SteamOS Will Not Have Exclusive Games

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

If you don't care about shifting focus from Windows to Linux, that's fine. Stick with Windows. I, however, cannot WAIT to ditch Windows permanently, and having a really major company toss their hat into the Linux ring is exactly what the doctor ordered.

I couldn't agree more with this. Since Microsoft gave up on Windows as a gaming platform (which I find completely bizarre considering they *own* it) and the shift of development has moved wholesale to consoles, we've only gotten at best, decent ports of console games and at worst, awful ports of console games or none at all in the case of Rockstar.

They tried creating GfWL to bring PC games in-line with the way console games sell, but we hated it as a collective because, well it is crap. I don't need MS approval or processes to install or play a game, I never have. Consoles however, there's no getting around it. You buy into a walled garden, you play only what they rubber stamp, be it physical, digital, XBLA or something else.

If not for DirectX, I would have abandoned Windows long ago. I would throw money at whomever could get DX games working flawlessly on Linux (or an as yet uninvented platform). Microsoft giving up on Windows and concentrating solely on consoles has, IMHO, made the greatest impact to alter the gaming industry. More than multi-platform development, more than the hardware capabilities of last/current gen consoles, more than former PC studios (like BW, R*, Epic, etc) making the shift (tho maybe not as much as online/multiplayer crap we now have to put up with whether we want to or not). They want the money from console game sales and from "app" sales, money they don't get from PC game or application sales, I get it. But there's money to be made in PC gaming if only they remembered their old successes and the fact that 99.99% of PC gamers run Windows.

 

[prpshrt]

How is this of surprise to anyone :\ There's no way Valve would have steam OS exclusives because that would piss off a lot of PC gamers to which steam has been a beacon of hope. Granted Valve may take its user base for granted every now and then (diretide 2013, don't get angry at me mods) but it would be pretty fucking stupid to alienate their PC user base.

 

[J.McMillen]

OT: Um, bullshit? The SteamOS is a PC OS, yes? Therefore, it has PC Exclusives. I can't play Civ V or Starcraft on my Playstation or Xbox.

And I can play all those games with Windows 7, so what exclusives does steam OS give that you can not get by using Windows 7?

What SteamOS gives is an OS that is streamlined and not loaded with unnecessary programs and processes running in the background like pretty much every version of Windows has. Since I do most of my non-gaming on a Mac, my Win7 PC stays pretty streamlined and rarely has issues running games since I don't have other stuff running in the background that can cause conflicts or wonky behavior.

But if you read the bottom of the article, even Steam admits that some small developers may only be able to initially develop for one OS, and that OS may be SteamOS. So there may be indie titles that are initially exclusive to SteamOS, and without support they may not get ported over to Win and/or Mac.

 

[K12]

I might buy this for the sole reason that they're doing all the pro-consumer things we've been begging everyone else to years.

I'm tempted to postpone my (long overdue) PC update and then just get a functional notebook and the most advanced Steam machine. If I don't miss out on anything significant then this is my perfect set up.

 

[black_knight1337]

Creating a platform that separates software completely is something else than creating a DRM model. They created a MANAGER not a new platform. It required Steam to run, sure, it didn't change anything in regards to Windows, it didn't limit people to an unfamiliar OS, it didn't interfere with the compatibility of other software and games.

Comparing the two is like comparing a bike and a car. Both are faster than walking.

You can easily make a few minor tweaks to your other post and it would be about Steam rather than SteamOS. Yes, there are differences involved but they aren't that great that there is no comparison. This whole thing is not just about providing an alternative to Windows, it's about opening up PC gaming to a whole new market. It's to bring PC gaming into the living room, making it compete directly with consoles.

There's already the potential there for it to be successful. They've got people waiting for the right time to switch to Linux, they've got Linux users wanting better compatibility and they've got console gamers wanting to switch to PC but as a plug & play solution. Who are they excluding? Only the people that don't want a Linux based OS whatsoever. If people still need Windows for general productivity stuff they can(and will if provided incentives) always dual boot it or transfer that work to a secondary PC (which is pretty commonly available now). So the potential losses here are much lower than they were back when they launched Steam(I'd take that further but it would lead into ban worthy territory).

