Gabe Newell says Linux is the future of gaming

[threadysparrow]

At Linuxcon, Gabe Newell talked about his vision for gaming on Linux. He reasons that Linux is the future because of a few reasons. I have the youtube video here but I would like to give you my thoughts about it also.

 

First, Linux is more open ended. The more you close a system, the harder it is for developers to create for that system mainly due to the money involved in licensing and approval.

 

Secondly, he says that open environments allow for more innovation. I think that this may be due to the human nature of closed, proprietary systems. Think about it, pretend you were the head of Microsoft or Apple. If you had the power over developers to approve or deny their game on your system, you might get lazy. You have no legitimate competition, so of course you are not going to be investing heavily in development, and of course you are not going to spend a dime extra to get more developers and gamers to your system. You're freaking Microsoft! You already have the majority.

 

The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 were closed systems. They had a lot of the market. They knew that the only good competition was from the PC side and most people who don't already have an interest in computers are not going to suddenly build their own computer just for gaming. Now look at how long the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 lasted. Only until recently did people notice how outdated their systems were. Then only after that, did they decide to put out a new system.

 

Linux can only get more market share if they decide to go open. They cannot compete with Microsoft and Apple unless they make it so easy to develop for their system that it becomes too frustrating for developers to even try to go to Microsoft or Apple.

 

This is what I take from what Gabe Newell said. These are a few links and a youtube video about it.

 

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/09/gabe-newell-linux-is-the-future-of-gaming-new-hardware-coming-soon/

 

[Henry]

Coming from the guy saying that Windows 8 is "bad" for gaming...

 

Ya no, Windows is the future of gaming.

[mrconan]

I wish gaming would be possible on linux... sadly dont think its gonna happen for a while

[xXxYOLOxSWAGxXx_420BlazeIt]

I very much doubt Linux will be any use for gaming for people with AMD graphics cards until AMD produce some good drivers comparable to their windows versions. I even have trouble using 3 screens in Ubuntu, and there is no eyefinity support yet.

[xXxYOLOxSWAGxXx_420BlazeIt]

Coming from the guy saying that Windows 8 is "bad" for gaming...

 

Ya no, Windows is the future of gaming.

Maybe Gabe meant that from the perspective of developers and not the consumer.

[codytappen]

The issue that has to be overcome is market share; console developers just won't port to Linux because it costs more than it's worth. If Linux is able to garner a larger desktop market share then it will have no problem becoming the future of PC gaming (and the PC as a whole hopefully). The only reason I use Windows is because I can't get play all my games at a moments notice on it (well that, familiarity, driver support, and other software support). To reiterate, if Linux can get a larger market share all it's problems will be fixed, and I will jump ship (Windows).

[Henry]

Maybe Gabe meant that from the perspective of developers and not the consumer.

Im pretty darn sure its exactly the same as windows 7 for a developer. Or at least pretty similar. Main thing is the UI that changed.

[DirkaFat]

Maybe Gabe meant that from the perspective of developers and not the consumer.

What are the developers without their consumers?

[Ookami]

Yeah also some say that Gabe and peeps at Valve learned to count to 3...

 

 

He saying this since the RC versions of 8...

[Mooshi]

It's gonna take a lot more than "Linux can game guise!!!!" to convince people to switch platforms. No matter how good WINE is at some programs, it's not natively running. Because Linux is open source, companies like Adobe have no incentive to have native versions of their software, not even some smaller niche software like Paint Tool Sai - it's windows only. Plus audio driver problems seems to be a common problem with Linux. (It's why I haven't switched to Mint), There are too many beloved Windows only software out there and no Gimp doesn't cut it.

[Humbug]

Microsoft is inc great position to push the pc as a gaming platform using windows. But in reality they are just all caught up with xbox and they Probably see pc gaming as competition. The irony. This is so prevalent that they can't even release halo games on their own OS- windows.

[Mooshi]

WINE is terrible. Its only usable 'out of the box' for the most basic applications. while its true that you CAN get games to work pretty well under WINE/PlayOnLinux but the performance overhead is a monster and even then there is a LOT of fiddling about to make things work. Mostly when I'm in Linux i just use Linux native software. 

