Valve Is Not Commenting On Steam, Source Engine For Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Valve Is Not Commenting On Steam, Source Engine For Linux

Back in 2007 we reported on Valve looking for a senior software engineer to port their Windows-base games to Linux, then in 2008 we said the Source Engine would be coming to Linux based upon our sources (something that we still believe in), later that year we also found a few Linux libraries with the Left 4 Dead game...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODA1Nw

[V!NCENT]

If Valve was to bring Linux support than on day one I would be backing up up all of my data on /home and C:\, whipe the entire drive. Have one home, one swap and two root partitions. On the first root partition it will be an Ubuntu LTS with fglrx and one with the latest and greatest distro of that particular time and then...

And then...

I will take my old DOS floppies, genuine Win98SE and and genuine XP disc and burn them ritualy and never use Windows in my entire life again!

Then the latest Wine releases will decide what Windows game I will finnish next

[portets43]

i can easily see steam becoming the default game delivering system on all platforms. closed source monopolization. crappy linux build that never gains features. no 64-bit support. crazy-high cpu usage on all platforms, especially linux.

sorry guys....

"valve" and "steam" just kind of rhymes with "adobe" and "flash" in my mind.


disclimer: all i'm saying is i imagine it will be ported, imagine it will monopolize gaming services, and have second or third-rate linux support.

[Melcar]

Over glorified DRM on my Linux? No thanks. Though if it does happen it has the possibility of opening the doors to big commercial games.
Whatever. Bring it I say. I just won't use it. Hopefully more companies follow. Not everyone uses crazy DRM schemes.

[Aradreth]

Over glorified DRM on my Linux? No thanks. Though if it does happen it has the possibility of opening the doors to big commercial games.
Whatever. Bring it I say. I just won't use it. Hopefully more companies follow. Not everyone uses crazy DRM schemes.

Well said I couldn't agree more.

If Valve was to bring Linux support than on day one I would be backing up up all of my data on /home and C:\, whipe the entire drive. Have one home, one swap and two root partitions. On the first root partition it will be an Ubuntu LTS with fglrx and one with the latest and greatest distro of that particular time and then...

And then...

I will take my old DOS floppies, genuine Win98SE and and genuine XP disc and burn them ritualy and never use Windows in my entire life again!

Then the latest Wine releases will decide what Windows game I will finnish next

and in reference to Primal Carnage:-

I'll pay whatever it costs as long as:
A) It's good game.
B) It's not full of digital rights management.

If only point A) is pressent I'll just be donwloading it from the intarwebs for zero euro's. (borderline legal here).

Awesome double standards there dude! Yes I'm a bastard but I'm okay with that.

[V!NCENT]

Awesome double standards there dude! Yes I'm a bastard but I'm okay with that.

Sorry I read over that before...

Awesome memmory you have there!

But I still have that standpoint.

Steam's DRM is completely different from all other DRM's. The way Steam works by controlling distributing games is not restricting. It is rather enabling. If my disc blows up, cratches or by any other means renders it unreadable then I can still download my game and play it.

I don't need the disc. I don't need the CD key. There are not evil rootkits. It is not restricting me at all.

In fact it is enabling me to download and play my games everywhere. I can download it so much (if I wanted to) that Valve's bandwith costs make them lose their profit from me buying once and play everywhere.; It can even make them lose money (and they probably already did, lol ).

They have, and tested it, an exit trategy. Valve's DRM doesn't make me play the game less, or not at all. It lets me play games more. Even when they are bankrupt!

Now onto the Digital Restriction Management that is everywhere else: I am highly against that! And so unless Primal Carnage goes Steam and doesn't implement its own copy protection whatsoever I will not buy it. I will not even think about buying it for a second!

It's either no copy protection at all and laying the protection in Valve's hand or a massive no go!

And that is why we are all against DRM in the first place, because it restricts. Steam's DRM enables by decrypting games that do not have any copy protection themselves. The only reason these games are not playable on their own is because they are encrypted. They do not require Steam at all. And FWIW; you can download them all decrypted and you do not need a crack for them.

I bought all my Valve games for a reason and only downloaded Half-Life 2 because I didn't know about the backup features and the official unlock forevah patch that Valve tested inhouse.

