If Steam supports Linux, you can count on several new distributions. Everything from a spare backend to run Steam on, to distributions which address the fiddly nature of the 1337 gamer (eg: specialty mouse, audio, and video drivers).<p>The day Steam supports Linux, you will have _overnight_ the single biggest influx of new Linux users. Followed quickly by a large group of programmers, designers, and entrepreneurs who will be interested in working and selling in the space.<p>If Linux isn't ready for prime time then, it never will be.
"I don’t think Linux is it, because there are a few good distributions that actually are user-friendly, but at its core it’s made by nerds for nerds. For people who understand computers, it’s awesome, because you can control the entire computer. For corporations or families, it’s not really what they want. They just want to be able to use the computer in an easy way". This sums up my thoughts on Linux - yes, I consider myself a geek, but at the end of the day, for >90% of my computing needs I just want something that works. I find the idea of Linux awesome, and my web-dev work relies on it, but for my general computer it just isn't what's needed.
I get it that he's uneasy about Steam's dominance; but there's not a whole lot of reasoning behind it. There is competition, every publisher is trying to push their own marketplace. The problem is that they're all complete crap, look no further than Ubisoft's UPlay rootkit incident.<p>The last bit honestly left me reeling. As a Linux user, I feel like we're very close to turning a huge corner if Valve gets Steam/Source running well on Linux. This could be the nudge that starts an avalanche, and it's really disheartening to see such an influential figure dismissing it as though it's nothing; especially considering he's released his own game on Linux. Not to mention his reasoning makes no sense to boot - If anyone is capable of dealing with getting their hands dirty, it will be gamers who are accustomed to fixing buggy console ports and editing configuration files. For most others (Families and Corporations as he mentions), a browser and OpenOffice is already more than enough.
"Yeah, I think it’s very dangerous territory. In the case of EA and Zynga, those games are deceivingly similar. It looks like they’re trying to almost trick the customer into thinking it’s the same game. That’s when I think you should be able to stop people. I don’t want them to be able to trick people into thinking it’s the same game. If it’s the same idea, fine, but if you’re trying to move into the concept space of what Minecraft is, for example… It’s hard to express the exact difference. But trademarks fine, patents bad. That’s kind of the short summary."<p>I don't see anything dangerous because it works pretty much exactly how he hopes it does. Games are one area where the patent system actually works well. You can more or less clone a game legally. You cannot, however, copy their trade dress, in much the same way you can make ketchup that tastes like Heinz but can't call it Shmeinz and package it similarly.<p>My company (YC S07) did exactly this. We saw a game (Ogame) that had great mechanics, but poor art and execution on many levels. We made it social and built what might have been the first hardcore Facebook game (Starfleet Commander). We took a game that appealed mainly to Germans and tweaked it to appeal to Americans and other cultures where aesthetics and ease of use are valued as much as raw functionality. Everyone benefited, even the original game which probably got more new customers from people who found out about it through our game than they lost to us. Even though ours rapidly eclipsed theirs, I suspect they made more as a result.
There sure seems to be a lot of confusion here on HN about what Steam is.<p><i>There are a lot of people that say the only reason why they ever run Windows is to play games on Steam</i><p>It seems like a lot of people hear that there will be a Steam client for Linux and somehow think that all these games will now run on Linux. Sorry to disappoint you.<p>It seems that there is a misunderstanding of what Steam actually is. Steam is merely a marketplace, updater, and launcher for over 1500 games. Less than 5% of those games run on Linux. Valve only has 25 games that it produced in-house. Only 6 of these have been released since 2007 (their games alone hardly dictate how the industry will move. They are not a dominant player in this respect).
Most of valve's titles have been mission-packs, or variants of Half-Life, TFS, or Counter Strike.<p>If gamers can boot into Linux tomorrow and run Steam, will they? Would they really do it for the 100 games that are available (most of them dated and washed up games)? Then new titles come out or they want to play their current favorite (non Valve) game, they have to boot back into Windows to play those? Why would they do that? (besides geeks/hackers with too much time on their hands).<p>I know that the majority of hackers love the openness of Linux and the smug "hipness" or "superiority" (or being in-vogue) of Apple, but I think that people tend to self dilute themselves with wishful thinking that Microsoft and Windows will somehow go away any time soon.<p>It is comical to me how people can berate one closed platform - Windows (and list being closed as the reason why) and yet love other, even more closed platforms (Apple products, Steam...)<p>Steam holds a monopoly on digital sales of Games in the PC market. Suddenly Microsoft wants to compete with them and they start ranting like lunatics (publicly calling windows 8 a catastrophe). Any company who does business with the public should expect competition. And the public should welcome it. It keeps prices lower and forces competitors to produce better software.
Funny - Apple releases an app-store built into OS X and you hear faint applause (Yes, Steam already had a client for OS X at the time), Microsoft follows suit and you hear loud curses and wide spread disapproval. This shows 1. the illegitimacy of Apple and 2. the double standard that Microsoft faces.