Steam On Linux Now Has Over a Thousand Games Available 192
An anonymous reader writes: This week the Steam Linux client has crossed the threshold of having more than 1,000 native Linux games available while Steam in total has just under 5,000 games. This news comes while the reported Steam Linux market-share is just about 1.0%, but Valve continues brewing big plans for Linux gaming. Is 2015 the year of the Linux gaming system?
If Xorg would fix... (Score:4, Informative)
...the bug [freedesktop.org] that prevents me from having accelerated graphics in Linux, I'd be among that 1%. Until then? Reboot... reboot.... reboot... reboot...
Re:If Xorg would fix... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If Xorg would fix... (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that the OP of the bug report has only tested on nVidia binary drivers, by the look of it, and has not managed to reproduce on nouveau. Only an nVidia engineer has said that it was an X bug, nobody else, and that's hardly gospel.
Maybe it's just a cock-up in their binary driver? Who knows? And it doesn't look like an awful lot of people have the same problem.
Re:If Xorg would fix... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Multiple people experiencing the problem, an offer to assist in debugging it in any way possible, and no responses in three months. Do you find this acceptable?
Re: (Score:3)
How many of those multiple people have done what was requested in one of the very first replies - test under nouveau, where they stand a chance of debugging? None. How many tested not on Fedora, as suggested? None.
An offer to debug is only useful if people have a tiny clue what's going on. In this case, we know exactly what the problem is - there's an unshared pixmap trying to be used as a shared one.
And, as someone points out in the thread, there is NO instance of an unshared pixmap being created in th
Re: (Score:3)
That is the wrong question to ask. The right question is "why should we not blindly the believe the guy who says the bug isn't in his code?" and the answer ought to be obvious.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, we can argue about it and not exploe his suggestion. I'm sure that will get it fixed quickly.
Oh, and i'm pretty sure he explained the problem which has to do with drawing two frames at the same time or something like that unless there is a new problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure if trolling or being funny. You succeed at both.
Re: (Score:2)
That is a lot of work just to play a game. For us people with lives outside computers, you are better off rebooting to windows and play the freaking game.
Re: (Score:2)
If it were me, I would have just bought a proper laptop for the purpose to begin with. I'm not sure I would go for this Optimus stuff even if I were running Windows. It all seems like a very bad hack.
You can make things easier for yourself if you really want to.
Re: (Score:2)
1) A second user reported the exact same problem.
2) There are many similar problems across the net
3) The engineer's response is to ask if it can be reproduced with noveau and say that they can't understand how it could happen. I replied. And got no response. And no response. And no response. Three months later, no response.
4) The NVIDIA people's response was much more convincing that it's an Xorg problem than Xorg's "I don't know how that could happen" response.
5) I fully expected a lot of "pass the buck" b
Year of the... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, like that is going to happen. Once they realize there is no money in linux games, that will be the end of that.
*PS4 is not dying (Score:2)
Is there money in FreeBSD games? Because the PlayStation 4 runs Orbis OS, based on FreeBSD.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
outdated by November 2015
LOL, you didn't even read the specs did you? 6th gen intel processor. Not haswell. Not new 5th gen broadwell. 6th gen skylake. If anything, it's so cutting edge, I'd worry about it shipping in time for xmas given Intel's lousy track record with broadwell.
Also, 970m isn't going anywhere any time soon. It's going to be early/mid 2016 at the soonest before Pascal GPUs ship out of nvidia.
Also(!) Zotac tends to ship barebones systems in addition to full systems. Don't like the RAM/disk provided? Get a barebones
Re: (Score:2)
When they first announced it, I was excited. But the most details that come out, the less interest I have.
Re: (Score:3)
trackballs and wireless keyboards allow the best of both worlds.
Because honestly after sitting at a desk for 8 hours at work, sitting at a desk when I get home just seems to blur the line between recreation and work a bit too much.
It will never be the year of Linux Gaming. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just like the year of Networking it will never happen. If it happens it will just keep creeping up until you notice it is everywhere and then look back and wonder when was the year of X.
