Gabe Newell Says Linux Is "The Future Of Gaming"

[Atmos Duality]

There's some strong changes in the wind if Gabe Newell is pitching Linux this hard.

Though I suppose that makes sense; there's a strong push for Microsoft to start locking down on their platform's market, because that's part of how Apple is making incredible bank for no real effort.

For any other platform, "open source future" would be thrown back in their face by the big publishers.
Except this is Steam, which commands an alarmingly large chunk of core PC gaming.

 

[Lightknight]

Linux would have to change first for the primary gaming operating system to change.

Someone would have to put linux in a user-friendly package rather than requiring every new entrant to either pull out their hair and hate linux from then on or become that guy that never shuts up about it and how awesome it is and why he's so angry that he can't get a corporate job supporting servers just because corporations use MS or Apple products.

Hell, even the fact the 360 controller can't even be recharged unlike playstation pisses me off.

Not quite sure if that was a typo or not, but I have several 360 controllers and all of them can be recharged. What kind of controller are you using?

As an owner of both consoles, I'll say that the 360 controllers are incredibly frustrating after having owned the ps3 ones.

Here are my two complaints regarding the convenience of the 360 controllers in relation to the ps3 ones.
1. the ps3 controllers come with the battery stored in the controllers. You have to seperately buy a battery pack or use AA batteries to even use the 360 wirelessly. This happens even though both controllers cost the same amount.
2. The 360 controllers hold a charge like a shirt holds water. Seriously, why is there such a big difference? My ps3 controllers can sit around doing nothing for weeks and still be good for games. The 360 controllers regularly have faulty battery packs that do not take a charge (aka, don't work) and I can most often assume that they're dead when I pick them up

This has been a regular frustration, especially since the 360 lends itself really well to multiplayer titles for four players on a couch. If they do not have this fixed by the XBO then it will be yet another detractor for my decision not to buy the XBO until well into the product life cycle if not at the very end of it.

 

[Dragonbums]

Also devs have become increasingly whiny, and lazy when it comes to making developments on anything. In this day and age, if the port takes even a modicum of creative thinking, and isn't rooted in common PC, they will whine their tits off and not make a game port because it's "Toooo haaaard". Which is funny because if any one group of people said that in any other creative driven medium like gaming said that, they would be laughed out of the room and asked why the hell did they choose this path anyway.

'Too Hard' = 'Too Expensive to be worth it'
Face it: Linux is another entire platform to be optimised for and the amount of users are NOT worth spending the time effort and money to bother with. Also talking baout creative driven medium are you telling me all developers in the movie industry are making alternative 3D 48fps movies now? Oh wait, most movies that even have 3D do some half-assed botch job to say they have it, and that's about it.

I'm fairly certain movies have been criticized as of late for being lazy, unimaginative, and basically following the status quo, and not doing anything new.

A movie like Pacific Rim- as awesome as it is- should not be seen as a breath of fresh air. Especially when that type of genre is some of the most cliche plot points in movies ever.

Everyone in the movie bizz is too busy making "deep" stories, hyping up 3D, or following stereotypes in the worst way.
Hardly any of the movies that came out this year held any interest to me.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Some of the biggest naysayers of Linux I've encountered are one of two people:

1) Someone who has never tried it and is parroting stats and anything else someone has said.
2) Someone who used it several years ago who complains about problem X, Y, Z which was fixed ages ago.

I tried it about a year ago or whenever valve announced their big Linux compatibility thing. It was cool how I just copy pasted some URL I found and fixed steam with it, but doing something as simple as merging files or anything like that was just me being told I don't have access to the files. It's great for security, but I was just sitting there like an idiot. Sudo something or other...No that doesn't work...Fuck it I'll go back to windows. That took about 3 days of tinkering. I couldn't imagine modding games with Linux with my limited knowledge of it. I'm not some computer science dude, but I know my basics around windows : /

And how exactly is preventing people from simply merging/copying files to and from the system directories a bad thing? It means that people who

a) don't know what they're doing can't delete or modify important systems files/directories
b) prevents someone else from doing the same thing either accidentally or maliciously. I've had several people come to me at work who's computers were trashed because some friend/family member had destroyed their C:/, whether by accident or otherwise.

I could get on someone's windows computer and delete the C:/ without any real security to speak of. So what if you had to use sudo once to alter your system, at least it means you can outright destroy it.

All I got from this is that you're used to Windows, and that you were unwilling/too impatient to learn something new. I use command line because I can, not because I have to. Ubuntu in general is so well built that I could do everything without ever touching command line, but I choose to anyway.

