Valve bans users who mention Linux

[phrostbyte]

Valve has said that Steam is "strictly a Windows application" and that they will never support Linux. They are going as far as banning dozens of people who brought up Linux support.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6510144&postcount=4
http://digg.com/linux_unix/VALVe_Ultimatum_Discuss_Linux_and_get_BANNED
http://digg.com/linux_unix/VALVe_silence_the_linux_and_mac_debate

[LaRoza]

Don't bring up Linux support? That might work.

[Spr0k3t]

The other side of this story however... many of those users who were banned were part of a plot to flood the forums with "support Linux" requests all over the place. Some users who were indeed innocent were banned as well. The primary reason for the banning to happen stemmed from the childish flooding after the "It's a windows client only, get over it" comment was posted.

Sucks to hear imho... vote with your money when a similar application is developed and released for Linux.

[phrostbyte]

Don't bring up Linux support? That might work.

How about vote with your wallet and not support companies like Valve? If they don't want to support Linux, why should we should we support them? Their behavior towards Linux users and attitude towards Linux is unacceptable. I know I won't spend another dime on any Valve game ever again. And I purchased HL2 and CS:S.

[DoctorMO]

I haven't bought a game in years, doesn't look like I'm about to be able to either. shame that these companies don't want my money but I can quite happily play xjig until they sort themselves out, because linux isn't going anywhere from my computer and I don't own nor wish to own a copy of windows.

[Freddy]

Valve has said that Steam is "strictly a Windows application" and that they will never support Linux. They are going as far as banning dozens of people who brought up Linux support.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6510144&postcount=4
http://digg.com/linux_unix/VALVe_Ultimatum_Discuss_Linux_and_get_BANNED
http://digg.com/linux_unix/VALVe_silence_the_linux_and_mac_debate
Ehh what do you want steam ported for? Wouldn't it be better if Valve ported some games instead?

[lenaubry]

I know I won't spend another dime on any Valve game ever again. And I purchased HL2 and CS:S.

My sentiments exactly

[DeadSuperHero]

Well! This gives me all the more incentive to learn Python, and work on Centrifuge more!
Hooray incentives!

[EndPerform]

In all reality, it is their forums and they're free to moderate them as they wish. Apparently there have been a lot of threads started about Linux support, and they're getting fed up with dealing with them all the time, so I see their point. It's not like someone first brought up Linux and got an automatic ban.

That being said, Cedega runs Steam just fine for me and I can play their games without issue.

[PhatStreet]

Valve has said that Steam is "strictly a Windows application" and that they will never support Linux. They are going as far as banning dozens of people who brought up Linux support.
Where did they say that?

The Steam Client is strictly a Windows application, and there are no current plans to create a native Linux Steam Client at this time.
They're not a huge company, and they don't have the resources to spend making a new Steam client for an obscure desktop OS, especially when there are less than 5 native Linux ports of the games offered on Steam.

They've heard people's cries in the past, but the recent harassment of the Digg mafia is too much. Just leave them alone, and perhaps it will happen in the future.

[eljoeb]

I'm with Valve here.

People knew Valve had no intention of supporting Linux. As far as I'm concerned, they asked for it.

And why does anyone care? Steam works on Wine, and Half Life and HL2 work pretty well on Wine as well. Not great, but good enough.

I wonder if developers consider this kind of behaviour when deciding to port something to Linux.

[phrostbyte]

I'm with Valve here.

People knew Valve had no intention of supporting Linux. As far as I'm concerned, they asked for it.

And why does anyone care? Steam works on Wine, and Half Life and HL2 work pretty well on Wine as well. Not great, but good enough.

I wonder if developers consider this kind of behaviour when deciding to port something to Linux.

Well people thought Dell had no intention of offering Ubuntu. It certainly took me by suprise. But you see, Dell is a company that seems to actually listen to it's customers. If my suggestion forum was literarly flooded with Linux support requests, you know what, just from a business perspective, it would make sense to make at the least throw a bone to your customers. Valve didn't throw a bone, they throw a hammer. A ban hammer. That's extremely lame in my opinion.

