Valve haters, vs Valve fanboys. DRM and Why do some people hate Valve and steam?

[mrdude2010]

Well I don't hate Valve but I do hate steam. It has good sales sure but aside from that the program is horrendously bad. Slow to load, ugly UI, constant updates and inconsistent download speeds are my chief complaints with it. Also outside of the sales it's regular prices are absurd.

Absurd as opposed to what? Console prices? BWAhahahaha.

Yes. Absurd compared to console prices. I can pick up a console title for $69 dollars brand new while steam regularly charges 79-89 dollars (even $110 for certain titles).

What dollars are you using? I've found that both retail and steam start off at around $59.99 for AAA titles, but steam usually ends up putting the game on sale for $40 a month or two down the line. I've seen AAA games in retail still at $60 almost a year after they came out.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I like Steam because of the sales. That's it.

Everything else is a pain in the ass.
I hate that you need to have Steam open to play games.
I hate the UI.
I hate how clunky everything always seems to be. Seriously, half of the time when I go to load up a friend's page, it will only load up half of the details or take a could five minutes to load.
Everyone seems to love Steam Workshop but I really don't get it. The game I mod the most is Skyrim and quite honestly, Steam Workshop doesn't even come close to the Nexus mods. There are way more mods and many of them are of much higher quality.

Basically, Steam is OK. I like the sales and begrudgingly put up with everything else.

 

[BeerTent]

OT: Another thing I didnt see mention is that they sell some games that dont work/ or take alot of effort to get working on the store ex. Blazing angels 1 only works under Windows xp Ubisoft has never patched it, The first two thief games you need to get fan made compatibliltuy patches.


Another would be that not all store pages have the most information on them making some of them misleading. Such as the weapon add on packs for Space marine it doesnt say anywahere on it that those weapons are multiplayer only leading me to waste mony on buying them.

Valve isn't the company who puts that information there, it's the developer. Remember the deal with the War Z?

Also, don't forget that both, the recommended and minimum req's are on the store page for every single piece of software on Steam unless it's a video. In the case of Blazing Angles, The req's state that it's only supported on WinXP, so you don't have a case. Sorry.

If the developer placed misleading information, contact Steam support and point that out. If enough people also contacted support, they'll likely review it, and return your money. But if you need big red bold letters to understand something that's written in plain-text, well... nobody can help you. Looking over some of the weapon packs you mentioned though, I see where the mistake was made, but it was also $1... From a support standpoint, they may decide to go with policy instead of siding with you.

 

[Holythirteen]

Then there is Steam itself. Regular prices aren't that competitive, it's usually either the same or cheaper here to get physical copies.

I'm not sure that's really fair to hold that against valve, any game that is also a console release seems to have special rules, set by the original publisher and the walmart/ebgames monarchy, where the minimum price must be the same as the launch price for the console for whatever region it's released in. (Unless the game was considered a failure, I picked up Tomb Raider for half price on steam not long after its release.) It's not fair to blame Valve for these things when they don't really have a choice other than not supporting the game, which would be pretty stupid.

They take small time developers with great concepts and help them gain the success they deserve. But if they are just throwing resources behind these things, why not just act as a publisher? Instead they hire them so they can ultimately take all the credit for them and the success that comes with it.

Ya but if you were a small-time developer, which deal would you rather take? A job working at Valve where they give you their full support for your game idea, not to mention a full-time salary as a Valve employee, or a publishing deal where they give you a sum of money to make the game (which you have to pay your staff with), and they just get to keep your ip anyway and leave you and your staff hanging after the game is done? Sure Valve is doing the smart thing for themselves by doing this, but the fact that other companies don't really do this tells me that they are taking something of a risk by taking these people on when they could just do the "publisher thing" like you say.

As a hardware developer they've done some interesting things. The idea of the steambox is one I can still get behind if it could only be sold for a reasonable price. Their controller has some good innovation in it but we still need time to test it before we can come to a conclusion thats its good, bad, or mediocre. Then theres these steam machines which have me very confused, I need more information about them before I can form an opinion about them but at the very least Im interested to see how they will affect PC gaming.

Umm.... the Steam Machine and steam box are different things? I think they changed the name to "steam machine" with their latest press dump. (Unless you have read an article that I haven't)

Personally I'm very much against the ideas of DRM and what it represents so I am also anti-steam on the basis that it is glorified DRM.