Re: (Score:2)
IE. thin client.
Where have you been that you missed that creeping up every couple years?
Re: (Score:2)
I think they called it the year of the network...
It was a good long time ago but their was a time when networking was going to be the big thing...
And they where right but not right then.
Redolent of the past. (Score:2)
Sounds like it's high time for a Microsoft "exclusivity" bribe again.
Re:Redolent of the past. (Score:5, Interesting)
Exclusivity bribes are on the wane even in console gaming land. Modern development costs means that the size of the bribe needed to provide the game's publisher with confidence it can still turn a profit despite locking out part of the market is getting ludicrous. If a developer/publisher expects that a platform will generate enough sales to be worth the porting costs, the general rule these days is that they will do the port.
Valve is notoriously secretive about its sales figures, but it's increasingly clear that the Steam platform is a direct and significant competitor to Sony's Playstation platforms and, more crucially, Microsoft's Xbox platforms.
Valve are not in a happy commercial place for so long as they are dependant upon their platform sitting on top of one of their competitors' products. They had a bad scare with the Windows 8 app store (though it turned out to be essentially a false alarm on this occasion). So it's entirely unsurprising that they are encouraging alternatives to Windows.
How about "exclusive or you can't sell it at all"? (Score:2)
Exclusivity bribes are on the wane even in console gaming land. Modern development costs means that the size of the bribe needed to provide the game's publisher with confidence it can still turn a profit despite locking out part of the market is getting ludicrous.
Sometimes a smaller company needs to promise to produce one or more exclusive or timed-exclusive games for a console as a condition of becoming a licensed developer on that console. That's how "Pub Fund" on PlayStation family platforms works: Sony provides a devkit to an indie studio in exchange for exclusivity.
Thanks to the Humble Bundle (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a significant share of that 1,000 games.
I'm very disappointed when I see a Windows only game, but I can understand why the big developers do it.
I'm even MORE disappointed when I see a game that works with Windows and Mac but not Linux. Once it works with Mac or Linux making it work with the other is trivial. Don't give me the coca garbage - if it runs at full-screen you really don't have to mess with that a lot.
The indie guys are really leading the charge, and based on very visible results with the Humble Bundle "Triple Compatibility" seems to up the success of the bundle, and I heavily suspect it's why they tend to make the one or two Linux compatible games in a heavily Microsoft centric bundle the "Pay at least $10 to get" game.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
And my experience has been pretty much the opposite. Generally speaking, indie developers focus on Linux last and so it ends up invariably being the latest version of the code base. And as for not being tested properly, I've had very few issues** with most indie games (a few mouse control issues) which seem to be about the same level of issue with games in Wine under Steam (so, either it's a hardware issue or it's a general programming issue).
On the other side, a lot of games for Wine simply don't work.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't even consider WINE an option. That's way too much work for crappy results. I would rather not waste hardware on Windows.
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes things actually run faster in Wine than on Windows.
Re: (Score:3)
Please explain how installing 32-bit libraries magically makes your system slower when they are not in use.
Re: (Score:2)
Or the claim is entirely bullsh.
Re: (Score:2)
Please explain how installing 32-bit libraries magically makes your system slower when they are not in use.
It doesn't. MAYBE the game MIGHT run a tiny bit slower than it might otherwise, but the rest of his system would not. Of course, the 32bit game runs a lot better than the hypothetical 64bit game that doesn't actually exist.
Re: (Score:2)
That's just retarded. Have a tantrum like a little baby just because developers won't go to an unecessary EXTRA step just to please you? That's just stupid.
The Steam experience is seamless on Linux just like it is on Windows and that's really all that matters on the end.
If you are going to whine about irrelevant nonsense, at least whine about the DRM. At least that's associated with some moral high ground rather than being totally irrelevant nonsense.
Re: (Score:2)
The Steam experience is seamless on Linux just like it is on Windows and that's really all that matters on the end.
