Steam Has Brought 1,600 Games To Linux In the Past Three Years (phoronix.com) 110
An anonymous reader writes: Today marks three years since Valve's Steam client went into beta on Linux. In that time over 1,600 games have become natively available for Linux. Going beyond having many new Linux games, Phoronix recaps, "we've seen Valve make significant investments into the open-source graphics stack and other areas of Linux (in part through their sponsorship of Collabora and LunarG). Valve developers are significantly pushing SDL2. We've seen more mainstream interest in Linux gaming, and Valve has been heavily involved in the creation of the Vulkan graphics API. They have given away their entire game collection to the Mesa/Ubuntu/Debian upstream developers, and much more." The three-year anniversary is coincidentally just days before the release of Steam Machines.
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You know, until recently I never considered using Linux as a general purpose desktop OS and I didn't like Steam. That was until Microsoft released the malware and adware ridden Windows 10 and tried to cram it down everyone's throat.
Now all I can say is GO VALVE GO! I will happily ditch Windows if Steam and gog.com keeps up this pace.
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Exactly!!
It's not because Linux is better or it has anything to offer, it's because Microsoft is killing Windows without even realising it.
And that's precisely the reason I've also been looking at OSX and Linux as viable alternatives since the Windows 10 spyware.
I grudgingly "upgraded" to Windows 8.1, and kept it since Classic Shell [classicshell.net] fixed many of the UI problems.
But even Classic Shell has its limits.
But Linux is such a political mine-field, and every developer doing their own thing rather than uniting under
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26% of Steam users are running Win 10 64 Bit (Score:2)
You know, until recently I never considered using Linux as a general purpose desktop OS and I didn't like Steam. That was until Microsoft released the malware and adware ridden Windows 10 and tried to cram it down everyone's throat.
---- while only 0.95% of Steam users run any flavor of the Linux OS.
Three years and 1600 Linux games hasn't budged the needle in a way that you could see even with a magnifying glass. Steam Hardware and Software Survey: October 2015 [steampowered.com]
Re: The smell of money (Score:2)
Damn it man, and we were really hoping you'd get behind it. Because you're a really important player in the Linux/gaming scene.
1600 (Score:1, Funny)
Jeeze! How many variations of Tetris is there?
Re:1600 (Score:5, Informative)
I suggest you peruse the actual lists once in a while:
https://steamdb.info/linux/ [steamdb.info]
Although "big-studio" games are largely absent, an awful lot of top-end indie games are there. Indie doesn't always mean shite in a bundle, by the way.
Killing Floor, X3, Civ, Bioshock, Trine and all kinds of other games are well worth the money.
And there are definitely more of them lately, and bigger titles are getting more attention since Valve started their Linux port.
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Sorry, I never got past Pong and Solitaire, everything else is too fast and complicated for me.
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I went through the entire list basically just scanning titles and found about a dozen games in the $10-$20 range I'll pick up without a second thought, and there are a few AAA titles that I mostly already have. Overall, looks good to me, no shortage of decent content.
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Including my personal favorite Natural Selection 2.
Re:1600 (Score:5, Informative)
As you say it's getting better for the bigger titles. Here are some of the bigger games you forgot to mention:
* Borderlands 2
* Borderlands The Pre-sequel (linux version on launch day!)
* XCOM: Enemy Unknown
* All the valve games (Half-Life + all addons, HL2, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, counterstrike, portal 1+2, etc etc)
* KOTOR 2 got a port not long ago
* Shadow Warrior (the reboot/remake thing, it's awesome)
* Serious Sam 3
* Saints Row 4 (announced, I can't wait)
Also the ones you mention: Civ 5, Bioshock Infinite, X3, etc
Also the next Crysis engine will have Linux support, as does Unreal Engine 4 and the new Unreal Tournament (which is open source and community built! You can sign up, clone the git tree, and compile it now).
