Valve has removed the Steam Machine section from Steam
67 replies, posted
that would be so pointless though
you'd be selling it exactly as is just with a really shitty version of linux
though something like that may have worked if they didn't screw the OS up so badly
Where did they actually say that?
From what I remember it was always just that they lost interest/burnt out on half-life, and took an interest in other things.
Let's face it, the only thing that will ever usurp commercial Windows's majority market-share in the desktop space is if Microsoft themselves make Windows open-source. That fight is long over.
Yes, Android managed to win out in the mobile space. But Android won because iOS was restricted to a single series of phones whereas Android ran on a smorgasbord of devices across many brands.
Windows already does that. Linux will never usurp it, because it offers nothing to the average consumer that Windows doesn't do already. Windows is already as open as 99% of the world needs it to be.
No, rampant innovation doesn't actually mean anything, and especially with Valve, often times has lead to things like half assed policies, design decision and even worse, creating some of the most cancerous forms of content we're stuck with now in the AAA industry such as lootboxes and more.
Valve's innovation back during the HL and HL2 era were based around level design and story telling. HL2 brought about a more responsive and connecting form of interactivity but that kind they had was always part of FPS games and for some games, actually went far deeper.
A lot of the touted innovation they've created can be ascribed to be similiar to Apple, no they weren't the first, no they didn't do it the best but they know how to market and make it look nice.
Why is this a problem? You just said you beat numerous platformers and racing games with keyboard and mouse and would just prefer using a controller for comfort in-game, but now you suddenly don't even want to touch a keyboard? I'd say having both available simultaneously is more often a strength.
Valve's philosophy for innovation for the past decade has essentially been to build a platform into their game where they can farm 90% of the work out to the community and still rake in tons of dosh by giving payouts. It's genius and obviously insanely popular, but it's created an environment where creative innovation is dead and people who were in the company to actually create games have either left or are on their way out.
@Qbe-tex , alright, that makes a lot more sense. I thought you were just talking about using the controller as an input device, rather than the whole couch-and-TV set up. I often have the same problem as you with distractions. I didn't know certain games forced you to use the keyboard despite using the controller, I think the worst I've seen is when entering a character name and I'm forced to do it with the keyboard. In any case it isn't a problem for me since the keyboard is right in front of me, but it's understandable that you find it frustrating.
A side note; my usual rule of thumb is that I play first person games with keyboard and mouse, and third person games with controllers. I had no idea anyone considered Oblivion to be 'made for controllers'.
I think it might have made more sense at the time, with Windows 8 hinting that Microsoft might going a completely locked down direction for Windows. At that point having another avenue for your storefront seems like a smart idea.
I could never see Steam Machines with SteamOS ever taking off, simply because no developer outside of Valve or some indies want to make Linux ports of their games. The market is simply too small to be viable to most, so larger games outside of Valve's influence will never be available to those who invest in it.
Now you can go on and on about how "Dota 2 and CS:GO are the most popular games on Steam, and they have SteamOS support!", but there's a couple of flaws to this argument. First off, they're 2 popular games in a sea of popular games that mostly aren't made by Valve. Most people wouldn't want to give up their ability to play something like PUBG or Skyrim just for the sake of living room convenience. Second, Dota 2 and CS:GO are games that are practically designed around being played with a mouse and keyboard. This goes against the whole "PC+Console unification" that Valve is trying to do with Steam Machines, SteamOS and the Steam Controller in the first place.
What really made Steam Machines and SteamOS questionable though, was the Steam Link. The Steam Link (with a wired connection) is the perfect answer to most who seek to have their Steam library on PC married with the "living room convenience" of consoles. It's relatively cheap (unlike a Steam Machine), there's not much input lag, and you can play every game on Steam (unlike with SteamOS). There's really no point in buying an expensive PC with a smaller game library when a small cheap box can do what most people want instead.
Steam Machines are even an unattractive prospect for new buyers. What do you think is going to seem like the better deal? An Xbox One X/Playstation 4 Pro, or a Steam Machine?
Sounds like me. Fuck.
Oddly appropriate this happened on April Fools day, Steam Machines were always a joke.
The cool thing about the steam controller is that it's made to support any game, it's not required for a game to 'support it'
I hate this idea that you need a game to support it for it to work. 'Support' pretty much equates to just renaming a bunch of binds and that's it.
It also doesn't help that a major point of SteamOS was to have an operating system where games would be able to use more system resources and thus run more efficiently because you wouldn't have other processes running in the background, and yet SteamOS provably ran worse than Windows. Valve has the kind of money that they could have easily built their own Steam machines to sell and made a ton of money while also setting a standard and giving them incentive to keeping the OS updated, but no. They did what they always do, farmed out the work to third parties and then barely supported the platform. SteamOS's last version was released nearly three years ago. AAA developers who never had much interest in releasing Linux-compatible games certainly aren't going to be converted by Valve's "if we feel like it" policy to supporting their products.