Not for me, where I can connect to steam on windows but not on linux on the same hardware. I'm in the second round of going back and forth with Steam, they're having me try all the usual troubleshooting shit with networking and whatnot in spite of it working perfectly fine on Windows.
Re: (Score:2)
Cannot say it will work but i had a similar experience with a VPN connection to the office once. I probably misconfigured something but i had to change the MAC address an IP addtess in linux yo something other than what was in windows and the connection worked.
If course you don't physically change the MAC address as its hardcoded to thr NIC. But in you networking setup, you should be able to designate a different address for the networking stack to use. In my case, the DHCP in the router assigned the same I
Re: (Score:2)
I'll give it a try (or something similar, I could just assign the address by client ID, I suppose) but I'd think that since I am not running a uPnP daemon on my firewall, having the same IP assigned (I am deliberately assigning one static address by MAC) would be an asset.
Re:Thanks to the Humble Bundle (Score:4, Informative)
Trolling? There's no harm in running a mixed-mode system. It makes your kernel slightly larger and means 32-bit shared libraries will be loaded when and only when you're actually using 32-bit programs. You still get the speedup for software compiled in long mode. Given that the CPU designers baked the support logic into your CPU anyway, there's really no downside ot using that support when it makes sense.
Hit swap sooner (Score:2)
I think the complaint is that having to load 64-bit libraries, a 64-bit desktop, 32-bit libraries, and a 32-bit game will make the system hit swap sooner than loading 64-bit libraries, a 64-bit desktop, and a 64-bit game.
Re: (Score:3)
First of all - no ZOOOMMM!!! I totally see that's a smart-assed comment.
I want to address it anyways.
I have 0 versions of Minecraft, and I'm not running the OSS knock-off version.
The Unreal and Quake engines rock on Linux, and I guess the Half-Life engine is it's own? Portal is awesome on it also.
Does Minecraft work on Linux? I refuse to check, just don't care enough. I love pissing off Minecraft fans by saying "When I was a kid I had an Atari 2600, it looked like crap but it was awesome because it was a
Re: (Score:3)
Probably because it's profoundly and willfully ignorant, along with being unnecessarily antagonistic.
You should probably try not being an asshole.
Re: (Score:2)
But then I wouldn't be welcome on Slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
Think of the children (Score:3)
Ironically, I finally gave up running Linux on my main home machine about a decade ago so I could play Left4Dead, which was one of the first "big" Valve titles ported to Linux. Now I'm sorta addicted to World of Tanks, which works under Linux with wine/PlaysOnLinux but isn't a very good experience.
I have 2 kids, though, and I'm not going to buy them each a Windows gaming PC, so I set them up with a multiseat Linux box for their minecraft:
http://trumblings.blogspot.com... [blogspot.com]
Steam works pretty well, so my son h
Re:Thanks to the Humble Bundle (Score:5, Interesting)
>> Once it works with Mac or Linux making it work with the other is trivial.
>
> Are you for serious? Maybe if your middleware supports Linux yea, otherwise not so much.
Of course he's serious.
Once you get past coding for DirectX only, the gap between that and the next thing is MUCH smaller. That's why Mac companies are doing the most interesting Linux ports right now.
Nice (Score:3)
Probably not subsidizing... (Score:2)
Apparently Steam has made it very easy for develop cross-platform, so with great ease developers can target multiple systems. This is great for Steam and the end users who may have multiple gaming platforms.
Re: (Score:2)
Steam makes it easy for developers to publish cross-platform. It does nothing to make it easy to get your game running on multiple platforms. That's up to your (and your middleware vendor's) developers.
Re: (Score:2)
Well yeah, technically it's Valve that helps people get their games running on multiple platforms, not Stream. But that's still picking nits.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm a Member of That 1% (Score:5, Interesting)
Is 2015 the year of the Linux gaming system?
Could we please stop this shit? Please?