I'm sorry but what do you hate about DRM? Steam is widely considered as "good" DRM, because it doesn't punish paying customers. With Steam I put in the CD once (or not at all) and I put in the CD key once (or not at all). When Steam came out, PC gamers were forced to deal with CD Keys, 3 or more CD changes for some games, and anti-piracy programs forced onto our PC's... Steam was actually being the easy-going hippy for only requiring a semi-constant internet connection.

I'm not sure why some companies decided that Steam's DRM wasn't protection enough against piracy enough and added on their own DRM (assassins creed 2 was a big one as I understand it). PC gamers are used to being online all the time, if you hate that idea, I don't blame you, I was stuck in a small town with shitty, expensive internet around the time the Xbox360 generation started. Consoles were a pretty sweet deal at the time, I used to think my 360 was an amazing piece of tech, but PC's have been gaining ground lately because console developers are simultaneously refusing to change some things (not dropping prices for digital downloads) while trying to embrace things like always-online DRM.

PC games have been pirated for much longer than second-hand console games have been sold, consoles used to have their own built-in DRM, but if we have learned anything from the Xbone shenanigans it's that publishers consider second-hand game sales just as bad as piracy, and that consoles are just emulating PC DRM about 10 years behind.

I'm just a dumb old fanboy tho, you shouldn't really listen to me, just keep an open mind, take a step back, look at the pro's and con's.

Steam has earned the loyalty of it's fans, even if they are just doing the same bullshit. They have to do a lot work to earn the respect of PC gamers, we're a bitchy bunch of gamers(with console gamers there are alot more of you and you are generally younger, companies can get away with alot more.). Microsoft has been in the PC gaming market for even longer(with WAY more money) and they just can't keep up with Valve in that market (Games for Windows Live LOL), what does that tell you?

The mere fact that I've had some fanboys try to "convert" me from my console lifestyle grates heavily on my nerves whenever I see the word 'VALVE' and makes me hate the company (instead of continuing my blissful ignorance of them) for inspiring such people.

Well that comes from the fact that the average gamer doesn't have a clue what steam is, at least consider the fact that whatever Sony/Microsoft did to buy your fandom, Valve managed to do the same thing without TV ads. When it comes to bandwagons, I'm the first in line to bring the hate on to what's popular, I'd love to bring the hate onto the XBone, but it's become the "in" thing and I just can't anymore. As much as I love to hate on things that fanboys blindly gush all over, Steam is just Steam, its not Xbox Live or PSN yet, not sure why its getting the bandwagon hate already. At least buy a few cheap games off of it that can run on any cheap PC, and then come back and ***** about why Halo/Killzone is so much better and cheaper to run, that at least would make for a better read. I've been console gaming for most of my life and for this entire generation(being a PC gamer from 2001-2005 was some good times), I had to because of the availability of PC parts, bandwidth etc. But I had a taste of the good life and I can't wait to go back, especially since backwards-compatibility has gone the way of the Dodo for this generation.

So don't hate fanboys just for being fanboys when you're just a fanboy yourself. C'mon.

And I still say HL2 is a shitty game, always was. Yes, today, it's oddly refreshing in the flood of spunkgargleweewees, but it's still bad.

I'm sorry, did you just call a ten-year-old game a piece of shit? How old were you when it came out? No wait don't answer, I'm psychic and I know that you were younger than 14 years old. Man I was dumb at 14 years old, you must have been some sort of genius at that age to know that HL2 was a piece of shit way back then compared to titles that hadn't even come out yet. Wow.

And you are not allowed to bash Steam and Valve while simultaneously quoting Yahtzee. No.

Just no.


tldr; So anyways everybody should just hate Valve because Microsoft and Sony have so much more money!

 

[black_knight1337]

Except that they made it clear, years ago, that they had dropped the episodic model of content release had instead were going to make a full fledged sequel.

Why anyone still brings up Episode 3 baffles me.

Mind providing a link of them saying that Episode 3 has been cancelled? Closest thing I could find was "We went through the episodes phase, and now we're going towards shorter and even shorter cycles." but if they'd cancelled Episode 3 they wouldn't continue to say things like 'we have nothing to tell you at this time' when asked about it.

While this is true with some countries, it's usually not Steams fault.

Publishers dictate what prices their digital titles are sold at. Couple that with some governments charging taxes on certain media content and some prices become inflated.

