Poll: What will the release of Steam Machines mean to you?

[Dragonbums]

One has to ask though, is Valve honestly a "game company" anymore? They have basically honed the same 5 or so franchises since their inception. Funnily enough, nobody seems to care about that, yet rip on Nintendo for doing the same thing.

Honestly, this Steambox feels like a lost direction sort of thing that they are hoping sticks. I honestly feel like aside from seasonal TF2 updates this was a project simply to get their staff doing anything aside from making new hats.

Valve is starting to take the title of Software/hardware company more than a gaming studio.

True, if anything I'd call them the gaming equivalent of Amazon now considering their business revolves around Steam more than anything else. I can understand wanting to produce quality over quantity, but Valve doesn't seem to be that interested in expanding their company/business all that much which is a major problem.

They are expanding. They have a clear goal in mind in terms of expanding their software services.

As a game company though? They are listless. They have so much money on their hands that grants them so much free time that it feels like they don't really have any motivation to do any new games ( I have given up and don't care for HL3 anymore.)
Deadlines are essential for getting the gears grinding. Game developer might as well be a past title that they only really keep around for the sake of it.

 

[insertcleverphrase]

I think the point people are missing is that Linux IS awesome, devs WANT to make games for it, because it is better to code for. Valve is doing the heavy lifting, because there have always been two problems with gaming for Linux, lack of a standardized OS, and a lack of good hardware drivers. Ubuntu has 'kinda' solved the first problem in recent years, and as a result there have been a lot more titles released for Linux (especially after Valve released steam for Linux).

But AAA titles have always been pretty lacking, despite most of the major engines (unreal, source etc) having a Linux codebase as well. With valve making a new standard gaming OS as well as persuading hardware manufacturers to get off their asses and code some decent drivers, Valve is solving all the problems of Linux in one fell swoop.

I can imagine Valve bundling all their in house titles free with the steam box (and already downloaded onto the hard drive) to give players something to play while they wait for other games to download. (after all alot of them are FtP or very cheap on steam anyway).

One has to ask though, is Valve honestly a "game company" anymore? They have basically honed the same 5 or so franchises since their inception. Funnily enough, nobody seems to care about that, yet rip on Nintendo for doing the same thing.

Honestly, this Steambox feels like a lost direction sort of thing that they are hoping sticks. I honestly feel like aside from seasonal TF2 updates this was a project simply to get their staff doing anything aside from making new hats.

Valve is starting to take the title of Software/hardware company more than a gaming studio.

Valve has always run on valvetime, even the original halflife took them like 3 years to make, which was an age back in the 90s.

A Steam Machine is more about the controller than anything else, and the poll shows this. Like you said before, a PC hooked up to your computer IS a steam machine, except without the new controller you are still kinda fucked for playing games from your couch (mouse and keybopard are too clunky for the couch, and xbox controller etc cant play strategy games etc).

Its the controller and the OS that make it a steam machine, weather you bought it from valve or made it yourself.

 

[insertcleverphrase]

As a game company though? They are listless. They have so much money on their hands that grants them so much free time that it feels like they don't really have any motivation to do any new games ( I have given up and don't care for HL3 anymore.)
Deadlines are essential for getting the gears grinding. Game developer might as well be a past title that they only really keep around for the sake of it.

in the past few years they have released portal 2, Dota 2(which if you like it or not has been HUGELY sucessful) and a new CS game... admittedly not alot, but they still make games, and good ones at that (I dunno about CS haven't played it)

Evidence suggests that they are saving the release of HL3 and Leaft4Dead 3 for the release of steam machines and SteamOS, which at least is one explanation for their recent hiatus on game publishing.

 

[Dragonbums]

As a game company though? They are listless. They have so much money on their hands that grants them so much free time that it feels like they don't really have any motivation to do any new games ( I have given up and don't care for HL3 anymore.)
Deadlines are essential for getting the gears grinding. Game developer might as well be a past title that they only really keep around for the sake of it.

in the past few years they have released portal 2, Dota 2(which if you like it or not has been HUGELY sucessful) and a new CS game... admittedly not alot, but they still make games, and good ones at that (I dunno about CS haven't played it)

Evidence suggests that they are saving the release of HL3 and Leaft4Dead 3 for the release of steam machines and SteamOS, which at least is one explanation for their recent hiatus on game publishing.