 

If Linux was more unified and had a friendlier reputation I'm sure many more developers would come to the platform. Developers make software so people will buy it, if they don't support a popular OS they sell less copies, so logically if Vavlve get enough people using Steam on Linux and they can prove it then more developers will release software.

 

If Linux had native software of everything I used, I wouldn't give Microsoft the time of day. I think the majority only tolerate Microsoft because of software/games and not because they actually love it.

 

PS: Skype completely SUCKS on Linux. Terrible interface and it's no where near as good as the one for Windows.

[Mooshi]

Dude. I feel your pain! 

 

I have everything i need in linux apart from gaming. for me i get stuck in windows because i never know when i may want to hit GW2 for half hour. 

 

I mean Windows 7 is fine, but at the same time, it's still finicky at times where it doesn't make sense. Event Viewer is also useless since the majority of messages in mine were pointless ones that weren't /real/ problems with my system. I know my connection to things failed because I actively put my computer into sleep mode, you can calm down, Microsoft.

[GoodBytes]

Developing for Linux is not easy.

-> No support

-> Linux developers are really expensive, and finding those with knowledge in gaming are even more so, as they are extremely rare, and few wants to even work at a game company.

-> Supporting all the different distro, and provide tech support will be a huge challenging feet, that is very costly.

-> It must be assumed that every users will have a different GUI, let alone xWindows. So giving supporting is near impossible.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Linux entire community needs to change, and stop focusing for a moment on the back end of Linux, and focus on the front end: user experience. Make the OS more inviting, welcoming, easier to use. Right now, it looks like an amateurish did the whole GUI's for each xWindows environment, and as soon as you do ""advance"" stuff, it becomes apparently that it's over complicated, for nothing, in the name of flexibility. Oh and it needs focus. Stop pleasing everyone and their dog, by blasting everything with useless options, and take stand. You can't please everyone.

[rashdanml]

WINE is terrible. 

Look up the apps in the WineDB. You'd be surprised how many games have a Gold rating or above. Gold and above only have minor issues, which frankly, exist in Windows too. Example: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=24749 Playonlinux actually does an acceptable job for basic functionality, and Crossover does even better. 

 

Supporting many distributions isn't as problematic as people imagine it to be. A lot of them are based on a select few. Debian spawned Ubuntu, Ubuntu spawned many others. Crunchbang (very popular these days) is based on Debian. By developing for Ubuntu, Valve is effectively targeting all distributions that are both based on Ubuntu and distributions that inspired Ubuntu. Most other distributions only require minor changes (usually dependencies) to work fine. The exceptions may be Arch, Gentoo and Slackware and some of the more advanced distributions, but the folks who use it are tech-savvy enough to do it themselves. In fact, Steam was officially added to the Arch repository by a community developer, and can be easily installed by running a single command. 

 

The nature of Linux makes it so that just about anyone can support hardware through open-source drivers - which is what Valve is doing. They're working with nVidia and AMD to get the drivers up and running properly, as well as working on OpenGL optimizations. As for Console developers not supporting Linux: CryEngine and Unreal 4 have native Linux ports; Source and Source 2.0 are also natively running on Linux, and both are cross-platform. These two engines cover a large number of games on PC and Console (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games), so porting back and forth between the two should be simple - assuming the porting tools work well. That's something else Valve is working on - porting to OpenGL. If that process is perfected, game code will only really require minor optimizations to work well on Linux. 

 

Valve's Steambox concept will help it further, since it'll be running a Linux OS. I'd be willing to bet they'll release the OS as a standalone disc for gamers to install it themselves, which will make a lot of sense. There's also a good number of titles (mostly indie, almost all Source titles) running natively on Linux. 

 

As an aside: Metro: Last Light is going to release on Linux, so I'd also expect Metro 2033 to come shortly after. Frostbite engine has an OS X version, which is a stone's throw away from Linux. 

 

Honestly, I'd expect the key shifting in trends would be for developers to start using OpenGL - allowing better cross-platform support. Current-gen consoles might be the only challenge for OpenGL, next-gen consoles shouldn't be as problematic. OpenGL would reduce development costs significantly too (DirectX licensing is pricey), maybe even leading to less expensive games for consumers. 

[Slaeowulf]

The problem is simple, Windows has monopolised the market. 99% of "average" users would even consider switching to Linux. It won't happen this decade, I can assure you.