[Dimitriid]

I dont see how can anybody "take sides" with valve and be a gamer on Linux at the same time, asking for Linux support and linux native games is exactly what Linux needs to take off for "gamers".

After all when was the last time you heard many people saying to a company "we want you to create a product for this particular needs" and the company replying "GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE YOU"RE BANNED FROM THE PREMISES! WE DONT WANT YOUR MONEY AND WE DONT WANT YOU AS A CUSTOMER!"

That is just not acceptable from somebody who is making a living out of selling products, Boycott Valve I say.

[xen]

I can't remember whoever it was that said it but: "They are not a huge company".. This is incorrect. They are one of the biggest, if not the overall biggest! I don't see why it is so much of an effort. All of their games are coded in the familiar client/server model as most modern games are, and typically the client and server models do not contain platform specific code, just the game logic.

My point is its only really the game 'application' that has to be platform specific, such as processing keyboard input (whether it be through Win32 or an X server) and sound processing. Take a look at the Id games such as Quake 3, which are easily ported to MANY platforms (I am aware of the Quake VM, but compiling native modules is just as easy!).

[Freddy]

I dont see how can anybody "take sides" with valve and be a gamer on Linux at the same time, asking for Linux support and linux native games is exactly what Linux needs to take off for "gamers".

After all when was the last time you heard many people saying to a company "we want you to create a product for this particular needs" and the company replying "GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE YOU"RE BANNED FROM THE PREMISES! WE DONT WANT YOUR MONEY AND WE DONT WANT YOU AS A CUSTOMER!"

That is just not acceptable from somebody who is making a living out of selling products, Boycott Valve I say.
If you would have read some of the posts in here, you would have seen that most of us didn't actually take any sides at all.

But if someone begins to flood a forum, they should get banned. Those pricks that flooded Valves forum, won't make it more likely for Valve port games for GNU/Linux. When or if the time comes for Valve to begin making native games for our OS, it will probably be on Valves own decision.

You all have to remember that Valve isn't the richest company in the world and Gabe Newell even had to put his own money (he is pretty wealthy after getting a lot of dough from Microsoft when he used to work there) for the completion of Half-Life2. Myself I won't buy another game from Valve until they makes a native port, even if it would be the absolute greatest game ever made, I will support native Linux games and no other but I can understand a gaming company that wont port their game for this OS, especially if they use DirectX.

Can anyone please answer this question, why you think a company should support GNU/Linux today? It's not that they will make a lot of money on the port, so why would they port it? Do anyone actually think that a gaming company should lose money just to make you a happy boy?

/Freddan

[Dimitriid]

Well I didnt said "anybody who takes sides with valve" implying anybody on this discussion it was just a general phrase.

And yes you have rules of conduct for forums and what not but those are for childish attacks on the forums and servers, these requests, as unortodox and wrongfully done as they might be, are actually support requests and potential customers! How can you turn that away? Is Microsoft really paying you that much money that you have to turn business away in order to be loyal to them? I sincerely doubt that.

The worst part is that it would just take a few more really big and popular companies like Valve for things to change completely for Linux gamers. Is not lke people is asking "please give us free copies of your game!" and the whole point of steam is supposed to be a way to encourage legitimate copies and prevent illegal copies.

And about your DirectX arguments, well nobody told valve to tie themselves to Microsoft instead of using OpenGL, we all know they have plenty of dough and took their sweet damn long time to actually release Half Life 2. And even if you cannot turn back time I can assure you many of those people would be happy if Valve just said "Ok you know what? Next project will be OpenGL and/or multiplataform" Companies like Epic have managed just fine like that in the past.

[eljoeb]

Well I didnt said "anybody who takes sides with valve" implying anybody on this discussion it was just a general phrase.

And yes you have rules of conduct for forums and what not but those are for childish attacks on the forums and servers, these requests, as unortodox and wrongfully done as they might be, are actually support requests and potential customers! How can you turn that away? Is Microsoft really paying you that much money that you have to turn business away in order to be loyal to them? I sincerely doubt that.