Re:I'm a Member of That 1% (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm a Member of That 1% (Score:4, Informative)
I recently got it working on Gentoo with the usual fiddling around. A portage overlay makes this pretty painless and there is a decent guide. http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/St... [gentoo.org] It's just a matter of building appropriate compatibility libs somewhat akin to supporting 32-bit binaries on a 64-bit system. I was impressed enough that I did a little re-partitioning to allocate a couple hundred gig sandbox for Steam to live in. Some of those games are big!
What's cool is that, for me, linux steam came with the batteries included. I have a fair smattering of games for it that I've already accumulated just as a side-affect of their being cross platform titles.
Re:I'm a Member of That 1% (Score:4, Interesting)
it's not just likely, they already have a bunch of companies releasing stuff in November. [steampowered.com]
There is also a Steam community group where they post announcements, [steamcommunity.com] with a DIY section. It's also meant as a console/htpc replacement not as a desktop replacement.
If and when it's stable/good enough I might eventually actually be able to run Linux as my primary desktop with some SteamOS packages on the side (Windows 7 Ultimate at home, because I'm a gamer). I'm glad they chose Debian instead of Ubuntu in the end because that's not what they said they were going to do early on.
However the assholes spamming every game thread with "When will there be a Linux version" then often being very snarky, rude and arrogant about it aren't helping the cause much.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's just stipulate that the answer to every summary-ending question is "No."
Is this the year of the Linux Desktop?
Is this the year of Wearables?
Will Mars One ever land people on Mars?
Is this the year of the Linux Game Console?
Is this the moment when Ruby on Rails takes over the programming market?
Re: (Score:3)
Is 2015 the year of the Linux gaming system?
Could we please stop this shit? Please?
This is the one time it might actually apply (though maybe it was properly 2014). Two years ago major game being ported to Linux were virtually non-existent. Now 20% of the games from the largest game store on the Internet are suddenly available and generally functional.
For Linux desktop users that exposition of commercial software is completely unprecedented.
Re: (Score:3)
Valve likely wants to release SteamOS hardware and is pushing for ports/originals that target that platform.
Yeah, they announced a bunch of pieces of hardware [steampowered.com] in the past week or two, and it looks like they're pushing out Steam Boxes in the fall. This means you'll be able to buy a game console that's basically commodity hardware, running Linux and Steam.
It would only make sense that Steam will try to expand their library of Linux-supported games before the launch.
Re: (Score:2)
Commodity hardware means you can upgrade it instead of buying a new console- at least for a while.
Re: (Score:2)
In fact repo.steampowered.com already has packages that you can install on 64 bit Debian to be able to select SteamOS as a session on your Ubuntu or Debian box.
Would that be pure 64-bit, or mixed mode 64/32 bit?
As far as I can tell, Steam absolutely requires 32-bit OS support and system libraries.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I have Steam installed on a pure 64bit Linux distro and I've had no issues so far.
Hmm, wonder if they are static linking or you're getting 32-bit libs that you don't realize you're getting.
You're sure that 32-bit support is actually disabled in your kernel? I'm not aware of any distros that do this out of the box.
Re: (Score:2)
Gentoo, unless you choose a multilib profile, will be 64-bit clean.
In addition to the speed benefit, this is also a security benefit, as most rootkits and exploits are 32-bit and just won't run.
Re: (Score:2)
Gentoo, unless you choose a multilib profile, will be 64-bit clean.
In addition to the speed benefit, this is also a security benefit, as most rootkits and exploits are 32-bit and just won't run.
The kernel will still run 64-bit code unless you disable that feature. That means that a static-linked 32-bit binary or a package (like steam) that bundles its own 32-bit libs may still work, even on no-multilib Gentoo.
I don't know for sure that this is what is happening in your case, but I wouldn't rule it out without checking.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not that that's a problem... in any way, whatsoever.
this is 2015 (Score:5, Funny)
GOG.com (Score:2, Informative)
GOG.com will get there with almost 1000 games and also a lot of games for the Linux platform! ;-)
Re: (Score:3)
Actually DosBOX runs like a champ. I was playing Wing Commander Privateer in a fullscreen DosBOX session a long time ago, and it's been improving ever since. Since GOG mostly runs their stuff from within a DosBOX anyways, all of those titles are de-facto linux titles as well.
