crawl.
Publishers can make profits on closed platforms; in fact, they're almost essential due to the work it takes getting to market on a closed platform.
Middle-man distributors, however, don't typically profit from platforms. Valve's position on platforms that have built-in preferred digital distribution systems isn't surprising, they're using their position as OS vendor to boost their digital software distribution business.
> The title (and article) is really bad journalism.
I don't know if the title has been changed since it was posted—I suspect not, since it matches the URL—but what it actually says is that Linux is more viable than Windows for gaming (which is probably more surprising; but, in any case, is certainly a different point).
How is windows app store different from Ubuntu app store
Especially considering that anything not from an app store is much easier to install on Windows (double click on GUI installer) than on Ubuntu (mess around with dependencies, and compiling stuff). Everything on Ubuntu comes from the Ubuntu store, or the Aptitude store. Not an easy task to download something like an exe off the web and install it
With all due respect, you have absolutely no fucking idea what you are talking about.
First of all, every damn time someone brings up the "you just have to double
click the installer on Windows" argument, they leave out the steps before that
(most prominently, locate and download a safe copy of said installer).
Second, I don't know what FUD you have been told about Linux on the desktop, but
contrary to what you assert about it, no, installing applications on almost all
widespread Linux distributions I can spontaneously think of - except Gentoo -
requires neither compiling nor messing around with dependencies.
Third, no, not everything on Ubuntu comes from the "Ubuntu store" or "Apitude
store" - in fact, neither of those exists. If you are talking about the Ubuntu
Software Center, that's basically just a fancy front-end for APT - as is
Aptitude. If I remember correctly, the UCS also allows purchasing of some
commercial software as of recently (I don't use Ubuntu).
In addition, Ubuntu (and derived distributions) have a thing called Personal
Package Archives, whose very concept is to make it possible to easily add your
own package sources to complement the official repositories. The UCS can handle
those, too.
Also, there's a very important distinction between a package repository as used
in many Linux distributions and a closed app store: the former is, at least to
an extent, managed by the community and the users. You cannot say that of the
latter.
And to add to that, installing a .deb or an .rpm (if that's the route the software is distributed, like with Chrome) is a one-click solution (the rough equivalent to an .msi).
And if someone wants to give you simply a precompiled binary, they can do that too. Though in Linux you need to set the executable flag on it so you don't shoot yourself in the foot like you so easily can with malicious .exe files.
FTFA>Windows 8 ships with its own app store and it is not an open platform anymore.
If having an app store is the criterion for not being an open platform, not even Ubuntu qualifies. And last I checked, I can still compile and run whatever I damn well please on Win8.
There wasn't even this level of derp when Apple launched the app store for OS X.
Straight up FUD. Windows will always be the premier gaming platform as long as it has the majority of the desktop base, and by extension the best driver support, and by extension the most games written for it.
Valve is going to kill themselves to attempt to make a point, at this rate.
> If having an app store is the criterion for not being an open platform, not even Ubuntu qualifies.
It doesn't say "Because Windows 8 ships with its own app store, it is not an open platform anymore," so you misinterpreted that.
The difference between the Windows 8 app store and Ubuntu's Software Center is that you can easily add 3rd party repositories to the latter. Also keep in mind that on Windows RT (the ARM version of Windows 8), you can't install any apps from outside the app store, period.
> Windows will always be the premier gaming platform as long as it has the majority of the desktop base, and by extension the best driver support, and by extension the most games written for it.
Linux doesn't have to have the best driver support to be sufficient as a gaming platform. If it has enough driver support for games to run well, it has a chance. And the proprietary NVIDIA Linux drivers right now work quite well in my experience. There are a few bugs, but nothing that can't be ironed out with a little time.
Just because Windows has the "majority of the desktop base" doesn't mean it has to be the premiere gaming platform. Gamers are a very select group of people, and there's no reason Valve couldn't target them.
If I were Valve, I would start programs such as "if you spend X hours playing Steam games on Linux, you get a discount on your next game." That would have a huge impact on what gamers are using to play games, and could push other developers to port their games to Linux. As the middleman between millions of gamers and hundreds of game studios, Valve has enormous power here.
>> And the proprietary NVIDIA Linux drivers right now work quite well in my experience. There are a few bugs, but nothing that can't be ironed out with a little time.
