Re:SteamOS, Linux, and Steam Machines
by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @10:14AM
(#16754848)
There was a rather large amount of hatred for Steam when it first came out. I was one of the haters, so I remember it pretty clearly. We had a lot of reason to doubt, but we were won over as Valve kept improving the platform and didn't end up using it for the evil we expected they would.
Having once been a Linux Desktop evangelist, and knowing what I do about modern Linux Desktops, I feel I can safely say that very few people are going to be won over by it.
Steam was _reviled_ when it came out...simpler times!
The thing is that Steam was a vastly different way of distributing software at the time and offered benefits that drew customers to it. Using Linux has few practical benefits for most people other than cost savings of not buying Windows. And not many people explicitly pay for Windows either - it usually comes with the machine they bought.
> They released HL2 as a Steam exclusive (IIRC), and your description of Linux now was how you'd describe Steam then
There is a ...tiny... difference between "install an additional shitty drm software" and "replace your entire system". And yes, even steams introduction was hard, back in the day with shitty internet... i certainly wouldn't spend that much time (and money for isdn traffic) installing a game these days.
They released HL2 as a Steam exclusive (IIRC), and your description of Linux now was how you'd describe Steam then (not great, a headache). It won Steam lots of friends and set it on its money-printing way.
I'll be the first to agree that there isn't much on the line for Valve now, given that Microsoft has pulled back from the more extreme plans of Windows-Store-exclusivity fuckery, which was an existential threat to Valve.