[ModplanMan]

Steam's DRM is completely different from all other DRM's. The way Steam works by controlling distributing games is not restricting. It is rather enabling. If my disc blows up, cratches or by any other means renders it unreadable then I can still download my game and play it.

The DRM and the other backup and re-download features are entirely separate of the DRM. You do not need a DRM system to allow these things.

But overall, I agree. I myself have the Orange Box (Half-Life 2 series, Portal, TF2) and Steam isn't too obtrusive. Although it still isn't completely ideal in me always needing to use Steam to be able to play a game. I also doubt I'll truly buy another game from there (I bought Orange Box and the like before I had properly educated myself on the dangers and pitfalls of DRM).

[Aradreth]

Steam's DRM is completely different from all other DRM's. The way Steam works by controlling distributing games is not restricting. It is rather enabling. If my disc blows up, cratches or by any other means renders it unreadable then I can still download my game and play it.

I don't need the disc. I don't need the CD key. There are not evil rootkits. It is not restricting me at all.

In fact it is enabling me to download and play my games everywhere. I can download it so much (if I wanted to) that Valve's bandwith costs make them lose their profit from me buying once and play everywhere.; It can even make them lose money (and they probably already did, lol ).

They have, and tested it, an exit trategy. Valve's DRM doesn't make me play the game less, or not at all. It lets me play games more. Even when they are bankrupt!

Now onto the Digital Restriction Management that is everywhere else: I am highly against that! And so unless Primal Carnage goes Steam and doesn't implement its own copy protection whatsoever I will not buy it. I will not even think about buying it for a second!

It's either no copy protection at all and laying the protection in Valve's hand or a massive no go!

And that is why we are all against DRM in the first place, because it restricts. Steam's DRM enables by decrypting games that do not have any copy protection themselves. The only reason these games are not playable on their own is because they are encrypted. They do not require Steam at all. And FWIW; you can download them all decrypted and you do not need a crack for them.

I bought all my Valve games for a reason and only downloaded Half-Life 2 because I didn't know about the backup features and the official unlock forevah patch that Valve tested inhouse.

I understand the reasoning as to why people aren't overly bothered by the DRM side of steam because of the convenience it brings but I still can't bring myself to like it.

[V!NCENT]

Over glorified DRM on my Linux? No thanks. Though if it does happen it has the possibility of opening the doors to big commercial games.
Whatever. Bring it I say. I just won't use it. Hopefully more companies follow. Not everyone uses crazy DRM schemes.

The DRM scheme is pretty OK when using Valve games + Steam.

It goes like this:
You can buy your games in store on a disc. Then you install Steam plus the game as something completely stand-alone.

You have to the CD key of your game with a Steam account. You have to create an account once on the Steam servers.

Once you log into Steam for the first time you can set Steam to "Remember account offline" and you'll never have to use the internet ever again. You can play for as long in time as you want without having to obtain a new key through the Steam servers.

Because your games are tied to your account, you can download them and play them on as many computers as you want and wherever you want. You can do this an unlimited times.

Steam has a backup feature by which you can backup your downloaded and decrypted game on any physical medium as many times as you want.

Valve anounced that once the Steam servers go down, a small standalone patch will be released that unlocks your backed up games (otherwise you have to unlock them by signing into Steam, whether that is offline to you remembered account info + offline store keys or thought the servers. And that patch has been made and tested inhouse already.

So you don't have to worry about DRM in this case. It isn't defective.

As a matter of fact, wrong as it may sound, it is actually extremely awesome!

The DRM scheme BTW is completely implemented in the Steam software itself and doesn't copy protect at all or does any other nasty shit!

[dalingrin]

Over glorified DRM on my Linux? No thanks. Though if it does happen it has the possibility of opening the doors to big commercial games.
Whatever. Bring it I say. I just won't use it. Hopefully more companies follow. Not everyone uses crazy DRM schemes.

I really don't find Steam's drm to be intrusive or big problem. I'm no fan of DRM but I still like Steam. I also like that they clearly state if a game has additional DRM that the distributor requires. It makes it easier to avoid buying such games.