The proprietary NVIDIA drivers for Linux are built directly from the same source base as the Windows drivers, the only difference being the interface layer between the kernel and the driver. Feature set and performance are identical to the Windows drivers.
I'm not aware of any known critical bugs in the kernel parts. Usually when stuff breaks in the NVidia drivers, it's because of a combination of a kernel update and sloppy package management by the distribution. None of this should be an issue if Valve decides to release some kind of Linux based 'Steam loader' that boots directly to the game itself, or make their own Linux distro with tight control over the kernel and GPU drivers.
I'm not sure how good the ATI linux drivers are these days though.
> Usually when stuff breaks in the NVidia drivers, it's because of a combination of a kernel update and sloppy package management by the distribution. None of this should be an issue if Valve decides to release some kind of Linux based 'Steam loader' that boots directly to the game itself, or make their own Linux distro with tight control over the kernel and GPU drivers.
I'd say the best option here is to work with Canonical to make Ubuntu a stable gaming platform. Valve has the gaming expertise and Canonical has the Linux expertise and community mindshare, so I could definitely see them working it out.
> "None of this should be an issue if Valve decides to release some kind of Linux based 'Steam loader' that boots directly to the game itself"
That's a pretty interesting angle. But it might be a bridge too far. Gamers would almost certainly follow Valve to Linux. But asking them to give up their mp3 players, chat programs and background tasks while they're gaming?
Only if it were a living room solution, which has its own "day 1" sorts of challenges. (e.g. the number of titles with not only gamepad support, but where you truly do not need the keyboard/mouse to play.)
>But asking them to give up their mp3 players, chat programs and background tasks while they're gaming?
Wat.
Linux programs like Pidgin have support for almost all IM protocols known to
man, it can handle any Portable Media Player with sane behavior (read:
identifies as removable storage, which pretty much all players except the
shitty Apple ones do) and last time I checked, Linux is capable of multitasking, too.
Managing your music collection as a distinct set of files and folders is a rather 90's concept. What matters is how the files are presented to the end user - they can be all slapped into a single folder and given GUID names as long as the resultant database presents them in a clear and meaningful way.
(Only partly kidding - I think your criterion for a "shitty" music player will find a great deal of dissent :3)
>Linux programs like Pidgin have support for almost all IM protocols known to man
Weak support. Anything beyond simple chatting almost universally doesn't work. File transfers, picture syncing, god forbid voice and video chat.
The thing about identifying as removable storage is that it allows you to use
whatever music syncing tool or library program you want, and aren't locked into
the universally horrible vendor-supplied excuses for an application. Files in a
directory structure are a universal API that almost any program can understand
and make use of.
As for the IM protocols, maybe this will prompt people to migrate to better
protocols like XMPP. ICQ, MSN, AIM and all those other proprietary protocols
with their ad-laden, bloated clients (which I classify as nothing short of
malware) should have died years ago.
I was specifically referring to the suggestion Valve could have an option to boot a machine directly to a given game. Which would imply no other third party software would be running.
So the current (in)existence of other Linux software would be irrelevant.
The fact of the matter is, of the 250+ games I have in my steam library <50 of them work with mac. This ties me to windows.
When I run windows 8, I can run steam and all my games, they dont magically stop working. While windows 8 RT isnt an open platform, the windows i will be running on my laptops and my desktops will be.
I'm very disappointed in valves wording, and it shows how poorly their responding to their first real competition.
> The fact of the matter is, of the 250+ games I have in my steam library <50 of them work with mac. This ties me to windows.
And what has Valve done to promote gaming on OS X exactly? Sure, they had a short Portal promotion and have added games since, but they haven't exactly pushed the platform.
And besides, Macs are not good gaming machines. Desktop Macs (iMacs and Mac Pros) are much more difficult to upgrade than Linux/Windows desktops, and you get less powerful hardware for your money.
You can't install OS X on a non-Apple desktop (not without a lot of hassle, anyway), and very few people have done that. OTOH, you can easily install Linux on a Windows desktop, which is what most gamers have at the moment. A lot of the people on HN have spent a lot of time in the Bay Area and have forgotten that 90% of the population doesn't own a Mac, so let me remind you of that fact. Unlike with OS X, gamers can move to Linux without purchasing any new hardware.
Therefore, using the lack of success of OS X as a gaming platform since Steam added support for it to say that Linux won't succeed either is faulty logic.
