Why Should I Care About SteamOS?

[NixiePixel]

Geekbuzz - Why Should I Care About SteamOS?

Greetings programs!
pssst...I'm the new kid on the block...hope you enjoy my show! (✿◠‿&#9696

Valve took their sweet time teasing us again with SteamOS announcements, so I waited patiently until they made their entire reveal before sending this out to you. Steam Machines, Game Streaming, Family Mode... Let's do this!

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Do you think SteamOS will succeed?

 

[TheMadPunter]

Hi Nixie, welcome to the Escapist! I think you'll like it here: great content, a highly professional yet laid-back staff, and a really cool and close-knit community. Especially since the Escapist Expo started last year, many of us have gotten to know each other IRL. What I love most about the Escapist, besides the awesome people, is that there's such a variety of content: game and movie reviews, sketch comedy, webcomics, in-depth feature articles exploring every facet of the gaming and geek world, and even a column on gaming and mental health written by professional psychologist Dr. Mark Kline (shameless plug, he's in my family; but it is actually a great column).

Incidentally, I recently discovered and subscribed to your YouTube channels (especially loved the video on media center software), so I'm excited you'll be bringing your unique background and perspective to this site. The tech world needs more women like you. So again, welcome, and I personally can't wait to see what you post in the coming months.

-Will V.

 

[Slash2x]

Great video! I have been trying to get the information about the SteamOS to all the people I know. I will be linking your video because you hit most of the points I have been pushing already.

Hehe glad to hear someone else though the crowbar was a vital point in childhood development.

 

[proghead]

NixiePixel!
...
..
.
*cough*

Erm... SteamOS, yeah. Been typing too much about that elsewhere already. You're late to the party.

 

[FPLOON]

Well, everything that I wanted to say about the SteamOS have all been said in this here video...

I thank you kindly, NixiePixel... I will share this video to all my Steam-related friends and cousins...

Also, I can't wait to see how the "construction" behind you develops... An odd thing to point out by most, but hey! It was just another thing that caught my eye the same way the Steam controller did when it was first announced...

 

[Kenneth Leider]

I am fairly excited about Steam OS as I have not bought a console since the NES. I passionately believe that software should not be locked to hardware from a single vendor, and the current trend of the OS manufacturer running the only store you can buy software from is even worse. So I'll feel a lot better when there is a GOG app for Steam OS.

Also I think that controller would be awesome for a HTPC.

 

[Vivi22]

Can you resell your games? No.

Made up for by the frequent and unbelievably good sales in my opinion, but a valid criticism nonetheless, even if they seem to be slowly moving towards changing it.

Can you use the games without the Steam DRM? No. So, freedom and openness, right?

You can't use games which implement steamworks without Steam since it's kind of necessary for them to function, but any other games that don't utilize Steamworks, or which are DRM free you can play without Steam so this statement is blatantly false.

Of course I'm happy that Linux will get some traction in gaming, but if it means that instead of Linux installers ala the Humble Bundles we only get Linux games with propietary Steam DRM bullshit, then what's the point of having an open operating system?

You assume the SteamOS will have DRM which begs the question of why would it? Steam already exists. They don't need to lock down the OS as well. The idea is simply to have a game friendly Linux distro which is clearly a good thing as I understand it. Why do you believe that it will have DRM? Is your fear based on any known facts or is it just baseless alarmist talk?

Don't rely on a company which keeps lying to your face by pretending to be a game studio while being one of the largest publishers.

How are they lying to people's faces? Moreover, you know they've released about a game a year for almost the past decade right? And that they aren't actually a publisher since they don't pay developers to develop their games or buy publishing rights?

Why should I believe you when you say they lie to people when you offer no examples and you can't even get your facts straight?

 

[Vivi22]

Try something out. Close Steam, open the folder where you have Steam and the games installed and try to run the games by running their executables directly. You'll see that the vast majority of those executables will fire up Steam, with the exception of some obscure titles which can be run directly.

So no, you can not run Steam games without their DRM.

Since there are a large number you can run without Steam your statement is objectively false. And since whether or not games run without Steam isn't up to Valve, but the developers and publishers, I'm not sure why you blame Valve alone.

I kinda doubt I could just run the L4D executable without having to run Steam.