My dad is 64 years old, knows next to nothing about computers and no longer touches Windows. Our house is Windows free. If he can do it, I don't see how anyone under the age of 30 can't.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Some of the biggest naysayers of Linux I've encountered are one of two people:

1) Someone who has never tried it and is parroting stats and anything else someone has said.
2) Someone who used it several years ago who complains about problem X, Y, Z which was fixed ages ago.

And reading through many of the posts it appears that you hit the nail on the head.

Most of the rest are basing their judgments on the article headline and the dismissive quips within, instead of actually watching the keynote speech given by Mr. Newell

I think I have a third kind of person to add to that list.

3) People who use the "I'm too used to windows" line as an excuse to avoid trying something new.

Things don't change if people do nothing. You're always going to be "used to" something if you never move away from it and try something different, you'll never learn. Some people seem happy to remain ignorant.

 

[Dragonbums]

Most gamers are content with their windows computers.

never has the word "content" been soooo loaded....

Not really.
Even the most PC savvy people don't go out of their way to get a Linux computer. Either through humongous lack of support, or just complete and total indifference.
If they don't like a current Windows software, then they can simply upgrade their computer with the previous one. No problem, seeing as how it takes a while for Microsoft to drop support for other softwares. Hell, they still somewhat support Windows XP.

The only reason XP was supported for this long is because Microsoft rehabilitated XP and released service pack 3 to fight on the netbook market, which first generation product were all running Linux.

Let's just say they have regretted that decision, since the day, that smartphone and tablet have completely destroy netbook market.

But you can't deny the sheer amount of people who refused to buy Vista due to how the software was complete garbage.

actually, it just that the system requirement increase, compared to what XP demanded, was too sharp, thus came to run like crap on most hardware it was sold on, has OEM didn't have habit of such heavy OS, at the time and the enthusiast saw sharp decrease in performance compared to XP simply due to how thin and minimalist it is versus Vista.

Not that XP wasn't bloated software for its time through, but that basically every Windows OS, has each time Microsoft lose a high ranking developer they are basically forced to deprecate whatever he working on, and create new software, has they usually don't have someone capable of taking their place and continue to merge new feature in already existing software.


And to call software complete garbage, it take me Millennium level of failure.

The average consumer aka me, and a good portion of the general computing public do now know that much into the software of Vista, to know it was a hardware failure and not a software one.

The laptop I'm running now used to be a Vista laptop. Twice, the vista literally died on me with no warning that it was going to happen.
Vista was working perfectly fine, and then the next thing I know, I come to boot up my computer, and the thing tells me that a hard drive doesn't exist.
To most people that relays that the software is a failure, and they will spread that around like wild fire. I now have Windows 7 on my laptop, and it has not failed me yet. (although the my laptop is starting to show it's age.)
If what your saying is accurate, then I have no idea how Microsoft- a company that has been making computer software for decades, manages to make an OS that doesn't even work with current computers. Why would you do something so fucking stupid? I don't care. It only hurts them in the end. And it will be a long time before I have any incentive to upgrade my OS, to 8 or beyond when I get a new computer.

 

[Dragonbums]

Some of the biggest naysayers of Linux I've encountered are one of two people:

1) Someone who has never tried it and is parroting stats and anything else someone has said.
2) Someone who used it several years ago who complains about problem X, Y, Z which was fixed ages ago.

And reading through many of the posts it appears that you hit the nail on the head.

Most of the rest are basing their judgments on the article headline and the dismissive quips within, instead of actually watching the keynote speech given by Mr. Newell

I think I have a third kind of person to add to that list.

3) People who use the "I'm too used to windows" line as an excuse to avoid trying something new.

Things don't change if people do nothing. You're always going to be "used to" something if you never move away from it and try something different, you'll never learn. Some people seem happy to remain ignorant.

Or perhaps, some people aka the majority of 365 million people worldwide have more important and better things to do than sit in front of computer and knash their hair out because Linux is basically the morse code version of computer OS's.
Sorry, I have things to do. Whether it be hanging out with friends, doing work, studying, etc.

Microsoft and Apple both knew that nobody would buy their computer software if it required the average Joe, to blow his brains out trying to figure out how to do the most basic things. So they package it in an easy to use, friendly interface, that is quick to learn in a reasonable amount of time for people who clearly have other things to do with their time.
If Lunix wants to stay difficult, then so be it. Don't cry when nobody but those who are tech savvy, and/or have too much time on their hands want to even waste their time on Linux.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Windows all the way for me. It isn't going away any time soon.