> When I run windows 8, I can run steam and all my games, they dont magically stop working.
Well, there are many of us who already run Linux and only keep around a Windows install to play games. The vast majority of my time is spent playing Source-based games. If I were given the option of playing Source-based games in Linux, I would spend very little time in Windows.
> I'm very disappointed in valves wording, and it shows how poorly their responding to their first real competition.
I think they're responding the best they can. They're going up against Microsoft, which is well known for its anticompetitive behavior. The Windows 8 app store will be installed by default and given prime real estate (baked into the UI) in Windows 8. Valve needs to do something quickly before Microsoft starts abusing this power, and the best way to do that is to get gamers onto a platform no one controls - Linux.
> Desktop Macs (iMacs and Mac Pros) are much more difficult to upgrade than Linux/Windows desktops
'Much more difficult' is an exaggeration for Mac Pros. The biggest issue for gaming is the GPU. With Mountain Lion, you have seamless support for 600-series NVIDIA cards using NVIDIA's own drivers (I use a GTX 670 at home in my recently built Hackintosh). The bigger issue from a game developer's point of view is that the OpenGL implementation on OS X is still a mess, though it's been slowly getting better, partly from pushback from developers like Valve.
I know the guys doing the Linux work at Valve personally. They've been doing a ton of work with vendors in the process of getting their games to run well on different GPUs. Right now NVIDIA and Intel have the best Linux support. Hopefully AMD/ATI will catch up if Valve's Steam push creates enough momentum.
Almost all the issues with gaming on OS X and Linux are chicken-and-egg problems that will resolve themselves if there is ever enough anti-Windows momentum to warrant the sufficient vendor work.
Macs are not good gaming machines? Most Macs have decent hardware, and the driver problem in Linux prevents a large portions of hardware to perform efficiently anyway, so performance is definitely not a problem for Macs, my friend play Skyrim and Diablo 3 without any problem on their macs.
> Therefore, using the lack of success of OS X as a gaming platform since Steam added support for it to say that Linux won't succeed either is faulty logic.
True. Same thing applies with saying that gaming on Linux will take off just because Steam added support for it.
I think the problem with desktop Linux that was discussed around a while back is still the biggest thing that is holding Linux as a gaming platform (or as a desktop OS, even). A number of humble bundle that I purchased runs really slowly on Linux because of lack of support for my graphic card.
TLDR: Still a chicken/egg situation with Linux adoption as a mainstream OS in general.
It doesn't matter if they have decent hardware, that hardware is expensive and not upgradeable. That's a big factor for gamers who want to get the most bang for their buck. 2 years down the line, those Macs will struggle to run the latest games at the highest settings, and rather than being able to just swap out some components as necessary, people will have to ditch the whole computer and buy a new one from Apple. Good for Apple's profits, bad for the gamers.
> the driver problem in Linux prevents a large portions of hardware to perform efficiently anyway
I don't know what this mythical "driver problem" is, but I haven't personally encountered it.
> A number of humble bundle that I purchased runs really slowly on Linux because of lack of support for my graphic card.
I don't know what graphics card you have, but I have purchased just about every Humble Bundle so far, and they run just fine on my Linux machine.
But Linux still has driver issues. I'm not sure even my keyboard (Corsair K90) would work with Linux - a quick scan on the forums (http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=109501) suggests it needs various manual tweaking and most of its functionality would be missing.
I have various other bits of USB paraphernalia of Taiwanese / Chinese / etc. origin like scanners, printers, microscopes, etc., all of which only come with Windows drivers and maybe, if you're lucky, Mac. The problem with Linux is that you generally have to know the chipset etc. in order to know which driver is applicable, and it turns into a detective hunt. You must have seen this before; quite frequently, a single SKU may have multiple different chipsets behind the scenes, but the manufacturer's Windows drivers just cope - meanwhile, to get Linux to work, you need to know the details.
I have never installed Linux and had it work for all my hardware, except for distributions tailored specifically for the machine (Eeebuntu on my Asus Eee 701) - and even then they missed out on things like the keyboard shortcut to toggle the wifi radio so you could use it on a plane.
The pool of hardware out there is deep and gnarly.
> So when will Steam let me add third party repositories for software?
This was never a comparison between Steam and the Windows 8 app store. The two are not equivalent, because one is baked into the OS, while the other is 3rd party software.