You can't run Valve's games without Steam. I'd file that under the no shit level of obvious. And something I outright stated if you actually read my post.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying SteamOS will have some built-in DRM (that would be pointless). I'm saying that Steam and Steam games running on Steam OS will have Steam DRM. Or do you expect they won't? I don't really see Valve using Steam DRM only on Windows and not on SteamOS.

Again, we can file that under the heading of "no shit." So if your complaint with SteamOS is that Steam will still have DRM I'm not sure what the hell your problem actually is. Because apparently it's not with SteamOS, but you seem to be deferring some of that anger to it anyway.

But I do want the ability to just copy my game folder/installer anywhere I want and run it on another machine without restrictions. Like games from GOG.com or Humble Bundle. Steam does not provide that and will not provide that on SteamOS. I'll eat my hat if they will.

Existence of DRM free games on Steam aside, you already can copy over your game files and simply log into your Steam account from another computer to play them. And you can do it on as many machines as you want. And with offline mode, you only need to log in one time. If your problem is with the restriction of having to log in one time then fair enough, I won't say you don't have the right to be annoyed by it, and it would certainly be annoying for those without an internet connection at the time they try and play games on a new machine. But as restrictions go, that's pretty damn generous compared to the rest of the industry. And compared to other industries it might as well be unrestricted.

I'm not alarming anyone, I'm just reminding that Valve is a business and what they do is to expand their user base. If they get Steam into the living rooms, they'll sell more games. They're not doing it because they love Linux and freedom so much. If they would, Steam wouldn't be so restrictive.

So you're reminding everyone that Valve is a business that wants to make money. Okay, but that's not something anyone's really forgotten. But Steam is hardly that restrictive, and Valve has a habit of being quite generous with their customers as their path to making a shit ton of money, so where's the problem? Seems like you're making a mountain out of a mole hill.

BTW Linux is already an extremely game-friendly OS. Just look how many Windows-only games have Linux dedicated servers. SteamOS itself isn't necessary for games, gaming or gamers.

No it's not. Most games run on either Direct X which Linux can't support even if developers wanted it to, and the games that don't typically run on specialized variants of OpenGL made for consoles, and would need to be ported to run natively in Linux. But since Linux has such a small market share almost no companies see the value in it except for indies, and now Valve. It may be gaming friendly in the sense that its an open OS, but without a major push from a company like Valve onto Linux, gaming on Linux is going absolutely no where. Certainly not anywhere that's user friendly for the majority of gamers.

It may popularize Linux-based OS's somewhat, but I'm predicting it's actually gonna hamper Linux games because it's going to force the Steam DRM down everyone's throat like it does on Windows.

See, most people don't mind Steam's DRM because it isn't half as bad as you're acting like it is. But more importantly, the biggest barrier to Linux making it as a gaming platform is its lack of popularity. But if Valve can make a solid push into that space and grow that market, it will be good for all developers and Linux users. Not just people using Steam or SteamOS. Your view on this situation strikes me as remarkably short sighted.

Well, look at the Steam store and count how many of the published games are in-house Valve titles. Valve makes the majority of money from selling games made by other studios.

Steam is a digital store front. Valve aren't publishers.

I don't know how that is not a publisher business. (We can also call it retailer or distribution business if the word 'publisher' is such an issue.)

The word publisher is the issue here since you don't seem to know what a game publisher does.

Furthermore, apart from the HL series, every single game Valve has released on their own was created by teams absorbed by Valve (TF, CS, DOD, Portal, L4D, AS and sequels). Again, I don't see how that is much different from publishers absorbing whole gaming studios.

You mean Valve hires talented developers and makes awesome games with them? Colour me not the least bit shocked.

And don't forget that the publishing business doesn't necessarily mean they're taking the copyrights or financing the game. As an example, EA was a publisher of the Windows versions of Half-Life 2 and the Orange box and of course they didn't finance those games.

Again, you don't seem to know what a publisher does. The majority of their business is to help fund game development and assist in getting distribution to stores. They do not actually own the store fronts that sell the games typically. EA published The Orange Box by providing the manufacturing facilities to print the discs and the infrastructure to get the discs to stores because Valve doesn't have that sort of ability on their own. They didn't set up their own stores to sell them though.