The worst part is that it would just take a few more really big and popular companies like Valve for things to change completely for Linux gamers. Is not lke people is asking "please give us free copies of your game!" and the whole point of steam is supposed to be a way to encourage legitimate copies and prevent illegal copies.

They have gotten the request. Created tons of threads about it. They get the message. They asked people to stop. They didn't.

I may not have been here long (About two months as a Linux user), but a lot of people here have a seriously skewed view of businesses. Not all customers are profitable to serve. A company is not required to serve a market just because they exist. Being a "Corporation" doesn't mean you have vast pools of capital to invest as you please.

Support the developers who cater to you and maybe they'll change their mind.

[Freddy]

Well I didnt said "anybody who takes sides with valve" implying anybody on this discussion it was just a general phrase.

And yes you have rules of conduct for forums and what not but those are for childish attacks on the forums and servers, these requests, as unortodox and wrongfully done as they might be, are actually support requests and potential customers! How can you turn that away? Is Microsoft really paying you that much money that you have to turn business away in order to be loyal to them? I sincerely doubt that.

The worst part is that it would just take a few more really big and popular companies like Valve for things to change completely for Linux gamers. Is not lke people is asking "please give us free copies of your game!" and the whole point of steam is supposed to be a way to encourage legitimate copies and prevent illegal copies.
As soon as Valve believes they will make some money on a ported game, they will start to port a game. Almost everyone will always drag a company like ID Software into a debate such as this, but neither ID Software or Epic has (at least according to them) made a profit on their ports. ID Software had even said that it's hard to make any profits on the MS version of the game and have long going plans to mostly stop making games for the hole platform, in the future they might just port the console version.

So if it's tough to make any money on making a win version of a game, how will they make any profits on a GNU/Linux version? My suggestion would be that they tried to at least work together with the developers of Wine or at least Cedega, so at least we gamers could play our games with some help. This wouldn't cost them much and Cedega would actually work ;).

/Freddan

[Freddy]

They have gotten the request. Created tons of threads about it. They get the message. They asked people to stop. They didn't.

I may not have been here long (About two months as a Linux user), but a lot of people here have a seriously skewed view of businesses. Not all customers are profitable to serve. A company is not required to serve a market just because they exist. Being a "Corporation" doesn't mean you have vast pools of capital to invest as you please.

Support the developers who cater to you and maybe they'll change their mind.
Amen,

another capitalist I see. Profits FTW :P.

[dca]

That's it, the next person that brings up Linux on this forum, I'm gonna'..... wait... wait a minute.... nevermind....

[PatrickMay16]

I haven't bought a game in years, doesn't look like I'm about to be able to either. shame that these companies don't want my money but I can quite happily play xjig until they sort themselves out, because linux isn't going anywhere from my computer and I don't own nor wish to own a copy of windows.

YOU SAID IT BROTHER. And I can happily run zsnes and choose from millions of SNES games from the internet, until these guys are willing to sell to me.

They have to learn they can't supress linux.

[Freddy]

They have to learn they can't supress linux.
What would happen if they do?

[PatrickMay16]

What would happens if they do?

There'll be trouble. I'll boycott them harder than you could imagine.

[Freddy]

There'll be trouble. I'll boycott them harder than you could imagine.
Damn, you are harsh :).

[eljoeb]

How does one "softly boycott"?

Only boycotting every other day?

But that hard boycotting sounds rough.

[TBOL3]

Actually you can softly boycott them by buying exactly 1/2 of their products. :lolflag:

[SuSUntu]

Freddy and eljoeb and others with similar points of view have gotten this correct.

Another point that has not been explicitly stated, though it is an implicit part of the argument that game developers can't make a profit on Linux platforms, is that technical [customer] support for Linux would tie up way too many resources and possibly damage reputations (more so than usual).

Obviously, games are reliant on 3D, multimedia, networking, and input device compatibility and capability. Guess what? The biggest problems with Linux distros are with the very capabilities that games require. 3D acceleration is hit-and-miss, graphics drivers may work or likely not, keyboard key bindings likely will only partially work, and getting particular mouse buttons to work on a given mouse is a lucky hodge-podge of hacks.