It's really stupid either way.

And publishers don't dictate how much it costs in stores? So, what, they are just giving stores copies and just asking for a cut of what they make? No, they charge stores for however many copies they want and then stores add a little so they get a bit of profit. So say for game X they have to pay $90 per copy, the store isn't going to sell it at $60, they'll probably go to ~$100(or more).

As for taxes, we've actually got more taxes involved with physical copies rather than digital. The digital costs here go back to a thing called the "Australia Tax" which has no real basis beyond "they can afford it".

I've never had issue with Steam on slower connections. Never. At least, not since the service began back in 2004.

Have you tried changing your download settings in Steam? Tried changing your download region?

Yep, I've tried everything for it and nothing changes it. Doesn't matter if the download region is for my state or another country, the same thing happens.

Valve doesn't hire those people with the intent on having those people just make a "more polished version" of their mod. Valve hires them because of the talent they displayed in making those mods. The fact that those people then ended up turning their pet projects into polished releases was because they wanted to, not because they were told to.

You need to understand the design philosophy at work at Valve. Nobody hands down projects and work orders from on high. Everyone is free to work on whatever they like. This is usually what happens when new hires, like say those behind Team Fortress, are brought into the company. Some of those hires decide to work on bettering their original project. Others already employed at Valve may then decide to chip in.

Of course, part of the reason they were hired was for their potential on future projects. But for now, they were hired to bring their project to Source and to get Valve put on it. And yep, I know how Valve works, everyone can pretty much do their own thing. But that isn't what happened in most of those cases, as stated above they were working on their games well before Valve stepped in. Take Turtle Rock Studios with Left 4 Dead for example, Valve only came into it less than a year from it's release. So that's hardly, freshly hired devs deciding to work on a project.

-Snip-

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I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. My point is that these small studios aren't getting the recognition that they deserve. That's evidenced by what I posted before, whenever I've mentioned any of it to anyone the response is always along the lines of "Wow, really?" rather than "Yeah, those guys make some great games" like it should be.

Ya but if you were a small-time developer, which deal would you rather take? A job working at Valve where they give you their full support for your game idea, not to mention a full-time salary as a Valve employee, or a publishing deal where they give you a sum of money to make the game (which you have to pay your staff with), and they just get to keep your ip anyway and leave you and your staff hanging after the game is done? Sure Valve is doing the smart thing for themselves by doing this, but the fact that other companies don't really do this tells me that they are taking something of a risk by taking these people on when they could just do the "publisher thing" like you say.

I can actually answer that properly seeing as I'm an aspiring game developer, working on my first commercial product. My answer would depend on what IP it was, if it was for one of my small scope 1-2 use ones then I'd take the publishing deal but if it was for one of my large scope ones and I had to choose I'd go with Valve because at least with that I'd retain at least some control over it. Ultimately I'd rather keep them in my own hands because I much rather taking them in the direction I want to take them rather than being forced down different paths.

As for the other part, read above.

 

[Holythirteen]

I'd rather keep them in my own hands because I much rather taking them in the direction I want to take them rather than being forced down different paths.

Wow do publishers actually do that? As I understand it they are all too terrified to support any idea that wouldn't be handed over to them lock stock and barrel, with a few rare exceptions that escape me at the moment. (it's way past my bedtime) Examples please?

It's just hard to imagine that any small-time dev with an awesome idea could get the recognition they deserve without the help of somebody like Valve or a big publisher that would basically take the idea as their own. (Besides Notch and Mojang of course)

Valve is just another big company from one perspective, but from another perspective, who is this benevolent Santa Claus that everybody is comparing them to? I just don't understand the hate.

(Maybe I'm just a dumb scrub who doesn't read enough news, anybody with relevant info who wants to enlighten me feel free to do so)

 

[Atmos Duality]

My point is that these small studios aren't getting the recognition that they deserve. That's evidenced by what I posted before..

What evidence?
Those "small studios", quite literally -ARE- Valve. They very much DO earn accolades, and recognition.
Just because they don't identify as a label under a publisher like everyone else does not mean they receive no recognition.

I have never, ever heard of this issue until you brought it up; anywhere. Which is why I'm puzzled.

 

[Jovip]

I use steam. I am a purely neutral force in regards to it.
However, i won't really ever understand the disdain to it.