Wasn't it 2013 already? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
On par with Windows Mobile although they breached the 2% mark last year.
Re: (Score:2)
So windows phone (which I still have yet to see someone actually using it in the wild) still has double the market share of a major operating system.
Wow.
Re: (Score:2)
I did see a Windows Phone at work a couple weeks ago. The poor owner was made fun of mercilessly. Especially since she said she just bought it and had gotten rid of her Blackberry.
That's like kicking your tobacco habit by switching to crack cocaine.
Re: (Score:2)
If you can play the games you want to play, then mission accomplished. Who, other than shareholders and accountants, cares about marketshare?
Wow, that's.... (Score:5, Funny)
Wow! A thousand??? (Score:2)
Now there's more games than gamers!
Seriously, yes, I know -- or at least suspect -- there are more than a thousand Linux gamers on Steam out there, but really...when you've got barely 1% of the gaming market, it's a little silly to say 2015 could be the "Year of Linux Gaming." At some point you have to disconnect yourself from wishful thinking and hyperbole and just say "yeah, it's getting better, but it still has a very long way to go."
It has been for me, started with Civ 5 (Score:5, Informative)
It started with Civilization 5 last summer. It got me to install Steam. I ended up buying about eight games since. I'd probably buy a lot more games, if more of them supported Linux. We have money too, ya know.
Re: (Score:2)
1% Isn't Market Share (Score:2)
It is a market blip.
Re: (Score:2)
It's still money on the table, and the effort to port a game from OS X to Linux is very small compared to the effort to port from Windows to OS X. Humble Bundle's statistics also put Linux users at a 3.7% revenue share. Not huge, but for developers already porting to OS X, or who use some middleware like Unity that pretty much does all the work for you, it's a nice little boost to your revenue.
Re: (Score:2)
Oblig. xkcd. 1% of anything but Apple, Google, Microsoft, IBM, etc. is still a remarkably small number. Progress? Yes. Newsworthy or worth being associated with "year of _______"? No.
http://xkcd.com/1252/ [xkcd.com]
effect on Microsoft. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Total nonsense. Even if you're running Windows today for games. The OSS office suites can be used just as easily on Windows as they can any other platform. (...) There is still little support for non-Windows PCs in the market and most users aren't going to go out of their way to get one of the few pre-builts with Linux already installed.
While in business MS Office is still heavily entrenched, you'd be surprised by how many are now using tablets for their primary entertainment consumption and have found Android/iOS apps to work with basic documents. A steambox for gaming, a tablet for watching movies, browsing and instafacetwittering then why exactly does the average user need a Windows box? Sure there are a few others that have their killer apps but if you ask people what's the one thing you need Windows for then gaming is a huge one. It's
1% (Score:2)
Obviously there might be more that would run the games under Linux or SteamOS.
I personally have one full desktop machine running Windows _only_ for games. If I could run SteamOS instead, or Linux, I would.
But thanks to Steam in-home streaming, I now have more computers running Linux because I can stream from the heavy desktop. Like the NUC running Mint (Kodi, Firefox, Steam) in the bedroom.
% of total sales (Score:2)
A more relevant data would be:
- % of total sales of games that support linux. Ignoring the OS that the buyer actually uses, just if the game supports linux or not.
- % of the sum of playtime of games that are supported on linux. Ignoring the OS the gamer is actually using during said time.
With these two datapoints we could reach a conclusion that a buyer could use linux/steamos as opposed to windows and still have a decent game library available.
A thousand of crappy games (and steam is chokef
Re:% of total sales (Score:4, Informative)
You know after posting this I went to steam to check top sellers, in the front page ALL of them support linux. There is even one that supports linux but does not support mac (Dying Light)! The situation improved far faster than I expected...