What is comparable is the Windows 8 app store and the Ubuntu Software Center. And it's very clear that the latter is much more open.
Once it's been released? There are various closed source software projects that currently allow you to install software through the Software Center, such as VirtualBox and Chrome. You just add click on a link on their site to add the PPA to Ubuntu's package management system.
>Gamers are a very select group of people, and there's no reason Valve couldn't target them.
This is true, especially among the subset of gamers who build their own computers. They are particularly ripe for experimentation with Linux, and would represent the Innovator/Early Adopter stage in the TAL [1]. Get those guys on board and the rest may see it as new and cool and follow.
Sadly, for those people building their own computers, driver problems are going to be even worse... I have never been able to get my ATI/AMD graphic cards to work properly under Linux...
Which is okay. I am huge fan of Valve games and know that Nvidia drivers can run games quite well on Linux, so if AMD/ATI do not want my money, it is fine my me.
I know that one might say but majority of users do not know this, but from what I can tell from participating in gaming communities, these guy do proper research before buying a new rig. I can totally see lot of people who solely play Valve games (TF2, L4D, Dota2, CS:Go, CS) will try Linux if their games work on Linux.
There are issues with the ATI Linux drivers, but there are a lot of gamers with NVIDIA cards, and those work quite well on Linux. We don't need to get everyone to move to Linux, just a good number, and just those on NVIDIA will be more than sufficient.
>It doesn't say "Because Windows 8 ships with its own app store, it is not an open platform anymore," so you misinterpreted that.
Then the article was not written clearly. I don't see Valve taking Apple to task for the MAS. There's no other valid way to interpret that sentence.
>Linux doesn't have to have the best driver support to be sufficient as a gaming platform. If it has enough driver support for games to run well, it has a chance.
I'd argue that it already does. There are plenty of games that run on Linux (hardly as many on windows, but you can easily say the drivers are "there").
>Just because Windows has the "majority of the desktop base" doesn't mean it has to be the premiere gaming platform. Gamers are a very select group of people, and there's no reason Valve couldn't target them.
Disagree. Look at the Mac - decent support, decent performance, it has AAA titles on it that are also on other platforms, yet you won't ever see AAA exclusive titles being released on the mac. And why would you? Think like a publisher - you're artificially limiting your audience. The number of people who will jump platforms (or even maintain two platforms) just for your title is infinitesimal. Until such time as that happens, the mac is an also-ran. Same for Linux - and Linux has a huge advantage over Mac in that there's zero cost barrier.
> Then the article was not written clearly...There's no other valid way to interpret that sentence.
If you don't understand the difference between "Windows 8 ships with its own app store and it is not an open platform anymore" and "Because Windows 8 ships with its own app store, it is not an open platform anymore," then you need to work on your English comprehension skills. The difference is subtle, but apparent. There's nothing wrong with the article.
> I don't see Valve taking Apple to task for the MAS.
Because Macs and Mac users were never a big audience for Valve to begin with. The vast majority of Valve's users run Windows, so it only makes sense for them to be worried about the drastic changes with respect to app distribution in Windows 8.
> Look at the Mac - decent support, decent performance, it has AAA titles on it that are also on other platforms, yet you won't ever see AAA exclusive titles being released on the mac.
Who said anything about getting exclusive titles? Moreover, there was no reason before to move away from Windows or towards Mac. Windows 7 was an open platform and the Mac is relatively closed and not friendly to gamers in terms of hardware.
The situation has changed with Windows 8 because there is a clear reason for people not to use it - the weird new touch-centric interface that's used for desktops as well, which makes even less sense on the multi-20+ inch monitor setups that many gamers have.
Valve can easily create pull factors for Linux that it couldn't with OS X. It can work closely with Canonical to improve game performance beyond that on Windows (this is already the case according to their framerate tests) and perhaps bundle Steam with Ubuntu. It can support a wide range of easily upgradeable gamer-friendly hardware setups. The factor that you can just use your existing Windows PC to run Linux (something not possible with OS X) is a big factor as well.
>If you don't understand the difference between "Windows 8 ships with its own app store and it is not an open platform anymore" and "Because Windows 8 ships with its own app store, it is not an open platform anymore..
Then why mention them together? Again, I don't see Valve giving apple a hard time over their decision to make the app store the primary distribution method for Mac software.