And like I said, what's the problem with them doing it as a timed exclusive? It's a win-win situation. Valve gets people flocking to their OS so they can get it straight away and it still ends up coming to the people who don't want to make the switch.

Edit: Also I like how you simply threw out an accusation rather than read WHY forcing SteamOS on their users wouldn't work. They already have Steam, they don't earn anything by people downloading SteamOS, they earn by people buying things from Steam regardless of if they're running Steam or Windows. I explained this too. You ignored both and accuse me of ignoring you. First class hypocrisy there. Well done.

See above. I figured a lot of it would just fall under prior knowledge but apologies for presuming you knew all about what Valve are doing and how it'll work.

There is profit there for Valve, even with ignoring the money made from the other parts of their plan. It's as simple as, like I said above, drawing a new market. Console gamers haven't been affecting Valve's income that much, it's all been in the sales of their games. Now if you give them the Steam store to play with, Valve will be getting a hell of a lot more out of it.

And I guess that makes you a "first class" hypocrite then, considering I've had to say the same thing three times now without any response to it at all.

 

[Yopaz]

You can easily make a few minor tweaks to your other post and it would be about Steam rather than SteamOS. Yes, there are differences involved but they aren't that great that there is no comparison. This whole thing is not just about providing an alternative to Windows, it's about opening up PC gaming to a whole new market. It's to bring PC gaming into the living room, making it compete directly with consoles.

Installing Steam doesn't mean you can't use Microsoft Office, installing SteamOS does. SteamOS might prevent people from using the software they actually NEED in their everyday life. Steam does not.

This was the essence of my post. Now since my post was basically about Steam, answer me this. What Windows software can't you use or install because you had to install Steam?

Edit: Also about that last part... I explained exactly why they would EXCLUDE a large part of their current market. So I did address this. They might be drawing in a new market by making their games Linux compatible. They will exclude a large part of their market by making it Linux exclusive. Addressed in all my posts and ignored in all my posts.

 

[black_knight1337]

Installing Steam doesn't mean you can't use Microsoft Office, installing SteamOS does. SteamOS might prevent people from using the software they actually NEED in their everyday life. Steam does not.

This was the essence of my post. Now since my post was basically about Steam, answer me this. What Windows software can't you use or install because you had to install Steam?

Actually, there is a number of programs that can cause compatibility issues with Steam. They've got a list here [https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9828-SFLZ-9289]. But that isn't the point, if you'd read the entirety of my post you'd see that I had talked about this. Yes they are excluding people, same as they did back then. Yes it's a different group of people, but this time around they are gaining a new group of people. If anything, the amount of people they would lose this time around is less than what they did before(which would have been worse without the "killer apps").

Edit: Also about that last part... I explained exactly why they would EXCLUDE a large part of their current market. So I did address this. They might be drawing in a new market by making their games Linux compatible. They will exclude a large part of their market by making it Linux exclusive. Addressed in all my posts and ignored in all my posts.

I never said you didn't explain why they would exclude some of their current market, that wasn't what I was referring to at all. Same as I have addressed that point multiple times already. What I was referring to was what I've said about doing it as a timed exclusive. There's very little negative involved with a heap of positives.
Positives:
-Valve get people flocking to their system giving them a larger market and as such, more profits
-Linux based systems gain considerable popularity, causing not only game developers but software developers in general to seriously consider supporting it. Which in turn would get rid of the major issue most people have with Linux, namely its lack of compatibility.
Negative:
-The people who still don't want to either switch to SteamOS, dual boot it or run it off a secondary PC get the "killer apps" a month or two later.

 

[Sarge034]

Snip

I appreciate you approaching this with a level head. I see why people might be excited about Linux getting a big name backer and the rest of your points. As some background, I have experience in business and marketing. I was driving the point that the niche audience for people looking for those particular features is not big enough to dent the market. If the OS and the actual box don't have any other unique features then why would people bother with it? They would continue to us their PCs and consoles. If the OS doesn't make itself marketable then no one will be swayed to give it any more dev attention than it is getting now.

You keep bringing up this point, yet I fail to see how exclusive titles bring anything "new". An exclusive title is an artificial limitation meant to force players to buy specific hardware, not only does it NOT bring anything new, but it actually takes freedom of choice AWAY from the consumer.

