I hope Gabe Newell stays strong and keeps to his fundamentals. I guess all contributions to making gaming easier on Linux would have not happened under a publicly traded company.
I was not even considering the Proton angle. That would be a devastating loss to Linux. Which would be hugely in Microsoft’s interest to shut that down immediately.
It would be absolutely devastating to me too. I only do my gaming on Linux, and my large game catalog is through Steam. Which means that even if they can't really shutdown Proton because it's open source, it still might amount to destroying my game library.
It's not your grandpa's Microsoft, EEE isn't a thing now and it's unlikely they'll be hostile towards it. But instead it's more probable that Proton would have been ignored and gone stagnant, ala Amazon type acquisitions.
I don't think Microsoft can shut down Proton, any more than they could by modifying the current DirectX API to lock them out. It's Open Source software based on DXVK and WINE, both of which are publicly maintained.
Maybe, but like I said Microsoft arguably already held the ability to kill DXVK whenever they wanted by modifying the master spec. Buying Valve to force them to stop paying contributors to a public project would be the most roundabout way to stop DirectX from being reverse-engineered. And it wouldn't stop someone like CodeWeavers from maintaining it themselves.
> I hope Gabe Newell stays strong and keeps to his fundamentals
The fundamentals being extracting 30% of small indie developers' game revenue? Even with payment processing and a healthy profit margin, 12% appears to be a fair cut. Imagine what game developers could do with an extra 18% of revenue in their hands to pay their employees.
Also game developers are forced by Steam not to sell their games at lower prices at other places. It's taboo to criticize Valve/Steam/Gabe on HN and Reddit so I fully expect to get downvoted like in the past. The community attitude of Gabe worship is weird to say the least.
Steam sells an ecosystem, really. To developers they're selling a CDN with integrated cloud save, cross-platform multiplayer, community management software, Steam Workshop tooling and a designated support channel. To users, they're selling a well-designed interface with the ability to modify and add games to their heart's content. If either side is upset, they can avoid Steam altogether and still distribute their app as freely as their OEM allows.
I use Steam because they care about Open Source. Not many "ecosystem" hustlers ever give back to the community they take from, but Valve does, and I appreciate the work they do as a non-Windows user. Were it not for their efforts in DXVK I wouldn't be able to play Indie games at all, Valve-published or not. The "community attitude of Gabe worship" largely springs from the fact that the guy still answers emails, manages his business, and keeps Valve private to avoid shareholder intervention. A lot of the current Valve "spirit" is associated with Gabe Newell's dedication to avoiding venture capital and supporting Open Source appropos of nothing.
They only started supporting open source after Windows 8 App Store started threatening their revenue and profits. Their games and client are not open source. They want to continue taking 30% if desktop Linux takes off.
That's a great point - so explain, how getting bought out by Microsoft is going to help any of this? How getting bought out by Microsoft is not going to make everything even worse for everyone involved?
I don't think they're getting bought out at all. $16b is a pathetically low figure for a platform like Steam and there seems to be no evidence that such a deal is in the works right now.
Yes, the 30% is too much; they should take less, especially for indie developers and small studios.
Nonetheless, are Valve, Steam and SteamDeck the only reasons I spend money on games. Where other publishers just provide a storefront for their own games, Steam builds a customer-pleasing platform where, unlike Apple, you have the choice to go to another store. Additionally, their recommendation systems encourage people to buy niche/indie games and not only the most expensive AAA titles.