SteamOS gaming performs significantly worse than Windows, Ars an..
I appreciate how it's made bindings sharable. Not just for the steam controller but for the DS4 and Xbone controllers as well
steam machines were an idea that needed lots of support, with lots of communication for the people making games (to use big picture), and with companies who were actually making the steam machines themselves
it never stood a chance with valve at the helm
IDK.
I use my steam controller from my couch to control my PC every day. It's very intuitive and easy and I almost never need to use my mouse and keyboard once that things on and connected.
It was supposed to be a jump for console players to easily get into the PC ecosystem. But then steam link came out and valve killed the whole idea of a pc console for the living room.
Who would have thought that a majority of PC gamers like playing their games at their PC and not on their TV.
Don't get me wrong, I have one of my gaming rigs hooked up to my TV and it's great for some games, particularly games like assassins creed, but other than the odd 3rd person game and movies I don't use it for much. It's basically an over priced glorified 'steam link', that isn't actually a link, just a whole other computer.
The only way I could think of to use Steam Machine was if you had party games on Steam. I couldn't name one.
SteamOS would require a group to constantly keep it somewhat up to date, especially at the start.
Valve, provably, was the worst group to helm something like that.
ya it does work with everything but at the same time
its never been that it doesn't support anything and everything its that I just want it to work and not have to fiddle with everything for an hour.
that and I wish valve would have added blutooth functionality even as a secondary option
I'm betting you're thinking of a Steam Link, because I doubt you got a multi-hundred dollar console for €10
Valve enployee Pierre Griffais has given a statement
We've noticed that what started out as a routine cleanup of the Steam Store navigation turned into a story about the delisting of Steam Machines. That section of the Steam Store is still available, but was removed from the main navigation bar based on user traffic. Given that this change has sparked a lot of interest, we thought it'd make sense to address some of the points we've seen people take away from it.
While it's true Steam Machines aren't exactly flying off the shelves, our reasons for striving towards a competitive and open gaming platform haven't significantly changed. We're still working hard on making Linux operating systems a great place for gaming and applications. We think it will ultimately result in a better experience for developers and customers alike, including those not on Steam.
Through the Steam Machine initiative, we've learned quite a bit about the state of the Linux ecosystem for real-world game developers out there. We've taken a lot of feedback and have been heads-down on addressing the shortcomings we observed. We think an important part of that effort is our ongoing investment in making Vulkan a competitive and well-supported graphics
API, as well as making sure it has first-class support on Linux platforms.
Recently we announced Vulkan availability for macOS and iOS, adding to its existing availability for Windows and Linux. We also rolled out Steam Shader Pre-Caching, which will let users of
Vulkan-based applications skip shader compilation on their local machine, significantly improving initial load times and reducing overall runtime stuttering in comparison with other APIs. We'll be talking more about Shader Pre-Caching in the coming months as the system matures.
At the same time, we're continuing to invest significant resources in supporting the Vulkan ecosystem, tooling and driver efforts. We also have other Linux initiatives in the pipe that we're not quite ready to talk about yet; SteamOS will continue to be our medium to deliver these
improvements to our customers, and we think they will ultimately benefit the Linux ecosystem at large.
In general, and if you have any questions or feedback on the topics above, feel free to reach out to me at pgriffais@valvesoftware.com.
The article on gamingonlinux.com was posted on the 30th of March and started the rumor machine.
Pierre responded today which is the 4th of April. That is less than a week between the discovery and an official response.
WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REAL VALVE !?!?!
You're trying to play old games that lack controller support entirely so I don't know what you expect.
Modern games almost always include gamepad support if one was made for it at some point.
And in both cases you can use Steam to make a control scheme so that your controller works the way you want whether the game supports it or not.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Valve is a money-printing machine, it costs them almost nothing to improve the state of Linux gaming, either to keep Microsoft in check or end up doing another SteamOS push.
I honestly never saw the point of the Steam Machine. All the great party games are on console, Valve never modified Steam to allow multiple people logged in at once, and they didn't bother creating any really cool couch coop games, or even adding anything like local splitscreen.
Why should I pay for a Steam "console" that doesn't do anything that my normal computer can do?
Also the fact that you can just plug a HDMI cable from your computer to your telly and bam, you've got a 'Steam machine'.
I'm amazed that there are even people out there that seem to just, not understand that you can use a controller on a PC. Like they prefer consoles exclusively for this fact.
I have a DS4, a steam controller, and have used pro U controllers, xbox controllers, a wii mote, a snes controller all on PC
You could genuinely argue that because of the greater number of options and programs out there, PC is better for controller gaming.
I love connecting my Xbox One wireless controller to my PC using the official adapter. Works pretty well.
Especially with games like Battlefield. Switch to controller for driving vehicles/flying planes and then switch to KB/M when on the ground in a firefight.
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