As far as I'm concerned, Steam is a medium to acquire a product.
The same as say, gamestop (Eb Games to fellow Canadians), Bestbuy, Future shop, etc etc. They operate some form of storefront to sell a product, in this case games.

Now sure, they all have different looks and commercials and what have you. Functionally though, they are all the same purpose. That's why incredible hate or even incredible love for Steam alludes me completely. It's a store. It provides you the elective to purchase things. Sure it's software, so it can maintain those things and organize them, Still.

Valve is wonderful, people will always argue one way or another about preference of lack thereof. I like some of their stuff, don't like others. I have no clue why the thoughts of other people would impact my preference nor should mine impact anyone elses.

Just how i see things...

 

[lassiie]

IDK if someone brought this up already, but Steam in particular has done an AMAZING job of making the shortcomings of DRM worthwhile, at least compared to things like the Xbox Live Marketplace. With CONSTANT sales and a MASSIVE library of games, it makes it beneficial to me to deal with their DRM policies. Whereas Microsoft and EA implement very similar DRM policies, but have nothing that benefits me as the consumer.

Plus, Steam does a great job of mitigating a lot, by having offline mode and what not. Although it can be frustrating if you didn't put Steam to offline mode before you go to a place without internet (mostly applies to laptops, which I have, I suppose)

 

[Skeleon]

Short run-down for Steam:
- Slow-as-hell third party software and advertisement platform.
- Social features I don't give a toss about.
- Convenience features like patching that I don't need.
- DRM and its associated risks.
- Online activation and its associated risks.
- Consumer rights ("subscription" rather than a proper purchase, issues with re-selling, trading etc.)
- Pricing (like $ = ? and the like).
- Don't give a toss what crappy games are sold through their platform, while also not letting a lot of promising indie titles on there.
- SteamOS? Really?
As for Valve as a developer, I was never that big a fan of their games. Half-Life and its addons were alright, Half-Life 2 was alright and a game I played through only once, never played the addon(s?). Portal was amazing, of course, but they did a Blizzard North on that. Left 4 Dead (and its sequel) was crazy fun, though, would recommend. Which they also did a Blizzard North on, apparently.
Yeah, not really a fan. I prefer to support GOG and the Humble Store and am always glad to see major new titles released there along with the classics.

 

[Nicholas Chandler-Yates]

I'm sorry, did you just call a ten-year-old game a piece of shit? How old were you when it came out? No wait don't answer, I'm psychic and I know that you were younger than 14 years old. Man I was dumb at 14 years old, you must have been some sort of genius at that age to know that HL2 was a piece of shit way back then compared to titles that hadn't even come out yet.

Even though you're not worth answering, I will. When it came out, I was 22, I played the game shortly after it came out and it was bad. The only thing saving it now is that COD and Halo happened, taking the progress of single-player FPSs backwards.

'bad' in your case is completely subjective, HL2 was an almost universally critically acclaimed game as being the peak of what FPSs could be when it came out. The fact that you personally didn't like it doesn't make it bad, as clearly an overwhelming majority of people did not agree with you.

The fact that you are saying it stacks up against modern shooters positively, that is just confusing... are you saying that ALL modern shooters are 'Worse-than-bad' then? If so, clearly FPSs are just not your thing and it I a little unfair of you to just say that it is a 'bad game' simply because you don't like it or its genre. I don't care if you like it or not, but look at the situation with a little perspective.

What FPS games from before this do you consider 'vastly superior to HL3' that it deserves the ire of being called a 'bad' game.

 

[Galen Marek]

Yes. Absurd compared to console prices. I can pick up a console title for $69 dollars brand new while steam regularly charges 79-89 dollars (even $110 for certain titles).

No, just no, I just did a search of Steam and there are only half a dozen games above 60-70 dollar price point, almost all of which are bundle packs or 'premium' editions. I know sometimes prices are different in different countries so maybe thats it.

Not 100% sure how hard you searched

http://www.steamprices.com/au/topripoffs

NZ has worse retail pricing then AU, so for them comparitivly it may be better.

Nothing at $110 in there but given many of those games I can get for less then $20 in a retail store, I can see the absurd claim being pretty fair.