By the same token, Valve doesn't publish games by doing either of those things. In fact, other publishers come to them on behalf of developers more often than not to make the deals which get their games onto Steam. Steam is just the seller. The Publishers are the ones handling the business side of things to get it on Steam and in retail stores.

Valve will very rarely seek out developers with games their interested in and offer to put it on Steam, bypassing the need for that developer to have a publisher, but in that case they're basically just self publishing.

But regardless, that doesn't take away from the fact that Valve are still a game developer. And a damn successful one. Hell, I'm not even sure why you brought it up in the first place since it's fairly irrelevant to the topic at hand.

I'm trying to be reasonable, though I can see why I may seem radical. Hopefully you'll see at least some of my points as valid.

I'm sorry, but most of your points are baseless or near to it.

 

[Billy D Williams]

[You'll see that the vast majority of those executables will fire up Steam, with the exception of some obscure titles which can be run directly.

*GASP* SO INTRUSIVE!

Anyways, so ya. Steam OS. In terms of how much potential it has, well it has the potential to completely change the face of gaming. If Steam OS catches on it will in turn make Sony and Microsoft have to actually engage in competition and not rely on dumbass fanboys who will buy whatever their favorite company pushes them (although admittedly there has been some competition between them recently, but it mostly amounts to Microsoft being stupid as hell and Sony saying "Look at how they're being stupid as hell, well at least we aren't!"). So ya, the thought of Steam OS is a very welcome one, I like the idea of a being able to

A. Buy a console that has amazing sales on it all the time, can have an OS installed onto it and hopefully is competitive in price and power to current generation consoles and

B. Be able to build a gaming PC and not have to pay an extra $100 for Windows (also, fuck you Microsoft).

All in all, Valve...

 

[MorganL4]

So like everyone else I seem to be more interested in the fact that Nixie has come to the Escapist than I am in discussing the topic she has put forward to us. But my thoughts on Steam OS....

VALVE!!!! Y U NO MAKE FOR PC????????

 

[NixiePixel]

Wow. Can I just say I'm so happy right now?

You see, for those unaware, I hail from Youtube [http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF20FF28036F3759A] and have been doing this sorta' thing for going on 5 years. Nothing against my Youtube friends, they're cool. As for the other trolls lurking on the overpopulated plains of Youtubersville, well.. I can only see so many "ROFLCOPTERS" and "lulz" in one post before going temporarily insane.

Seeing these many complete sentences (hell, words with more than one syllable) is enough to make my gramatically-correct heart beat. I should be posting videos every Tuesday - Glad to be here! ^.^


~ Nixie Pixel ~
ESC newbie. Recovering misanthropist.


Talk nerdy to me on:
My Facebook [http://facebook.com/nixiepixel]
Google + [http://bit.ly/nixgoogleplus]
@nixiepixel [http://twitter.com/nixiepixel]

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

(Too long to quote)

Okay again...

1) I already stated my 'problem' with Steam OS. Valve is trying to propagate Linux as an open, free platform, yet they riddle it with Steam DRM. And that is exactly my problem. If you want to make a free, open platform, don't push your DRM shit down the same hole. Steam and Linux don't mix, it's like water and oil. I just don't see the point of an open operating system created solely for the purpose of running a closed, restrictive platform.

2) The 'No shit Sherlock' about Steam containing DRM actually is my problem too. I don't accept Ubisoft's DRM, I don't accept EA's Origin, I don't accept SecuROM and I don't accept Steam. I want more service like GOG.com and Humble Bundle where I can download the installer and run it any time on anything without restrictions. Steam may be the least bad among the terrible services but it's still bad.

3) No, there's not a 'large number' of games able to run without the Steam client. They're a rare exception, it's just a couple of DOS games such as Doom. Maybe they couldn't figure out how to mix the DOSBox wrapper and Steam wrapper. Pretty much every game on Steam requires running the Steam client.

4) I don't know if it's the developers' choice whether to make the Steam client mandatory on their games or not. If it's not, I'll blame both. If it is, I'll keep blaming Valve for being monopolistic, restrictive and DRM-happy.

5) Logging into Steam from any machine where I already installed Steam is as far from 'being able to transfer my game to any machine' as possible.