I get why they did Windows 8 - one common interface. What I don't get is why they think one common interface is the right thing when your physical interface differs. You can bring across design elements (like the naming conventions), but how did they not pick up that Windows 8 is clunky without a touch screen (ie: with a keyboard and mouse, like 99% of the Windows user base).

It's like saying "here is a fork; eat all your food with a fork". It's fine until you get served a bowl of soup.

But then these are the same people who think swinging your whole arm around with a Kinect is better than twiddling your thumbs on a controller.

Windows 8 doesn't appeal to me at all. I don't own any tablets or smartphones so the interface of Windows 8 is very ugly to me. I mean, no start button really? Yeah...

I will be sticking to Windows 7 until they release windows 9 with hopefully a better interface. It seems Microsoft seems to keep this trend with the Windows OS's before it just like Vista being broken when XP was the best for so many years and so on.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Some of the biggest naysayers of Linux I've encountered are one of two people:

1) Someone who has never tried it and is parroting stats and anything else someone has said.
2) Someone who used it several years ago who complains about problem X, Y, Z which was fixed ages ago.

And reading through many of the posts it appears that you hit the nail on the head.

Most of the rest are basing their judgments on the article headline and the dismissive quips within, instead of actually watching the keynote speech given by Mr. Newell

I think I have a third kind of person to add to that list.

3) People who use the "I'm too used to windows" line as an excuse to avoid trying something new.

Things don't change if people do nothing. You're always going to be "used to" something if you never move away from it and try something different, you'll never learn. Some people seem happy to remain ignorant.

Or perhaps, some people aka the majority of 365 million people worldwide have more important and better things to do than sit in front of computer and knash their hair out because Linux is basically the morse code version of computer OS's.
Sorry, I have things to do. Whether it be hanging out with friends, doing work, studying, etc.

For some reason I get the feeling you've never actually used a Linux distro, that or you tried it about a decade ago and haven't since. With Mint/Ubuntu, nobody needs to spend the time to "knash" against linux. Aside from slight GUI differences, there isn't too much that's different so the "I'm too used to windows" excuse is just that, an excuse. Ubuntu/Mint "just works" these days, to steal the the old Mac line.

Going from one GUI to another is always going to take some getting used to. I've used MacOS and couldn't find anything in a reasonable amount of time because I'm not used to the UI, but people keep throwing around this "Mac is easier" bullshit.

All I've seen you do so far in this thread is go around throwing around what seems like hate to an OS that you've most likely not tried. If my 64 year old tech stupid father can use Ubuntu with no issues, I don't see how anyone else can't.

My father also said that if he had to use command line for anything, he wasn't going to use it. Guess what, he still uses it.

So please, if you're going to continue responding to me, have something reasonable beyond "IT'S HARD AND BAD BECAUSE I THINK SO". Otherwise you will be promptly ignored. I, and many people, have better things to do than knash their hair out arguing with you because you know little of what you speak of.

 

[Sectan]

Some of the biggest naysayers of Linux I've encountered are one of two people:

1) Someone who has never tried it and is parroting stats and anything else someone has said.
2) Someone who used it several years ago who complains about problem X, Y, Z which was fixed ages ago.

I tried it about a year ago or whenever valve announced their big Linux compatibility thing. It was cool how I just copy pasted some URL I found and fixed steam with it, but doing something as simple as merging files or anything like that was just me being told I don't have access to the files. It's great for security, but I was just sitting there like an idiot. Sudo something or other...No that doesn't work...Fuck it I'll go back to windows. That took about 3 days of tinkering. I couldn't imagine modding games with Linux with my limited knowledge of it. I'm not some computer science dude, but I know my basics around windows : /

And how exactly is preventing people from simply merging/copying files to and from the system directories a bad thing? It means that people who

a) don't know what they're doing can't delete or modify important systems files/directories
b) prevents someone else from doing the same thing either accidentally or maliciously. I've had several people come to me at work who's computers were trashed because some friend/family member had destroyed their C:/, whether by accident or otherwise.

I could get on someone's windows computer and delete the C:/ without any real security to speak of. So what if you had to use sudo once to alter your system, at least it means you can outright destroy it.

All I got from this is that you're used to Windows, and that you were unwilling/too impatient to learn something new. I use command line because I can, not because I have to. Ubuntu in general is so well built that I could do everything without ever touching command line, but I choose to anyway.

My dad is 64 years old, knows next to nothing about computers and no longer touches Windows. Our house is Windows free. If he can do it, I don't see how anyone under the age of 30 can't.