That's a total of three games. Two if your not counting DOTA2 which has been in beta since forever.

That's still a pretty sad track record. They have a fuck ton of people at Valve. Especially with how big Steam is. I'm fairly certain they have a pretty decent size of people twiddling their thumbs in the proverbial sense wondering if they are going to do anything major.
You cannot tell me that in a studio that big, you can't come out with even a couple more one shot games in that time frame.


Valve has teased us for years about HL3. To the point where I'm not interested in it anymore. I'm fairly certain they aren't doing a HL3 anything.

 

[Sight Unseen]

Steam Machine == Waste of Money

I don't see the point of buying. Especially if you already own a Gaming PC. If you don't, you should just buy a gaming PC instead of using a gimped PC in the guise of this "Steam Machine". No point in buying one and I will feel sorry for the money wasted by people in buying it.

Steam Machines aren't even out yet. The specs, prices, and even manufacturers haven't even been announced yet. How can you say something like this when there is literally nothing more than early hype being built around these things.

Also you can turn your gaming PC INTO a steam machine and/or use SteamOS for (hopefully) better performance and more customiseability than Windows.

This argument of yours applies even more to regular consoles, as they are EVEN MORE gimped PCs which are completely locked down. So if you have this problem with Steam Machines then I hope you don't rationalize consoles as being fine but Steam Machines not fine.

As a game company though? They are listless. They have so much money on their hands that grants them so much free time that it feels like they don't really have any motivation to do any new games ( I have given up and don't care for HL3 anymore.)
Deadlines are essential for getting the gears grinding. Game developer might as well be a past title that they only really keep around for the sake of it.

in the past few years they have released portal 2, Dota 2(which if you like it or not has been HUGELY sucessful) and a new CS game... admittedly not alot, but they still make games, and good ones at that (I dunno about CS haven't played it)

Evidence suggests that they are saving the release of HL3 and Leaft4Dead 3 for the release of steam machines and SteamOS, which at least is one explanation for their recent hiatus on game publishing.

That's a total of three games. Two if your not counting DOTA2 which has been in beta since forever.

That's still a pretty sad track record. They have a fuck ton of people at Valve. Especially with how big Steam is. I'm fairly certain they have a pretty decent size of people twiddling their thumbs in the proverbial sense wondering if they are going to do anything major.
You cannot tell me that in a studio that big, you can't come out with even a couple more one shot games in that time frame.


Valve has teased us for years about HL3. To the point where I'm not interested in it anymore. I'm fairly certain they aren't doing a HL3 anything.

Dota 2 was actually officially released as a full "finished" game about mid-summer. It still gets updates and expansions ala TF2 but it is deemed complete by Valve.

Also last time I looked into it, Valve has about 330 employees total. That's an absolutely TINY number when compared to Activision (> 7,000 employees) Electronic Arts (>9,000 employees), Ubisoft (~7,000 employees), Sony (>146,000 employees, although the majority don't work on the PS4 or its games in any way), and Microsoft (97,000 employees, again same goes as for Sony) [NOTE: All stats were pulled from the Wikipedia pages of the respective companies and may not be wholly up-to-date or accurate)

But those 330 employees are working on all of this and probably more:
-Maintaining and updating Steam with new features, games, sales, and administration
-Updating and adding content to TF2, Left 4 Dead 2, Dota 2, And CS:GO
-Working with companies to promote the move into Linux, as well as redesigning Steam and all their back catalog of games to be fully compatible with Linux
-doing research into hardware manufacture, virtual reality, controllers, and operating systems
-Actually MAKING and soon to be releasing new consoles, controllers, and operating systems, as well as several new features for Steam proper
-Making new games

Also, Steam is privately owned so they have no shareholders to be accountable to, and no corporate structure. Employees can literally decide to work on almost any project they want to as long as they can justify why the project is good for the company. So yeah, those 330 employees are going a LONG way and I highly doubt ANY of them are just twiddling their thumbs and swimming in pools of money not doing anything productive. Valve OWNS the PC market almost completely, and they've got their eyes on the console market too.