There are also a bunch of really great not-so-huge titles:
* Oddworld: New & Tasty
* Grim Fandango Remastered
* Postal 1+2 (available before steam)
* Duke Nukem 3D
* Shadow Warrior (original)
* Psychonauts (available before steam)
* Goat Simulator
* Spec Ops: The Line
* Kerbal Space Program (I think this just might be the best game ever made)
As an exclusive Linux user, I have a huge backlog of games I haven't gotten around to playing yet. It's awesome!
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for rpg lovers: icewind dale, baldurs gate 1 & 2, wasteland 2, pillars of eternity, legend of grimrock, swordcoast, trochlight 2, shadowrun, witcher 2 (witcher 3 comming), shadow of mordor.
that's hundreth of hours of quality gametime right there.
No Tetris on Linux (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think Tetris® was ever officially ported to GNU/Linux. The original designer of Tetris is in fact on record as an opponent of free software [slashdot.org]. He said free software "should never have existed" because it "destroys the market". It makes me wonder why the Free Software Foundation hasn't been sued yet [slashdot.org] for one of the .el files included with Emacs [gnu.org]. The closest to Tetris for Linux is probably EA's port to Android.
"EA's port: It's in the game."
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The original designer of Tetris is in fact on record as an opponent of free software [slashdot.org]. He said free software "should never have existed" because it "destroys the market".
Everything you need to know about Alexey_Pajitnov [wikipedia.org] -- "Hexic comes with the Zune version 3.0 firmware, released September 16, 2008"
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...Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters...
Fun ( or maybe, not so fun, who knows) fact: The game is just called "The Ur-Quan Masters", the "Star-Control" brand is still owned by 3DO.
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Yeah, it's mostly indies. Euro-devs mostly, too small, too poor or too PC-partisan to go console.
Which is why I say that Steamboxes are machines without a market.
Hardcore "PC Master RAce" guys aren't going to give up their mice/keyboards for big screen play. And they certainly aren't going to give up Windows, because that's where the "AAA" games with PC versions will be.
Console players aren't going to pay MORE money for a machine that is basically an indie-box. Since most of the better indies (Don't Star
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Now if they could just stop calling Linux "SteamOS"
Just as soon as they stop calling Linux "Android" and "PCLinuxOS" etc...
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I'll do that the second that certain people stop telling me to use GNU/Linux instead.
So, basically, never.
Re: Honestly Linux (Score:1)
You means systemd/linux
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Actually, a lot of what I use on Linux has very little to do with GNU at all.
And unless you want to get into the crap that would be Apache/XFree86/OpenGL/Linux and other such nonsense, there's no reason to credit GNU over any other project that has contributed.
And GNU is an entirely replaceable part of an ordinary Linux distro. In fact, much of it is nothing more than those things present in BusyBox.
http://www.gnu.org/manual/blur... [gnu.org]
It's suprisingly... bland software to be honest. Easily replaceable, many
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If only I had mod points today. This is probably the best rebuttal to the old "GNU/Linux" whinge I've ever heard. Bravo!
While I do use GNU tools every day, I also use steam and apache and a bunch of other software every day. Maybe I should be calling it Xine/Audacious/Apache/MySQL/XOrg/Eclipse/Steam/GNU/Linux.
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And I imagine the vast majority of Linux devices out there (e.g. Android, and embedded devices) don't run most of the GNU software at all.
FSF agrees [gnu.org] that the term "GNU/Linux" is inappropriate for Android and embedded operating environments incorporating the kernel Linux. But "GNU/Linux" is still shorter than "Linux/that/isn't/Android/or/embedded".
Better term for non-Android Linux? (Score:3)
Is there a better term than "GNU/Linux" if you're referring to the stack that isn't Android or a special-purpose embedded distro?
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Linux is a kernel, not an OS.
Should help Linux in the long run (Score:3)
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And because the stupid console games have "aim assist" because gamepads suck for first-person shooters, they keep thinking they're great players and that the mouse+keyboard combo suck.
Fight for your bitcoins! [coinbrawl.com]
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Putting a weightless, high precision, high speed 2D cursor over a target and pressing a button IS aim assist. Have you ever sighted a firearm, or pulled the trigger? It involves lining up FOUR things, your eye, front and rear of the weapon, and the target. There are many more muscles to betray you besides the ones in your girly wrist.