I just don't like Steam. The program itself constantly stuffs up for me, the pricing scheme outside of its sales aren't hugely impressive, the download times are not impressive (though thats due to the lines where I live being over used and in poor condition so I don't hold that against Valve/Steam, thats not their fault) and the program constantly has issues for me (I know I said it before but it seems to be a running gag for myself and a friend).

Fanboys are annoying no matter what they are fanboying. I don't dislike fans of Steam, you can be a fan of what you want, being a fan boy and trying to force your views on people is the annoying part. For those that like steam, I am happy you have a program/product that you enjoy and meets your needs, thats good. Just doesn't take my fancy.

Edit: I dislike Steam the platform. I don't dislike Valve by extension, their games are pretty fun, though Valve's fanboys can get really annoying.

 

[Qvar]

Evil, evil Valve, taking credit for games that are effectively made by their (now) employees, hired because of their professional worth...
A good company like EA would suck the living soul out of any freelancer they come across and then just discard them when they're not useful anymore. Those damn commies...

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Rarely use steam myself and only to play the older games like original Xcom, TFTD and the two KOTOR games. Wish they would gain rights to Syndicate and Vandal Hearts an old C64 and Amiga games. Would be great.

Also what is annoying is that i bought my brother a game a year ago, think it was Skyrim or FO3, on disk. An he had to play it through Steam....a game he owned on a disk. Thats pretty fucked up to me. People moaned when MS tried that with the XB1 but people seem fine with Steam doing it. I do wonder if MS had said that all games would be £20 would people have accepted it on XB1 also?

The cult of HL2, is this nostalgia? HL2 was good, but great? No. It was a generic shooter with crappy unscary head crabs aka turkey heads. But they get praise for the detail in the levels.....they did look amazing and grounded you in the game. An the idea that people think they have been making HL3 for 7 years is laughable. Valve wont throw infinite amounts of money at a title, they have budgets and time scales also. Plus im pissed they didnt do ep3, great way to screw your fans by having them spend money on 2/3rds of a game. There would be riots if any other company did that. Imagine if PJ decided not to make Return of the King, people would have been pissed.

So yeah, steam does its job, has cheap games which makes people forget alot of the negatives. Only game i really want a sequel to is Portal, so hope they will make that soon. But they are not the jesus of gaming companies.

 

[Nicholas Chandler-Yates]

Of course I'm not saying the game is OBJECTIVELY bad because that's ridiculous. Of course it's my subjective opinion. I can back it up with my observations, but I'm not saying everyone has to agree.

Though, to be 100% honest I can't wrap my head around the fact that HL2 was so much praised. And more, while I can kinda sorta appreciate HL2 itself for the good bits, I find episode 1 and 2 absolutely horrible. Maybe they'd be 'okay' in 1997 or whatever (apart from the graphics).

And yes, in fact FPS are my thing. I just don't think HL2 is a good FPS. That said, I haven't played a good, solid FPS (not a COD clone) in years. Rage went about half-way with its solid combat mechanics but screwed up everything else. Before that... I don't know, Wolfenstein was really fun though it also messed up lots of things. So yea HL2 wasn't in much competition since it came out, no wonder I can play it today and not feel as repulsed as back in 2004. Yes, I'm saying that most today's shooters are worse than bad, COD4 and Spec Ops The Line being exceptions. (Haven't played Far Cry 3 yet. Maybe that's another one.)

As for vastly superior games directly compared to HL2... Well the original HL from 1998 is a shining example of a well done game. I'd even say Doom II but I won't go that deep (note, first time I played Doom II was around 2003).

Well you got me on the word-fail, oops.
um.. half life 1 came out in 99 so saying that is 'ok' for 97 is kinda off-the-wall ridiculous... HL2 is by no means a perfect game, but people often forget that it was really the first game to use a real physics engine (something that has since become ubiquitous), and the characters somehow manages to avoid the uncanny valley, which games today with so-called 'superior graphics still get horribly wrong. (obviously my *subjective* opinion

just on a technical standpoint the physics engine deserves them some praise, (however, once again tho, they didn't come up with it, havoc did).

Haven't played COD games, but Spec Ops: the Line is one of my favorite games of recent years, in terms of storytelling it is as close to what I could call a masterpiece. However, in terms of gameplay? it does nothing new, in fact, I'd say that storyline aside, the gameplay is kinda rubbish. Fuck you Freebird gunship section, scripted events that are unavoidable and unpredictable should NOT kill you 50 times in a row, especially when it says RUN, and if you run immediately you will die. (when I say 50 times I mean LITERALLY, to get past that section I had to put it on the lowest difficulty, and even then I died a dozen times before It managed to let me run past the scripted bullets without dying), there was another section where you are the side gunner in a helicopter that I died in repeatedly even on super easy settings as well.