And yes, I do insist that Steam is bad and restrictive. I'm not going to go into too much detail... There's enough about it on the internet already. If you don't find it that restrictive, well fine, but not everyone has to be so tolerant.

Just a sidenote: when I buy Steam keys from Humble Bundle, I save the Steam activation confirmation. At some point, they changed 'Thank you for your purchase' to 'Thank you for your subscription'. No, you don't own your games on Steam and I don't like where this is going.

In short: Steam = piece of crap and therefore by extension SteamOS = piece of crap because SteamOS only exists to sell more Steam games.

More about Linux: Actually Linux could run DirectX just fine just like it can run pretty much any other API in existence. The only fact that hinders this is that it's a closed platform so it's difficult to implement. Ask Microsoft to open DirectX and we could run all the Windows games on Linux perfectly natively within a month. Probably better.

In fact even as it is now, the majority of DirectX works on Linux just fine via Wine, which btw is not an emulation, it's actually directly supporting the API on Linux.

So final word - I would welcome a push towards gaming on Linux, if it wasn't in a way that's the complete antithesis of what Linux is about (openness and freedom).

Just a heads up, most media purchased now a days is a license and if it has DRM your not allowed to break it to make a copy. You go on about how great open source is yet support games that are most likely not open on humble indie bundle. Even in the 80's PC games has had some form of DRM, hell even if it didn't if you take apart some games you can find messages from the devs telling you that you are evil and a thief from old PC games of the 80's. And yes Valve isn't wrong when they said Linux is open and free, and to answer why they are using it. Because they can change it for their needs as long as they follow the GNU licensing, we have had enterprise flavors of linux that you have to buy. It's the same reason why Google used Linux to make Android, it's easy to use as a jumping off point.

 

[Adultism]

Valve is the best gaming company out there PC master race.

Also welcome to the forums, but yeah overall good staff and hard workers except for Gabe.

 

[lacktheknack]

So like everyone else I seem to be more interested in the fact that Nixie has come to the Escapist than I am in discussing the topic she has put forward to us. But my thoughts on Steam OS....

VALVE!!!! Y U NO MAKE FOR PC????????

Wat.

Like... actually wat.

Can... can you please explain what you're asking? As is, it appears that you're asking the equivalent of why Alienware isn't supporting Intel products, even though it is...

OT: I quite liked the video. Welcome to the Escapist!

 

[MorganL4]

So like everyone else I seem to be more interested in the fact that Nixie has come to the Escapist than I am in discussing the topic she has put forward to us. But my thoughts on Steam OS....

VALVE!!!! Y U NO MAKE FOR PC????????

Wat.

Like... actually wat.

Can... can you please explain what you're asking? As is, it appears that you're asking the equivalent of why Alienware isn't supporting Intel products, even though it is...

OT: I quite liked the video. Welcome to the Escapist!

Yes Valve makes games for PC, and yes Steam itself is designed for PC, but SteamOS or Steam OS (I am not sure if we are supposed to include the space or not) is designed for their steambox console thing that will be coming out... NOT a stand alone OS to be run on the PC in place of something like Windows.

 

[lacktheknack]

So like everyone else I seem to be more interested in the fact that Nixie has come to the Escapist than I am in discussing the topic she has put forward to us. But my thoughts on Steam OS....

VALVE!!!! Y U NO MAKE FOR PC????????

Wat.

Like... actually wat.

Can... can you please explain what you're asking? As is, it appears that you're asking the equivalent of why Alienware isn't supporting Intel products, even though it is...

OT: I quite liked the video. Welcome to the Escapist!

Yes Valve makes games for PC, and yes Steam itself is designed for PC, but SteamOS or Steam OS (I am not sure if we are supposed to include the space or not) is designed for their steambox console thing that will be coming out... NOT a stand alone OS to be run on the PC in place of something like Windows.

...You're literally the first person I've met that has ever come to this conclusion.

As long as it's a Linux distro, it will run on your PC in place of Windows. I'm not sure you understand what the Steam Machine even is, seeing how they're nothing but custom computers.

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/

"SteamOS will be available soon as a free download for users and as a freely licensable operating system for manufacturers."

It doesn't get much clearer than that!