First, analog sticks are better for FPS movement than WASD, unarguably.
Now, gunning with a stick can be fun, flying a fighter plane with a mouse can be fun. Whining about ai
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We're talking about aim assist for a gamepad vs mouse and keyboard and you bring real guns into the discussion? What for? We're talking about videogames here. I might as well call you an weakling for using a firearm instead of a nuclear nuke, that would make as much sense.
Fight for your bitcoins! [coinbrawl.com]
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Mouse aiming IS the ultimate aim assist. It made aiming easy for the first generation of dudebro gamers playing Quake on their college networks.
It was considered "easy mode" by those who had played earlier shooters without it.
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>> It was considered "easy mode" by those who had played earlier shooters without it.
Haha, so true. I resisted mouse look for a long time after Quake came out, but finally succumbed.
Same here.
I played Quake CTF with a small clan for a while. The other members switched to using the mouse while I stayed with the keyboard. I could still hold my own.
However, when the weakest members stared to kick my ass as they got better with the mouse, I was forced to switch.
I prefer the Kensington Expert Mouse trackball, though, to mice.
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And? If you're playing the fantasy of being a (Hollywood version of a) highly-trained elite soldier, it makes perfect sense that every shot hits where it's intended to. If you're playing "digital sports", then by all means, have a different button for every move; but I'd much rather be Batman in Arkham Whatever and just have
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While I agree on the whole "hero fantasy" aspect for single-player games, for PvP the only thing aim assist gives to the gamepad players is a false sense of skills. There's a reason why most games won't allow console players vs PC/Mac players.
Fight for your bitcoins! [coinbrawl.com]
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As the population ages, the Linux gamers will become fewer and fewer.
That's my laugh for the day. Android is Linux for one thing.
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Whether the user knows the Android system he is using is Linux is irrelevant to the fact that it is Linux and not one of your precious paytard OSes.
Which "paytard" OS would that be given that the entire computing world can get Windows 10 for free and OS X has been free for some time?
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It definitely is a Linux system as we usually know them: fast, reliable, developed by tens of thousands of skilled engineers in an open process. The user space binaries make plenty of Linux-specific system calls. No question about it: a) Android is Linux and b) you are full of blather.
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Distros that help Linux in the REAL WORLD.
Linux Mint (Desktop)
SteamOS / SteamMachines
Ubuntu (debian -> ubuntu -> ?)
CentOS (back office)
http://futurist.se/gldt/ [futurist.se]
This shows graphically the distributions in the Linux world.
This is how I base my decision on distros, by the commitment and origin base.
Re:Should help Linux in the long run (Score:5, Interesting)
As trivial as this might seem, having games for linux might help bring in more of the youth crowd. Their comfort level with linux will increase and out of that user stream you'll develop more hardcore linux users. I doubt Steam thought about it that way but in the long run, it is really a smart thing for the future heath of the linux fan base.
They people running "SteamOS" for the most part won't give a shit about Linux as a desktop and never look under the hood. The primary advantage is that you'll get a lot more developers to write OpenGL games and support the graphics/multimedia parts of the stack that the server community don't care about and Android has only partly touched. Unless Valve wants to pull a little "Chromebook" move, say a switch that swaps between console mode and desktop mode and suddenly you have an alternate desktop for basic use. There's been so many failed incarnations of WebTV and friends though that they probably won't do that until it has a heavy presence as a console.
Exit to GNOME (Score:5, Informative)
Unless Valve wants to pull a little "Chromebook" move, say a switch that swaps between console mode and desktop mode and suddenly you have an alternate desktop for basic use.
Last time I checked, SteamOS had exactly such a switch: Exit to GNOME [howtogeek.com].
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2016 year of the desktop? (Score:2, Funny)
Just wondering looking at this positive news, could we be looking ahead at 2016 as the year Linux charges onto the desktop mainstream?
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Mine was 2010, Ubuntu 10.04, now at 15.10. I will never go back to the dark side.
Right. I was using Linux in 1990, a year before it had been invented.
But you try telling kids today that and they won't believe you.
