[DC LoCo] Valve talks Steam client for Linux - SlashGear

[Matthew Gallagher]

I really hope Phoronix is right this time, unlike the many other times
they've claimed Steam was coming to Linux. I'm going to hold off
celebrating till Valve confirms.....

However, if this is true, it's great news for Linux gaming and driver
quality. It's well known that Mac video driver quality went up
significantly within a few days of Steam's launch on that platform.
Before that point, there was no pressure on Apple or Nvidia to fix
lingering issues with their drivers, as very few games existed for the
platform at the time.

This also means that publishers will have a single place to put closed
source games, rather then  the clusterfuck (pardon the language, but
it's the truth) of a situation current distributions have. While
Steam does count  as  a form of DRM, it makes an effort to stay out of
your way, while simultaneously giving risk-averse publishers some
additional security. I think this will lead to a lot more games
getting published for the Linux platform, as it has for Mac OSX.

I think one of the things that allowed this to finally happen is the
Humble Bundles enforcing Linux support for the games they  publish,
creating a large library of Linux games that happen to already be on
Steam.
For those of you not familiar with Steam, when you purchase a game
labeled with "Steam Play", it's instantly available to you on every
platform Valve supports. Having the ability to easily extend Steam
Play to Linux for
hundreds of titles, makes the move make a lot more financial sense for Valve.

Another thing that makes this make a lot more sense this time is the
rise of Free-to-Play games, with the most popular being one of Valve's
own titles, Team Fortress 2. Linux gamers unused to paying for
software will be less reluctant to install steam if their are free
options available.

Overall, if this is true, it's a great day for Linux gaming.


PS. Valve's Employee Handbook is amazing:
http://newcdn.flamehaus.com/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 10:37 AM, Michael Haney <thezorch at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 8:26 AM, Kevin Cole <dc.loco at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> For you gamers out there, good news:
>>
>> http://www.slashgear.com/valve-talks-steam-client-for-linux-25224604/
>>
>>
>
> Its about damn time!
>
> --
> Michael "TheZorch" Haney
> https://sites.google.com/site/thezorch/
>
> "Those who are angry in their religion do not live it."
> --Abraham-Hicks
>
> Break some Windows, bring freedom to your PC. www.ubuntu.com
>
>
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-- 
-Matthew Gallagher