>The vast majority of Valve's users run Windows, so it only makes sense for them to be worried about the drastic changes with respect to app distribution in Windows 8.
You mean the addition of a store that doesn't really change anything? Steam runs on 8 exactly as it did on 7. Again, Apple had tighter integration and more coercion - which is why I said this sounds like FUD. Their concerns are inconsistent.
>Who said anything about getting exclusive titles?
I did, because what I'm trying to imply here is that Mac/Linux is not a serious gaming platform until such time as publishers would even think about considering making exclusives for it. Until that time, there just isn't enough penetration for it to matter.
I'd argue that it already does. There are plenty of games that run on Linux (hardly as many on windows, but you can easily say the drivers are "there").
No it doesnt. The problem is actually NOT that games have to run on average drivers, but rather that drivers dont work on the OS.
For example, I'm constantly hindered by ATI and Nvidia drivers affecting suspend/resume, HDMI out and power consumption. And quite often, I get drivers that screw with X.
You give me a 30% hit in game performance, but dont let it affect core OS issues, I'll be more than happy. However, I dont think thats the status quo.
This is actually why I think (flames welcome) that Valve should focus more on the Linux core first and then on the Steam app as such. I was half expecting them to come up with this distro using Wayland, seamless Linux audio (!!) and a new driver infrastructure.
Larry Ellison said a lot of interesting things about the cloud.
Steve Jobs said a few things about the tablet foam factor.
Even if the gentleman from Valve did say that, they're not just going to throw away their business. They're probably playing for the 25% or so Linux gaming market that the Humble Bundles have shown exists.
I suppose it doesn't affect you if you compile everything yourself. But you can't run a Metro app that anyone else has compiled. Store or bust. That is a bad path. I certainly wouldn't say windows 8 is 'open'.
>But you can't run a Metro app that anyone else has compiled.
It's metro - who cares? You get more functionality with the desktop.
On a less snarky note, yes you can. All that's necessary is your system has to trust the CA that signed the app - which is itself a few mouse clicks away.
I've personally done this to load a leaked Skype beta for Metro. Put the requisite commands in a powershell batch file and it becomes so easy your gran can do it.
1. It matters because metro is a core part of the new OS and what microsoft is focused on.
2. I didn't realize you could set up sideloading on non-enterprise versions. As long as that is intentional and not a side-effect of implementation, I take back my complaints about windows 8.
I can only assume that he actually means "we have less competition on Linux", because my experience with Windows 8 as a gamer has been pretty damn good. Everything gaming-related works just as well as Win7, as far as I can tell. The games available on the app store are alright, but I don't see it competing with Steam when it comes to the high-powered AAA titles.
Edit: From another comment, it sounds like this is a bad quote, and that the Valve guy said nothing of the sort. Sorry to Valve for what I wrote previously, and shame on UbuntuVibes...
I don't own Crysis 2 to test, sorry. The only program that I had installed that flat-out broke due to the upgrade was actually Media Player Classic Home Cinema, which works fine now after updating to the latest version.
Edit: To expand a little bit on that, I've been a Windows user since the 3.1 days. I've done most (if not all) of the upgrades during that time frame at some point, and there are always programs that break. Games tend to be particularly fragile in this respect, possibly due to relying on undocumented/unsupported behavior to squeeze out extra performance.
Win98->XP (ME? what's that?) and XP->Vista were both particularly bad for games, as I think anyone old enough to be a PC gamer during those times remembers. However, it wasn't because XP or Vista weren't 'viable' for gaming - the games just needed patches to adjust to new OS behavior or remove reliance on deprecated APIs. Win7->Win8 is more comparable to Vista->Win7, judging by my experience so far. There are things that will break and certain games will need patches, but it won't be anything like the days of needing "Vista patches" for 90% of your games.
I haven't had many problems running games on Windows Vista/7, but the times I did have problems were extremely time consuming. I'm talking in the range of 10+ hours. Bioshock 2, for example, was plagued with the Games for Windows Live, which itself would only work with particular .NET runtimes you had to find yourself, plus very subtle sound driver configurations that had to be made (and I still can't get the game to run through Steam). 99% of games work out of the box, as expected. That 1%, though, is quite a headache.
I'm really excited by this. I've always thought of gaming as one of the things really holding linux back from taking a more reasonable market share on the desktop (I said one of). Even people who prefer linux are forced to dual-boot or use a VM. This certainly isn't a magic bullet, but I sure hope it makes linux a more viable and mainstream choice.