You sound like I'm attacking Linux. I'm not attacking Linux. All I said is I tried Linux for a few days and within that few days I ran into problems that I would google. I would get answers that were for people who knew how to use Linux in the first place so everything flew over my head. I sat and tried to learn this piece of software, but made no headway. I just decided "You know what? I have Windows 7 already." So I just went back to it and deleted the other partition. Windows is working fine. I have no reason to switch to Linux so...Sorry(?) I guess.

 

[Waaghpowa]

You sound like I'm attacking Linux. I'm not attacking Linux. All I said is I tried Linux for a few days and within that few days I ran into problems that I would google. I would get answers that were for people who knew how to use Linux in the first place so everything flew over my head. I sat and tried to learn this piece of software, but made no headway. I just decided "You know what? I have Windows 7 already." So I just went back to it and deleted the other partition. Windows is working fine. I have no reason to switch to Linux so...Sorry(?) I guess.

I didn't mean to sound like I was being defensive, but simply saying that it is how it works. I mean to say that you wont learn if you don't try. If you so easily give up then nothing will change.

Yeah, I get that people are used to one GUI/OS and that learning a new one can seem difficult, but that applies to everyone. I couldn't do a damn thing with Mac OS since I never use it, but quickly giving up also limits yourself.

Part of the problem could be that you're putting too much thought into it and making it more difficult than it is. It also raises the question of what distro you tried, because that can make the difference as well.

If Linux is the future of gaming, then it wont hurt you to get yourself familiar with it now and save yourself the trouble later. You never know what might happen in the future, and you'll be better for knowing.

 

[Aeshi]

Prehaps when Linux has a games "Library" worthy of the term (and while Gabe probably does have a lot of influence thanks to Steam, I doubt even he can make every studio out there start working on Linux ports that have no guarantee of selling well just like that.)

 

[Lightknight]

Prehaps when Linux has a games "Library" worthy of the term (and while Gabe probably does have a lot of influence thanks to Steam, I doubt even he can make every studio out there start working on Linux ports that have no guarantee of selling well just like that.)

Especially since Linux is like super hacking paradise.

 

[The White Hunter]

I'd imagine whatever's most popular is the future of gaming due to business. At the moment it's clearly Windows in the lead, but I'd imagine as people get more tech savvy Linux will gain more ground.

I fear that tech savvy is not what people are becoming, considering everybody I know has a smartphone and facebook and twitter and have those constantly connected, but for example cannot check their email regularly, cannot write english, cannot seek forums for computer problems.

And if they can't use a forum to get answers for computer issues then linux is sadly not for them.

Maybe one day though. It'd shave a good £80 of a gaming rig if ubuntu was viable instead of windows.

 

[Dragonbums]

Some of the biggest naysayers of Linux I've encountered are one of two people:

1) Someone who has never tried it and is parroting stats and anything else someone has said.
2) Someone who used it several years ago who complains about problem X, Y, Z which was fixed ages ago.

And reading through many of the posts it appears that you hit the nail on the head.

Most of the rest are basing their judgments on the article headline and the dismissive quips within, instead of actually watching the keynote speech given by Mr. Newell

I think I have a third kind of person to add to that list.

3) People who use the "I'm too used to windows" line as an excuse to avoid trying something new.

Things don't change if people do nothing. You're always going to be "used to" something if you never move away from it and try something different, you'll never learn. Some people seem happy to remain ignorant.

Or perhaps, some people aka the majority of 365 million people worldwide have more important and better things to do than sit in front of computer and knash their hair out because Linux is basically the morse code version of computer OS's.
Sorry, I have things to do. Whether it be hanging out with friends, doing work, studying, etc.

For some reason I get the feeling you've never actually used a Linux distro, that or you tried it about a decade ago and haven't since. With Mint/Ubuntu, nobody needs to spend the time to "knash" against linux. Aside from slight GUI differences, there isn't too much that's different so the "I'm too used to windows" excuse is just that, an excuse. Ubuntu/Mint "just works" these days, to steal the the old Mac line.

Going from one GUI to another is always going to take some getting used to. I've used MacOS and couldn't find anything in a reasonable amount of time because I'm not used to the UI, but people keep throwing around this "Mac is easier" bullshit.

All I've seen you do so far in this thread is go around throwing around what seems like hate to an OS that you've most likely not tried. If my 64 year old tech stupid father can use Ubuntu with no issues, I don't see how anyone else can't.

My father also said that if he had to use command line for anything, he wasn't going to use it. Guess what, he still uses it.