 

[Psychobabble]

So Valve's Steam Machines and SteamOS are coming next year, I've heard praise and some vitriolic comments about them too. Valve has gone on record saying they have no plans for exclusive games for SteamOS, so that means no Half life 3 to make you buy one. I want to know what the average gamer plans to do once they are released.

Personally, I am pretty interested in this. I am a PC gamer who has been using my 4 year old laptop (macbook pro with windows 7 bootcamp) for gaming for much of the last generation, and I am due for an upgrade of some kind. I am considering getting a high end one, depending on pricing.

I am also really interested in the Steam Controller, as I hate gaming with those chincy thumbsticks on Xbox and PS controllers, I just can't aim properly (because I am inept with them).

Only thing I'm interested in is the Steam OS. If it means more games will be developed natively to Linux that's a great thing for me as I'm sick of giving Microsuck money and already use Ubuntu for most of my computing needs except for gaming. Other than that I have no need to buy a steam box as I am quite happy gaming in my computer room on my highend PC. I have zero interest in slobbing about on my couch while I do so. And I could also give a shit about the steam controller. It looks like a lazy couch potato compromise for doing the same thing I can already do better with a keyboard and mouse.

 

[insertcleverphrase]

That's a total of three games. Two if your not counting DOTA2 which has been in beta since forever.

That's still a pretty sad track record. They have a fuck ton of people at Valve. Especially with how big Steam is. I'm fairly certain they have a pretty decent size of people twiddling their thumbs in the proverbial sense wondering if they are going to do anything major.
You cannot tell me that in a studio that big, you can't come out with even a couple more one shot games in that time frame.


Valve has teased us for years about HL3. To the point where I'm not interested in it anymore. I'm fairly certain they aren't doing a HL3 anything.

They have always worked on this type of schedule... this is why people say valvetime. Nothing is new about them being slow at game development, that's all I'm sayin'.

 

[Dragonbums]

That's a total of three games. Two if your not counting DOTA2 which has been in beta since forever.

That's still a pretty sad track record. They have a fuck ton of people at Valve. Especially with how big Steam is. I'm fairly certain they have a pretty decent size of people twiddling their thumbs in the proverbial sense wondering if they are going to do anything major.
You cannot tell me that in a studio that big, you can't come out with even a couple more one shot games in that time frame.


Valve has teased us for years about HL3. To the point where I'm not interested in it anymore. I'm fairly certain they aren't doing a HL3 anything.

They have always worked on this type of schedule... this is why people say valvetime. Nothing is new about them being slow at game development, that's all I'm sayin'.

Which is what always annoyed me about Valve.

Any other studio that pulled something like this would get chewed out. Yet Valve can dangle the promise of HL3 in front of our faces for 6 years and we grovel at their feet like dogs.

"Valve time" should not excuse the fact that they haven't done much of anything in terms of videogames in years. Whether it be new IP's or continuing an existing one.

 

[insertcleverphrase]

snip

Which is what always annoyed me about Valve.


Any other studio that pulled something like this would get chewed out. Yet Valve can dangle the promise of HL3 in front of our faces for 6 years and we grovel at their feet like dogs.

"Valve time" should not excuse the fact that they haven't done much of anything in terms of videogames in years. Whether it be new IP's or continuing an existing one.

I personally think that their long schedule does result in highly polished games, however, in terms of HL3, I agree with you, its taken WAY too long. I am fairly certain that they reset the development of it and started over from scratch at least once.

Edit: Well Steam is their major 'product' so you cant blame them spending most of their dev time on it. Regardless of whatever you might have to say about steam or Valve, they have done alot for multi-platform-gaming in the past few years, releasing steam for macOSX, Linux, and porting the Steam engine and all of their games over to both. They haven't just been sitting around with their thumbs up their asses.