I would argue that your hopes would be better served by Unity Engine[1] and Mono[2] than by Steam. While high-budget releases have almost completely ignored the Mac and Linux platforms despite Valve's effort, the popularity of those tools has brought a very large number of mid-tier and indipendent developers to publish on them. While they are not as popular, they still help to make them look a little bit less like a desolated wasteland of work and productivity. :)
Let's also not forget that those same high-budget productions rely heavily on the current set of graphics (and audio) drivers, and there is hardly any effort to bring the Mac and linux up to par on that front.
The problem is as far as I've seen: people don't shift 'just because' or even when the other option is 'slightly better'. In fact, Linux is going to be a sub-standard choice for gamers for a good amount of time even after steam for Linux catches on with the Linux community. The Windows games that people already purchased aren't going to vaporise there's a lot holding them back to the old platform.
People will install Linux enmasse when Linux gets something that the other options don't have -- when desirable games come out that can ONLY play on Linux and no other platform.
I'd be a bit more optimistic than that. It's not unusual to meet technically minded people who use Linux for getting stuff done, but dual boot Windows for gaming. If enough games are available for Windows, that's going to increase the market for Linux-only computers, which is another key part of the puzzle.
People aren't homogeneous. This won't be enough to make Linux a better option for the majority of people, but it does mitigate a really severe pain point. I've kept my desktop a Windows machine for years because of gaming, but use Linux on my laptop. Now, it looks like the two crucial publishers for me (Valve and Paradox) are going to support Linux, and honestly that's good enough given I sort of wanted to switch anyways. I'll probably keep my other partition around, but I expect I'll be doing most of my gaming on Linux once this is ready.
And the more people who switch to gaming on Linux for reasons like mine, the more companies will tend to support it.
I disagree, Linux only needs content parity. The hook is price. As long as gamers are in a student/lower age demographic price is the main barrier to purchase, and I'd argue, the main driving force behind piracy of Windows.
I don't really get the reaction by Valve.. How is Windows 8 is going to affect Steam??
Current users will still be able to install Steam. The only thing that the Win8 app store going to sell is the Metro/WinRT apps, which is a completely different thing than what Steam is offering... are they worried about their future plan or something?
If companies like Valve find it difficult to distribute their content without paying a vendor tax, I fully anticipate some kind of boot to Acme Games Inc. bootstrapping.
All one requires is a lite distro that'll fire up steam. They can ship it on USB sticks. If it's not possible to boot from USB, just install it from the USB. Would make the physical packaging smaller.
Imagine popping into you local shop, picking up a free (or nominal) USB. Installing the mega lite distro before downloading and playing games.
Whilst the vendors will inch towards owning the ecosystems for their platforms, they'll always be innovators who will circumnavigate. Unless you're leasing the hardware under license I struggle to see one can realistically prevent OS installations on standard hardware.
Does anyone find it bizarre that Valve is so upset about the Windows Store not being "open" when they, in Steam, run an app store that is far, FAR harder to get your software distributed in?
Valve wants to be the Linux app store for proprietary apps. Proprietary apps presently tend to crap all over the system in unpredictable ways; Valve offers not having to worry about this.
This is why Valve is so dead against Windows 8: the Microsoft app store.
I totally need to get a gaming-capable computer to run Linux on, and install Steam on it! (Currently my Linux laptop just has old Intel graphics which is ... rather underpowered. Also need to wait for Steam-for-Linux to become public, obviously.)
Now that's something I don't know if I could change. I've always installed Linux on my older, outdated hardware. I've never purchased a brand new, top of the line machine and thought about installing Linux.
My guess is there will be a hat for people who have run the game on linux at least once, very similarly to the way there was a hat for people who ran the game on mac at least once
They probably won't limit it like they did earbuds, which are the most fungible of high-dollar-value game items (c.f. http://tf2finance.com/ for dollar value).
He did say that Microsoft and Apple are moving away from the open platform model and that Valve has always been in favor of open platforms. Linux is the best option for a continuing open platform in the future.
Actual video of the talk will be online within a day or so, so I suggest you watch that instead of reading contrite stories like this one.
Here is a much better article about the talk from OMG Ubuntu: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/10/valve-talk-steam-for-linu...