So please, if you're going to continue responding to me, have something reasonable beyond "IT'S HARD AND BAD BECAUSE I THINK SO". Otherwise you will be promptly ignored. I, and many people, have better things to do than knash their hair out arguing with you because you know little of what you speak of.

I am completely indifferent to Linux. However the fact that you put the blame on supposedly "lazy" consumers for Linux's failings is what annoys me. For many people, it doesn't matter if the OS was garbage 10 years ago. They presented a product, had it near unusable, and all but a few decided to go back to Microsoft and Sony. Expecting them to go back to Lunix because they made it easier is wishful thinking. This isn't like Steam where they were the only online digital game distributor where people had to put up with their bugs in the early years because there was no other alternative.
Lunix is competing with Apple and Microsoft, and they failed to make an OS, convenient enough for the general public. If they had any interest in changing that perspective, they would go out of their own way to promote how much better Lunix is to Windows and Apple. But they don't, yet you expect consumers who are perfectly content with their Windows and Apple OS's to suddenly put the effort into an OS, that previously gave them techno babble migraines.

That's not how it works.

 

[Vigormortis]

Yeah, but it's not entirely surprising. We made it so anyone could use computers and smartphones and internets (most of them, anyway>.>) without knowing much if at all about it. People don't want to know, they just want things to work.

And, as a result, the gap between the intelligent, learned citizens and the average citizen has widened substantially.

Which is, again, extremely ironic given how easy it now is to get into a college or university. Or rather, easier than it was years ago.

 

[Waaghpowa]

I am completely indifferent to Linux.

Funny, you make it seem like you care quite a bit at the success or failure of a platform you care so little about.

However the fact that you put the blame on supposedly "lazy" consumers for Linux's failings is what annoys me.

"CTRL+F types lazy* nope, I didn't call people lazy. All I said was people use familiarity and a fear of unfamiliarity as an excuse to avoid learning new things.

For many people, it doesn't matter if the OS was garbage 10 years ago. They presented a product, had it near unusable, and all but a few decided to go back to Microsoft and Sony. Expecting them to go back to Lunix because they made it easier is wishful thinking. This isn't like Steam where they were the only online digital game distributor where people had to put up with their bugs in the early years because there was no other alternative.
Lunix is competing with Apple and Microsoft, and they failed to make an OS, convenient enough for the general public. If they had any interest in changing that perspective, they would go out of their own way to promote how much better Lunix is to Windows and Apple. But they don't, yet you expect consumers who are perfectly content with their Windows and Apple OS's to suddenly put the effort into an OS, that previously gave them techno babble migraines.

That's not how it works.

Both Windows and Mac OSX were completely garbage 10+ years ago, things got better as it is with anything else. Sure, there were no alternatives back then, but there is now. With all the complaints about Windows 8 being garbage and Apple being a bunch of shady greedy cunts now that there are alternatives, all people do is complain about about how it's unfamiliar.

The issue is that Linux isn't owned by a massive corporation who has the money to market it as well as Microsoft and Apple, but there's plenty of it going on now with the help of Dell and HP who are actively shipping computers preinstalled with Ubuntu.

You must be really young if you think that Microsoft and Apple operating systems didn't require a migraines worth of technobabble. In the old days of PC gaming, you had to manually alter .ini files to change settings for controls and graphics and know how to run command line for both advanced and basic tasks.

If you're going to assume that linux's lack of appeal comes from it's USED to being technically difficult, then both Apple and Microsoft should be in the same boat. The only real problem Linux doesn't have the financial power of Microsoft and Apple, both of whom profit on the success of their software over others.

Finally have you actually used a Linux OS for any reasonable amount of time to have such opinions? If not, don't even bother responding because I wont continue to argue.

Most of this thread can be summed up as "I haven't tried it, but....".

 

[Vigormortis]

I think I have a third kind of person to add to that list.

3) People who use the "I'm too used to windows" line as an excuse to avoid trying something new.

Things don't change if people do nothing. You're always going to be "used to" something if you never move away from it and try something different, you'll never learn. Some people seem happy to remain ignorant.

Well, to be fair, sticking with something one is comfortable with, so long as that thing is reliable, isn't inherently ignorant.

Sure, such a move can lead to stagnation or limitation. But so long as that 'thing' is ever evolving the negative impact is diminished. Or, even negated.

The question is, in this instance, is Windows evolving in a positive or negative direction? Either is debatable.

 

[Griffolion]

I truly hope you're right, Gabe. I'm just not convinced that major hardware support will ever come to Linux in the way Windows has it. When it does, consider me switched.