What this brings to the table is the possibility of OS/Hardware manufacturers focusing on making the best products they can, without relying on exclusivity deals (money) to artificially boost sales.

And my point was just that. The OS' competition are offering things the OS can not. This makes them have a considerable marketable edge. If this thing wants to take off it has to offer something that nothing else can do. The PC is its' biggest opponent there.

Someone mentioned the idea of a "one console future". The only "one console" future worth having is one where, no matter what physical console a consumer buys, she can play ANY GAME SHE CHOOSES on it.

First, I was the one that brought up the "one console future" and was lamenting how it would fail on its' own merits. Namely not having exclusive content while others did. The console would fail and the dogma would persist.

Second, are all consumers female? I'm watching you. >.> (joke)

Additionally, this means that developers won't be tied to an specific hardware/OS, and thus won't sink if the Hardware/OS manufacturers mishandle their product (as has happened countless times, and not only on gaming... Ask anyone who adopted J# before Microsoft pulled the plug).

If Valve keeps it's word on this, they might just have earned my support, both as consumer and (hobbyist) developer.

I am very much aware of, and in support of, the idea of the "one console future". However, if everything doesn't change at once those trail blazing this future will be left at a significant disadvantage.

IF Valve will keep its' word is a fairly big question, and one of the reasons I'm so cynical about Valve. (Episodic gaming my ass, the lying fucks.)

I don't think you've seen very much Valve flocking of any kind in this thread.

You haven't seen my inbox.

This isn't just another player joining the Linux market, Valve is big (and rich) enough to make a significant impact on the future development of Linux - just on that merit alone, especially compared to the competition, you'd be hard pressed to do anything but praise them for it.

I can do quite a bit other than praise them. They betrayed my trust, I never forget and I rarely forgive. Josef Mengele had the full support of the sovereign nation of Germany and made significant advancements to the field of medicine. Does this mean I need to praise the concentration camps where he dissected live people or the Nazis for allowing him to do so? The point I'm making is that monetary backing and advances made should be divorced from how you choose to feel about something.

You might not be aware of this, but having someone this big join in on the development of Linux is really a big deal - as they won't simply be porting over a OS, but also developing for it, something that helps ALL Linux distributors, not just Valve.

They've already created the OS, which means they've already put in significant contributions to various Linux drivers - whether or not that will end up breaking the issues with Linux will be determined later, but some work is already unquestionably done.

Just like they created HL and a ravenous fanbase willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for a continuation of the story? They are taking full advantage of that investment aint they?

Streaming is not a half-working hack. It's a full feature that works as a placeholder for older programs, like emulation (except, unlike Wine, this one looks like it'll actually work).

So you concede that it could, in fact, actually be a half-working hack.

Also, Valve already HAS recoded a whackload of its games to work on Linux natively (Including Half Life, Portal and Left 4 Dead 2), and there's nothing stopping other devs from doing the same thing if they so desire.

If the OS doesn't take hold in the market why would devs and, more importantly, publishers waste the money to recode their games?

Also, you hideously underestimate the number of Valve fans and Linux supporters.

Believe me, I know exactly how ravenously blind most Valve fans are because I don't stay quiet with my dissenting opinions of their god. As for Linux fans... I figure it is a niche crowd at best, at least in the beginning.

Furthermore, this won't build Rome in a day, and therefore we shouldn't try? You're the type of person that Johnathan Swift addressed "A Modest Proposal" to.

Carful where you tread here. I'm not saying the "one console future" is something we shouldn't strive for. I'm saying, to continue your Rome analogy, that there is no reason to buy the flat shovel if we can get the spade that does the same job and more.

 

[Yopaz]

-

You know, I spent almost an hour trying while writing a report to consider how to respond to your post.

Then after a while I realized, you don't agree that installing software within an OS is much different from installing a separate OS and I realized that there's no way to have a reasonable discussion with you, so I figured that anything I wanted to say would be a waste of time.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

And this is a perfect example of why Valve is the Good Guy Greg of the industry. Even making a game exclusive to a free OS that anyone can download and install on the computer they already have (assuming they have enough free hard drive space) is considered a dick move by their standards. And why not? Once you make your game, you want people to be able to play it, so you should make it playable on whatever they happen to have instead of making them jump through hoops they might decide aren't worth it. Why 90% of the industry can't wrap their heads around this idea is beyond my understanding.