Supporting these issues in Windows where things are more standardized (at least there aren't hundreds of OS variants) is bad enough. So then, why would anyone voluntarily wade into an OS market that is as fractured as Linux is and where every variation presents its own incompatibilities and weaknesses in the very core capabilities required to run games?

The likelihood that the game developer would be blamed for the shortcomings is very high based on the posts I see in this thread, and the rational would become, "Hey, I paid fifty bucks for this game, it should work. And if it doesn't why did they sell it to me?" This would probably hold true even if the customer already knew before he bought the game that his 3D acceleration sucked and that only two of his eleven mouse buttons worked ... as if installing the game would magically solve these deficiencies. The developers have already anticipated this, and because of a modicum of integrity and a desire to avoid undue costs, they have decided to avoid the market altogether.

[Dimitriid]

A company is not required to serve a market just because they exist. Being a "Corporation" doesn't mean you have vast pools of capital to invest as you please.

.

If the requests continue you're obviously not doing a good enough job as a company to let know people "yes im listening and considering". There are better ways to handle things and I suspect that decision is entirely up to the volunteers and other lower end employees who think everything is about running a nice and quiet forum.

The reason valve has a forum to begin with ( as opposed to the tons of companies that do not ) is because they want the input, but they obviously are not prepared to handle the input. Far too many companies are just better at lying and manipulating their customers to handle situations, yet you're talking about Valve who used a ridiculous tantrum excuse to supposedly delay their game a year when they were caught lying with a game not anywhere near done. They have a poor record at handling the community and if it wasn't for the community which pretty much made em rich with Counter Strike they wouldn't be where they are to begin with.

[PhatStreet]

I can't remember whoever it was that said it but: "They are not a huge company".. This is incorrect. They are one of the biggest, if not the overall biggest! They have 104 workers.

[Dimitriid]

Freddy and eljoeb and others with similar points of view have gotten this correct.

Another point that has not been explicitly stated, though it is an implicit part of the argument that game developers can't make a profit on Linux platforms, is that technical [customer] support for Linux would tie up way too many resources and possibly damage reputations (more so than usual).

Obviously, games are reliant on 3D, multimedia, networking, and input device compatibility and capability. Guess what? The biggest problems with Linux distros are with the very capabilities that games require. 3D acceleration is hit-and-miss, graphics drivers may work or likely not, keyboard key bindings likely will only partially work, and getting particular mouse buttons to work on a given mouse is a lucky hodge-podge of hacks.

Supporting these issues in Windows where things are more standardized (at least there aren't hundreds of OS variants) is bad enough. So then, why would anyone voluntarily wade into an OS market that is as fractured as Linux is and where every variation presents its own incompatibilities and weaknesses in the very core capabilities required to run games?

The likelihood that the game developer would be blamed for the shortcomings is very high based on the posts I see in this thread, and the rational would become, "Hey, I paid fifty bucks for this game, it should work. And if it doesn't why did they sell it to me?" This would probably hold true even if the customer already knew before he bought the game that his 3D acceleration sucked and that only two of his eleven mouse buttons worked ... as if installing the game would magically solve these deficiencies. The developers have already anticipated this, and because of a modicum of integrity and a desire to avoid undue costs, they have decided to avoid the market altogether.

That is just a "Chicken or the egg?" argument, without the support gaming companies pour into Microsoft those same 3d and multimedia capabilities you speak off would be on its infancy on windows too. To make a little profit margin and be really safe yes, it is better to go DirectX and be done with it. But if anyone would take a chance to explore a potentially huge market waiting to happen they would be taking a bigger risk yes but the potential rewards would be exponentially larger.

But as long as people consider this "no risk, safe bet" attitude is ok for gaming companies things will only get worst, even the windows PC is already on its way out becoming obsolete according to many huge names moving away to the consoles. But what is the trade off? Mediocrity, on all the new games.

[Dimitriid]

They have 104 workers.

That has nothing to do with the proportion of sales they have. If they only have that many employee's is because somebody there is greedy and without vision and is not expanding, cause Half Life 2 and Counter Strike Source were phenomenal successes.

