The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

[Destroid]

How many of those games were actually developed in house? A lot of Valve games in recent years have been acquisitions.

 

[Metro]

Pretty much all of their games have been acquisitions: Team Fortress, L4D, Portal, DOTA2 (sort of). The megabucks they make from Steam = zero pressure to produce anything. Next thing they release will probably be L4D3 or perhaps some card game out of left field to compete with Hearthstone.

 

[Zed]

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=369554849

 

[Outlander]

^ Looks like Santa more than GabeN.

And before someone goes 'oh, wait..' no, Santa doesn't make you pay for the things in his sack

 

[Spectacle]

I wonder what the fuck people at Valve actually do all day? It must get depressing to work without ever producing anything, no matter how cushy the working conditions are.

 

[Caim]

I wonder what the fuck people at Valve actually do all day? It must get depressing to work without ever producing anything, no matter how cushy the working conditions are.

 

[Zed]

^ Looks like Santa more than GabeN.

And before someone goes 'oh, wait..' no, Santa doesn't male you pay for the things in his sack

what was funny was the spamming of ascii-dicks in comments but it seems they've removed them now

 

[Metro]

I wonder what the fuck people at Valve actually do all day? It must get depressing to work without ever producing anything, no matter how cushy the working conditions are.

They work on shit like SteamOS and Steam Controller. Gabe is sort of like the Howard Hughes of PC gaming. Piles of money, lots of crazy ideas and research but very little to show for it in terms of results (I'm talking results to the consumer base not lining his own pocket).

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Gaben cherishes every erection he causes and keeps them close to his heart.

 

[Morgoth]

http://www.notoperator.com/2015/01/06/steam-machines-officially-launch-2015/

Valve has been talking about their Steam OS platform since 2013, we discussed it at length here. At CES 2014, it was the talk of the town, with many OEMs promising to release Steam Machines (defined as gaming PCs designed for living room use running Steam OS and utilizing the as yet unreleased Steam Controller) within the coming months after CES.

Later in 2014, it turned out that Valve had not yet finalized its controller design nor had it finished the Steam OS; as of the time of this writing, Steam OS is still in beta. Many system builders opted to release their systems as regular gaming PCs designed for living room use, and they opted to run Windows and include Steam with Big Picture mode enabled, along with a bundled Xbox 360 controller.

However, despite silence from Valve over the recent months, it has been confirmed by multiple sources that Steam Machines will have an official launch at GDC (the Game Developers Conference) in early March of 2015. The Steam Controller design has been finalized, and Steam OS is apparently ready to come out of beta. Multiple PC boutique builders are already ready to launch a variety of products designed from the ground up as Steam Machines.

What this means for Microsoft is that they’ll have some new competition to face when Windows 10 comes out later this year. Valve is working quickly to bring games to Linux systems such as Steam OS, and PC builders might opt to go for Steam OS for gaming focused PCs in order to save money by not having to purchase a Windows license.

This is also an issue for Microsoft on the hardware front, as many of the Steam Machines will aim for a $500 price point, designed to compete with the Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox One.

Whether Valve will be successful in pushing Steam Machines is yet to be determined, but while everyone expected 2014 to be the year of Steam Machines and Steam OS, it obviously didn’t happen, but 2015 is now confirmed.

We don’t have any details yet on the finalized Steam Controller design, but we’ll update this article as soon as we do (although it might unfortunately not be until official release at GDC).

 

[Outlander]

Someone should shop GabeN's face onto an undertaker, burying Sony and Microsoft

 

[Metro]

A bit premature there. Have to see if these things actually sell. Never mind that the PS4's and XBONE's have already been out so most people who really want one already own one. For $500 you'll get a low to mid tier PC in a box that isn't noticeably better than a console.

 

[tuluse]

I put steamos on an old PC to kick it around and see how well it works.

If Valve wants to compete with consoles, they really need to step it up on the media front. There needs to be Netflix, Amazon, ESPN, HBO, etc apps available through Steam and compatible with the big picture interface. My current solution where I have XBMC installed and then run a hacked netflix script through it is not going to fly for consumers. On top of that if you are watching a TV show or movie long enough that the controller turns off, turning it back on doesn't re-register the controller with the app you're using (this includes games). You have to use a keyboard to get control of the system back.

In general, using another linux distro with steam as another app works better than SteamOS does.

 

[OSK]

I really hope Steam Machines take off. Not because I give a shit about Steam Machines, Steam OS or the controller, but because of the increased Linux support from both hardware and software developers. I now have 71 Linux games in Steam (and 11 on GOG) and not all of them are bundle shit!

 

[Jick Magger]

 

[omega21]

Pretty ballsy play, cutting the OS makers out of the loop. I still wonder why he wants to do this, is he really that scared that they will make it troublesome for the Steam application?

 

[Metro]

I still wonder why he wants to do this, is he really that scared that they will make it troublesome for the Steam application?

Hardly. The man is a billionaire. Taking on Microsoft is more of an ego thing/challenge than anything else. Gotta have something to motivate you.

 

[Turjan]

Pretty ballsy play, cutting the OS makers out of the loop. I still wonder why he wants to do this, is he really that scared that they will make it troublesome for the Steam application?

People seem to have forgotten that, when Windows 8 was about to come out, it looked for a while as if Microsoft wanted to close Windows up and allow games only via their own app store. I guess that was a wake-up call for Valve, even if it turned out to be not true.

 

[tuluse]

People seem to have forgotten that, when Windows 8 was about to come out, it looked for a while as if Microsoft wanted to close Windows up and allow games only via their own app store. I guess that was a wake-up call for Valve, even if it turned out to be not true.

It didn't just look like it. Windows tablets are locked down like Apple. No side loading/alternate stores like Android. You're fooling yourself if you don't think MS imagines doing the same thing on desktop, and at the very least competing with other online stores.

 

[omega21]

People seem to have forgotten that, when Windows 8 was about to come out, it looked for a while as if Microsoft wanted to close Windows up and allow games only via their own app store. I guess that was a wake-up call for Valve, even if it turned out to be not true.

I remember that, but that would be counterproductive for Windows at the moment.

 

[Destroid]

A future where windows becomes another OSX and linux comes to the forefront as the open (and gaming) OS is not unpleasant.

 

[sexbad?]

yes it is

 

[Turjan]

You're fooling yourself if you don't think MS imagines doing the same thing on desktop...

I certainly won't, if that was not clear. I was defending Valve's decision to go into that direction.

yes it is

The main problem is the dependency of whole generations of games on DirectX, a Microsoft proprietory technology. A tricky problem.

 

[omega21]

Then we should play pixel art games that don't need anything more taxing than HTML5 :^)

 

[Kane]

lots of dumb ideas

fixed to mirror reality