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For most, the "year of the Linux desktop" is when they decide that their main or auxillary box needs to be safe from all the shenanigans Windows does- but that doesn't even mean pitching Windows. I mean, if your hobbies and job don't require Windows- for instance, if you don't play Star Wars: The Old Republic, or you don't need explicitly MS Office to keep up at work, or if you don't need to develop for Windows- you can forgo even that final Windows box. But I don't think that's most power users, and its
Wine-wrapped and broken games? (Score:2)
How many of these are wine-wrapped, and slightly broken, games, much like the catalogue of Aspyr ports on OSX?
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If they Aspyr games are in fact "wine wrapped", then they actually hide it very well.
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"linux native" = "not wine"
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Virtually none.
I don't know of a single Steam Linux game that incorporates Wine in any way. The licensing itself would be a bit of a nightmare to resolve.
Most of them are native ports, ports using cross-platform libraries so requiring little tweaking anyway. There are a handful of DOSBox conversions on Steam - but even on Windows those same games are distributed with DOSBox around the game to remove the platform-specific things that people no longer have (e.g. Soundblaster cards and full DOS access).
Serio
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Virtually none.
I don't know of a single Steam Linux game that incorporates Wine in any way. The licensing itself would be a bit of a nightmare to resolve.
I didn't bother spending much time on this, but a quick google show Transgaming (who uses Wine-code to "port" windows games) as declaring proudly that they have helped games get onto Steam - I also know that EVE:Online's Linux client, on Steam, uses Wine (via Transgaming's efforts, according to all parties). Yeah, that was 2 minutes
So you might not know of any, but they do exist.
Ultimately, though, I guess the question comes down to: Are they stable on Linux?
My experience on OSX has been far from stellar wi
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"EVE:Online's Linux client, on Steam, uses Wine"
Where is that on Steam? Because it only shows Windows and Mac Steamplay, not Linux. Hence it's NOT on Steam.
I can't find it on steamdb.info either, which is incredibly suspicious. Maybe you should do more than 2 minutes of research. The Steam client isn't Linux, and the Linux client isn't Steam. The user is of course able to cobble this together of their own accord (i.e. it looks like it can run under Wine) but that's not what we were talking about.
The li
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EVE-Online used to have an official Linux client, but it was discontinued several years ago [eveonline.com] as there weren't enough users to justify the time & cost. That client used Transgaming's tech (i.e. their WINE fork).
...and a lot to the Mac too (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is it... (Score:2)
This is the end of Windows...
But only the beginning of the end.
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No, it's only the beginning of the end because of the disaster of Windows 8, and even more now with the spyware Windows 10.
i.e. Microsoft are killing it themselves.
Steam Hardware Survey For October (Score:2)
Before breaking out the champagne, it might be wise to look at the numbers:
OS Version
Windows 95%
Windows 7 64 Bit 26%
Windows 10 64 bit 26%
Windows 8.1 64 Bit 17%
OSX 3%
Mac OS 10.10.5 64 Bit 1%
Mac OS 10.11.0 64 Bit 1%
Linux 1% [0.95%]
Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS 64 Bit 0.23%
Ubuntu 15.04 64 Bit 0.17%
Linux Mint Rafaela 64 Bit 0.11%
What you see is a very small and very fragmented Linux market. Steam Hardware & Software Survey: October 2015 [steampowered.com]
Fallout 4 (Score:1)
Whenever Fallout 4 is released for Linux, Windows is done.
A Steam box? Ooo.... (Score:1)
....does it run Windows games? Oh. Still, it might be cheaper...oh.
Repeat times a number of millions.
Re: Linux is just not that good for games (Score:2)
You're right about MMOs, but there are AAA games on Linux, e.g. Alien Isolation, Shadow of Mordor, Witcher 2. What is more important, quality of ports increases steadily.
I've recently reached the point I can live without Windows-only games as I have enough to play on Linux.
Re: Linux is just not that good for games (Score:2)
WoW is already OpenGL so it would be less difficult to port than some. Perhaps it will finally make it to Linux via Steam OS.