Most AAA tittles still don't support linux, I originally thought that the AAA would support linux before the more indie tittles would, supporting multiple platforms require a lot more QA and I thought the AAA would be the only ones with enough money and time to do it.
Re: (Score:2)
I originally thought that the AAA would support linux before the more indie tittles would, supporting multiple platforms require a lot more QA and I thought the AAA would be the only ones with enough money and time to do it.
Small business are often the first to take advantage of niche markets, because fairly small numbers of sales is still worthwhile to them. AAA games require a huge investment in engineering time, especially if they use their own engine or have heavily modified a commercial engine. As such, the much smaller market share of Linux makes less financial sense for them. I'd guess most AAA games that come out on Linux are using an engine that supports Linux natively. If that weren't the case, there's almost no
Re: (Score:2)
About 20%. There are about 5000 games on Steam.
Probably not a lot. The hardware surveys don't bother to include Linux for most things because it's such a tiny portion.
But the old arguments of "We can't make games for Linux because of X..." doesn't hold true - it's just as capable as the other two major OS. It still may not be economical to make Linux ports for everything, but that's another question entirely.
And, again, the Steam purpose-built machines may change all of the above dramatically. Or not.
An
Where is our market ? (Score:2)
http://www.dragonboxapp.com/ [dragonboxapp.com]
How do I know how many people would be interested ? Where do I reach the nerd crowd ?
Re: (Score:2)
Work on porting to a cross-platform engine/library first. Without that your work will be much harder. And bullet points 6 and 7 in your system requirements are showstoppers.
Also, you may want to talk to organizations like Edubuntu [edubuntu.org], OLPC [laptop.org], and RPi [raspberrypi.org] since their primary focus is education.
Re: (Score:2)
My question is:
does the effort of
is going to bring any revenue ?
The main issue isn't making the software, it's getting known, sell and maintain.
640 games (Score:2)
Come on Blizzard (Score:2)
Valve has done an awesome job of making Linux a viable gaming platform. I have over 200 games in my Steam collection, about half of which run on Linux now.
The only thing keeping me booted into Windows most of the time is that my primary game is World of Warcraft, taking up about 70% of my total gaming time. If Blizzard would step up and embrace Linux* I'd gladly get rid of my Windows partition.
* Yes I know WoW can run in a limited capacity under Linux, that's not good enough for real raiding/PvPing
This Again? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, 2011 was the year of the Linux Smartphone, since that was the year where Linux smartphone marketshare passed 50%...
Re: (Score:2)
And servers go without saying.
Re:Quality vs Quantity (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not going to argue that every one of those games is fantastic, there is certainly a lot of questionable quality in there, but the problem isn't nearly so bad as you make it out to be.
Steam lists 1001 games that run on Linux and have enough user ratings to give it a score, and 791 of them have good user ratings (defined by 70% or more of user reviews being positive for the title). 168 have mixed reviews (40%-70%). 42 have bad reviews (0%-40%.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, 1,000 games is a good thing. Sadly, 985 of them suck ass, which makes this a meaningless statistic.
99% of everything is crap, so your 'statistic' falls right in line with that. Besides taking a cursory glance at the game list [steampowered.com] shows that there are a lot more than just indie darlings and ancient properties are becoming available. Stuff like Civilization V, Borderlands 2, and the Portal games are on the service and Linux compatible. Heck, Cities: Skylines and Hotline Miami 2 were released just yesterday.
So, yeah, there's a lot of crap on the service, but there's a decent number of reasonably good games comi
Re: (Score:3)
No, the statistics are still valuable, unless you make an argument that Windows has a higher percentage of shitty games. Absent any other information, it's reasonable to assume the percentage of awful games are similar on all platforms.
(But in fact, I think that the existence of more shovelware-friendly middleware on Windows means Windows has a higher percentage of bad games).
Re: (Score:2)
This sounds like a good idea - for Valve to buy Canonical. Given how Ubuntu has lost its way ever since Unity.
One thing I wonder - will PC-BSD play all these Steam games? Or will it only be able to do it under a Debian VM?