Despite a nearly game breaking experience here, I managed to enjoy the game, but the gameplay definitely gets a C- from me (it passes, but only just)

Edit: HL:E1 was pretty dross, but I felt that EP2 being essentially a giant vehicle section was fun as hell, and the car in that game handled WAY better than cars from GTA V... (Irony for you), also gets the props for having the best achievement in any game EVER, yep carried that garden gnome from the very start of the game all the way to the end and sent him into space! (while simultaneously playing a gravity-gun-only play through). Good times.

Can't deny that the gravity gun was awesome, seriously. Go play a gravity-gun-only play through of any HL2 game... its fun as hell and challenging to the max. Has any game since HL2 really used its physics engine to such great effect as the gravity gun did? Maybe portal.

Edit edit: Acually EP2 kinda pissed me off that there was no way of blowing up the striders at the end except by shooting the sticky bombs with bullets, so I actually fired like seven 9mm rounds in that game. Seriously tho, you can go from the beginning of HL1 all the way through HL2 and both episodes and those are the only shots that have to be fired. (its not easy tho) How many FPS series do you know of where guns are optional?

 

[Nicholas Chandler-Yates]

Yes it is, but I also honestly believe it's deliberate, as in, it should look like a cheap COD knock-off. The game really got me there on so many levels. It's essentially saying "Oh so you're such a tough guy you need ANOTHER spunkgargleweewee? Well here you have one. Have fun headshotting those Arabs which you were sent there to help. Just don't run back crying when the shit gets serious."]

Oh yeah I agree, it was definitely deliberate, I loved the whole "Hey we came here to save you guys!" ends up mowing them down by the truckload. Mostly I was just referring to several sections that are just brokenly designed, I actually agree that the sub-par spunkgargle shooter gameplay definitely enhances the joke, however, some new semi-novel gameplay elements wouldn't have destroyed the joke, but would have made the game better.

OT: I think that valve fanboys like myself definitely don't like to hear people bagging on valve because face it, nearly every other console maker and AAA publisher has policies twice as draconian, and customer support twice as bad. However I agree that Valve should not get a free pass for being the lesser of all the evils. They can and should do better for their loyal customers, and it is only the haters that will keep them honest as long as all of us rabid fanboys are bowing to them with absolute trust as our benevolent overlord and savior.

Edit:

Now Valve fanboys are going insane over the Steam Machines but few can come to gripes with the fact that its an extremely niche idea. Like NVidia Shield niche.

Well the controller is the real innovation here, and SteamOS is just valve pushing linux for gaming.

They also realized that they wanted to make a gaming console but that windows licensing fees are too much to allow them to offer a windows console at an affordable price.

If you think about a Steam Machine *purely* as a console, I can't really see how it is niche. Aside from exclusives it seems that it will be superior to PS and XB consoles in pretty much every way.

While valve has said that their games are not going to be exclusive to SteamOS, that doesn't mean that they won't decide not to release their killer app for consoles, just that they will release it for steamplay (linux/osx/win). Not to mention there will be plenty of games released for Steam Machines that won't be released for PS/XB, (RTS's MOBAS, indies, proper full minecraft, etc) so it definitely has lots of exclusives if you think about it from the point of view of someone buying it as a console, who isn't a PC gamer and doesn't want to be.

There are plenty of gamers out there who Do NOT want to be PC gamers who will see this as just a superior console. Those with lots of disposable income that are console gamers will love to masturbate over the top of the line models too. And to these people, Xbone and PS4 will just seem like lame ducks in comparison (in terms of graphics).

EDIT EDIT: (I should probably just double post)
Note that I speak in terms of SMs being CONSOLES, I know that you can build a pc, and that under the hood they are basically PCs, (but so are other next gen consoles), but *as a console* this may very well appeal to a surprisingly large audience.

Most people who say that devs won't support steam machines are missing one important fact, making games for Linux is a developers wet-dream compared to pretty much any other platform, the problem has been mainly a user base that can't justify the cost, and most importantly a lack of good hardware drivers.