 

[insertcleverphrase]

I remember 4 years ago I couldn't game worth an asshat on my Imac, i always used my old Windows desktop (dispite my mac being more powerful). Since the release of Steam for OSX... that has all changed, the last games I played on windows were Skyrim and Bioshock Infinite, and Bioshock infinite has since released for OSX...

 

[Maximum Bert]

That's a total of three games. Two if your not counting DOTA2 which has been in beta since forever.

That's still a pretty sad track record. They have a fuck ton of people at Valve. Especially with how big Steam is. I'm fairly certain they have a pretty decent size of people twiddling their thumbs in the proverbial sense wondering if they are going to do anything major.
You cannot tell me that in a studio that big, you can't come out with even a couple more one shot games in that time frame.


Valve has teased us for years about HL3. To the point where I'm not interested in it anymore. I'm fairly certain they aren't doing a HL3 anything.

They have always worked on this type of schedule... this is why people say valvetime. Nothing is new about them being slow at game development, that's all I'm sayin'.

Which is what always annoyed me about Valve.

Any other studio that pulled something like this would get chewed out. Yet Valve can dangle the promise of HL3 in front of our faces for 6 years and we grovel at their feet like dogs.

"Valve time" should not excuse the fact that they haven't done much of anything in terms of videogames in years. Whether it be new IP's or continuing an existing one.

I have always found it weird that they apparently have such much room for creativity and pretty much all we get is FPS type game from them with a couple of exceptions and most of their games are based on mods or actually originate outside the company before being brought in by Valve because apparently they cant think of any original (or any it seems) ideas within their own structure.

OT: Not really interested in the Steam machine really cant see it will do anything for me that I cant do already but if they can help establish Linux as a viable alternative to Windows that will be a good thing.

 

[lacktheknack]

Which is what always annoyed me about Valve.

Any other studio that pulled something like this would get chewed out. Yet Valve can dangle the promise of HL3 in front of our faces for 6 years and we grovel at their feet like dogs.

"Valve time" should not excuse the fact that they haven't done much of anything in terms of videogames in years. Whether it be new IP's or continuing an existing one.

They've released a new game every single year since Half Life, except 2002.

They've released Portal 2, Left 4 Dead AND Left 4 Dead 2, Alien Swarm, Counter-Strike Global Offensive and DOTA 2 in the last five years.

Don't let your disappointment over the lack of one specific game make you say patently ridiculous things.

 

[Nicholas Chandler-Yates]

^^I forgot about Alean Swarm. and yes valve does get a lot of ideas from people outside the company, both portal and portal two were made this way. HOWEVER, they don't just buy the idea from them like MS and apple have been doing for years, they bring those students who came up with an awesome idea on board and hire them to be devs with Valve.

I remember 4 years ago I couldn't game worth an asshat on my Imac, i always used my old Windows desktop (dispite my mac being more powerful). Since the release of Steam for OSX... that has all changed, the last games I played on windows were Skyrim and Bioshock Infinite, and Bioshock infinite has since released for OSX...

I noticed the same thing, I used to game on my Bootcamp exclusively, then suddenly steam for OSX was released and i could play valve games on mac. then a couple years on i just hardly ever boot to windows anymore, it seems that all the games i really care about are released for mac too. (although spec ops: the line was horribly optimized form mac, although its possible it was just horribly optimized for PC in general.)

Edit: except Skyrim, Skyrim is all I boot to windows for anymore.

 

[Nicholas Chandler-Yates]

I have always found it weird that they apparently have such much room for creativity and pretty much all we get is FPS type game from them with a couple of exceptions and most of their games are based on mods or actually originate outside the company before being brought in by Valve because apparently they cant think of any original (or any it seems) ideas within their own structure.

Well their in-house game engine is an FPS engine, so it isn't really that surprising, that said, can you call DOTA 2, Portal or Alien Swarm FPSs? The only FPS's they've made are Counterstrike, Halflife and Left4Dead. Thats three franchises. (admittedly 3 of their 4 biggest, the other being Portal) and Half-life has always been a bastion of first person puzzles as well.

 

[Yopaz]

At the risk of sounding like an idiot, apart from Steam OS (which i assume i can put on my current pc) i really dont see whats so special about Steam Machines.