You forget that they did exactly that when they launched Steam. They made highly anticipated titles, such as Half Life 2, Steam exclusives (And all games from then on). Which of course meant people just took the crap it was back then so they could get at those games.

Considering how bad Steam was back then (think Origin, only worse, back when the only kind of DRM anyone had ever had to deal with before was CD keys), I don't consider the Valve of 2003 to be the consumer-friendly company that they are now. And even in that state, I wouldn't consider having to deal with Steam as being on par with the hassle of installing an entire OS and rebooting your computer whenever you want to play its games, or paying $500 for another piece of hardware.

Also there's motivation to consider. Valve envisioned a day when every game was on Steam, and wanted all of their games to be on it so they wouldn't have to deal with supporting copies that were much harder to patch. In contrast, Valve isn't planning on dropping support for Windows or OS X any time soon (unless Microsoft or Apple closes off their system so drastically that Steam can literally no longer exist on it anymore), so why would they stop releasing their own games on them? SteamOS, as far as I know, is just an attempt to expand into the console market and have a little insurance in case something drastic does happen on their previous favorite platform (which it looked like it would, at the time they started working on it).

Console exclusivity works bad in two ways; if you want all the exclusive games, you need ALL of the consoles. The other is that they simultaneously provoke pirates to put them on an emulator long before the console is discontinued, & make the people who download the ROM feel justified because the software they were more than willing to pay for legally was not made available to them.

I doubt that second one is as big of an issue as you think. As far as I know, it's never been possible to reliably emulate then-current-gen hardware on other then-current-gen hardware. The closest I can think of was the compatibility layers that Apple used to make older Mac apps compatible with the PowerPC, and later Intel, systems. And in those cases, the apps were designed for a wide variety of hardware profiles to begin with, so they relied heavily on drivers and the OS to tie everything together, which isn't the case with consoles.

 

[TomWiley]

Well anything else would be massively hypocritical.

 

[black_knight1337]

Considering how bad Steam was back then (think Origin, only worse, back when the only kind of DRM anyone had ever had to deal with before was CD keys), I don't consider the Valve of 2003 to be the consumer-friendly company that they are now. And even in that state, I wouldn't consider having to deal with Steam as being on par with the hassle of installing an entire OS and rebooting your computer whenever you want to play its games, or paying $500 for another piece of hardware.

Oh I know how Steam was back then. It's why I spent the first 3 - 4 years of it using various scripts and making patches so I wouldn't have to deal with it. And I agree, there are similarities but it is definitely a bit more involved this time around.

Also there's motivation to consider. Valve envisioned a day when every game was on Steam, and wanted all of their games to be on it so they wouldn't have to deal with supporting copies that were much harder to patch. In contrast, Valve isn't planning on dropping support for Windows or OS X any time soon (unless Microsoft or Apple closes off their system so drastically that Steam can literally no longer exist on it anymore), so why would they stop releasing their own games on them? SteamOS, as far as I know, is just an attempt to expand into the console market and have a little insurance in case something drastic does happen on their previous favorite platform (which it looked like it would, at the time they started working on it).

That first part is exactly why Valve(along with others) are making such a big push for Linux support. They've seen the way Windows is heading and they don't like it, so rather than wait until the shit hits the fan they are pushing early to make it better for everyone(well, not Microsoft). And that's why I was talking about timed exclusives, it gives console gamers the necessary carrot to switch platform, it gives Valve a large amount of customers on it and it doesn't leave regular PC users behind.

You know, I spent almost an hour trying while writing a report to consider how to respond to your post.

Then after a while I realized, you don't agree that installing software within an OS is much different from installing a separate OS and I realized that there's no way to have a reasonable discussion with you, so I figured that anything I wanted to say would be a waste of time.

I guess you are referring to "Yes, there are differences involved but they aren't that great that there is no comparison." But even that doesn't support what you are saying. That's the only thing I've said about how different they are and no where am I saying that they are the same or very similar. I'm only pointing it out that there are comparisons that can be made between them. And it's not a "reasonable discussion" because you are only picking at a couple of points in my posts and ignoring the rest.