Design and size mostly. It's a prebuilt computer with SteamOS already installed for those who want to have a gaming PC that's built to function a lot like a console. So for the most part it's no different than your gaming PC.

Nah, nothing at all.

I don't like the idea of being in hock to Steam for ALL my PC gaming...

But... you aren't locked to Steam in any way. Don't like SteamOS? Install Windows XP/Vista/7/8/Debian/Ubuntu/Mepis/Suse/Gentoo or any other OS you might like better. SteamOS is installed on it, that doesn't mean you're locked to Steam. That's one of the selling points of it all.

OT: Personally I am torn between poll options. Right now there's nothing I can't already do with my PC and consoles so I went with that option. However I do want to test out the controller, I do see a use for it as a computer to keep at my mom's house for the summer and I will most likely install SteamOS to see how it runs. We'll see how things turn out.

 

[Denamic]

Not much to me personally, but it does mean a shift to the better in the market is probable.

 

[Yopaz]

I have always found it weird that they apparently have such much room for creativity and pretty much all we get is FPS type game from them with a couple of exceptions and most of their games are based on mods or actually originate outside the company before being brought in by Valve because apparently they cant think of any original (or any it seems) ideas within their own structure.

Well their in-house game engine is an FPS engine, so it isn't really that surprising, that said, can you call DOTA 2, Portal or Alien Swarm FPSs? The only FPS's they've made are Counterstrike, Halflife and Left4Dead. Thats three franchises. (admittedly 3 of their 4 biggest, the other being Portal) and Half-life has always been a bastion of first person puzzles as well.

What does Portal, Alien Swarm and Dota have in common?

They are all mods or based mods. They were all started by people who weren't working for Valve who got hired because Valve liked what they were doing. So if you read Bert's entire post rather than the part about fps you'll see that you provide 3 examples that prove his point.

 

[Dragonbums]

They've released a new game every single year since Half Life, except 2002.

They've released Portal 2, Left 4 Dead AND Left 4 Dead 2, Alien Swarm, Counter-Strike Global Offensive and DOTA 2 in the last five years.

So...that's like 3 games from their 5 franchises. One new game I never heard of, and a game that's been playable to the general public for forever and just now got out of beta. Yes. Solid track record.

Portal 2 came out almost 4 years ago.

L4D2 came out 6 years ago.

Counter-Strke Global Offensive is the only game that came out last year.

Dota 2 has been around since 2011 as a very public beta testing.

So...that's two games that they actually released last year. with everything else being done 4-5 years ago. Yeah, that's not a new game every year.

Don't let your disappointment over the lack of one specific game make you say patently ridiculous things.

except I specifically stated that I don't care for Half Life 3.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I have always found it weird that they apparently have such much room for creativity and pretty much all we get is FPS type game from them with a couple of exceptions and most of their games are based on mods or actually originate outside the company before being brought in by Valve because apparently they cant think of any original (or any it seems) ideas within their own structure.

Well their in-house game engine is an FPS engine, so it isn't really that surprising, that said, can you call DOTA 2, Portal or Alien Swarm FPSs? The only FPS's they've made are Counterstrike, Halflife and Left4Dead. Thats three franchises. (admittedly 3 of their 4 biggest, the other being Portal) and Half-life has always been a bastion of first person puzzles as well.

I did say a couple of exceptions and DOTA2 was based off the DOTA mod and the main guy was hired from outside the company while Portal is still in a FP perspective (but more a puzzle shooter) however it to was based on an idea that originated outside the company Narbacular Drop I think it was called and then Valve bought them aboard to develop it.

Alien swarm I am not familiar with but I just looked it up and lo and behold its based on a mod of UT2004 and they were hired by Valve during development so I stand by my saying that Valve internally come up with very little in fact apart from Half Life (and the sequel) I dont think they have come up with anything themselves.

Also I know that the steam engine is mainly suited for FP type games still dosent excuse why we get so little originality in ideas or concept from a place that allows such free reign in what projects to pursue. Then again maybe thats the problem without any incentive to produce why bother?