[forrestcupp]

If companies would plan ahead of time that they are making their games to work on multiple platforms, the cost for porting would be almost non-existent. 3D game engines can be made like Ogre3D so that you write one set of code, make one set of content, and just compile on different systems. No porting involved; it's the same code for Windows and Linux.

[phrostbyte]

There is an endless amount of better ways they could have handled this better WITHOUT porting Steam or their video games to Linux. All they needed to do is acknowledge the fact that there is a demand for Linux games. Say that they hear us out. Even better would be work with the Wine or Cedega developers to improve support. It doesn't require massive amounts of capital or effort. Really damn near anything would have been a better response then what they are doing, and this is purely from a business perspective.

[eljoeb]

That is just a "Chicken or the egg?" argument, without the support gaming companies pour into Microsoft those same 3d and multimedia capabilities you speak off would be on its infancy on windows too. To make a little profit margin and be really safe yes, it is better to go DirectX and be done with it. But if anyone would take a chance to explore a potentially huge market waiting to happen they would be taking a bigger risk yes but the potential rewards would be exponentially larger.

But as long as people consider this "no risk, safe bet" attitude is ok for gaming companies things will only get worst, even the windows PC is already on its way out becoming obsolete according to many huge names moving away to the consoles. But what is the trade off? Mediocrity, on all the new games.

Because any game released on Linux would be wonderfully innovative and great. Valve has always been a really focused company. I mean, Half Life 2 was so different from Half Life it was amazing!

They can't be everything to everyone. Of course "if only" they chose to develop in Ogre3D, this wouldn't be a problem! Its their choice to develop their products how they want and its your choice to buy them.

As for potentially bigger huge market, there have been countless threads on this. Everyone doesn't use a computer for games, and by many people's responses (in those threads) its clear that everyone wouldn't be buying Linux games. And besides, doesn't Linux make up approximately 3% of the OS market?

The idea that developing games for Linux to bring users from Windows over to Linux may simply not seem appealing to a developer. If they have a lot of customers in Windows, why would they develop for Linux to get users to switch? They'll say "Great! x% of our customer base switched to another OS, and are still buying our product, just in a different form! The situation has greatly improved for us!" I would assume (making an "***" out of you and me no doubt) that a lot of existing "Linux Gamers" are dual booting XP right now, or using Wine/Cedega. So they're already buying games. So who are these Linux Gamers who are going to make this venture such a success? To a degree, the Wine/Cedega only users would buy more games, but would that make it worth it?


There is an endless amount of better ways they could have handled this better WITHOUT porting Steam or their video games to Linux. All they needed to do is acknowledge the fact that there is a demand for Linux games. Say that they hear us out. Even better would be work with the Wine or Cedega developers to improve support. It doesn't require massive amounts of capital or effort. Really damn near anything would have been a better response then what they are doing, and this is purely from a business perspective.

I would like to think I put a business perspective on this. Have you seen the Steam Linux threads? Annoying user base aside, the threads were getting ridiculous, and I think they got the point. I do think Wine and Cedega mean a lot for Linux Gaming's future; I think it would be a cool idea for Wine or Cedega to offer a "Wine Certified to Work on Linux" type qualification to developers who worked with them, which could be put on the box of the game, or something like that.

Many people say Linux needs games to attract more users. I agree to a point. But Linux needs a better way to attract developers.

[forrestcupp]

There is an endless amount of better ways they could have handled this better WITHOUT porting Steam or their video games to Linux. All they needed to do is acknowledge the fact that there is a demand for Linux games. Say that they hear us out. Even better would be work with the Wine or Cedega developers to improve support. It doesn't require massive amounts of capital or effort. Really damn near anything would have been a better response then what they are doing, and this is purely from a business perspective.
As far as Steam and Half-Life2 go, they already do work well with Wine.



They can't be everything to everyone. Of course "if only" they chose to develop in Ogre3D, this wouldn't be a problem! Its their choice to develop their products how they want and its your choice to buy them.

I wasn't saying they should use Ogre3D. That would be ridiculous, since their engines are way more advanced. I was just using Ogre to point out that it wouldn't take that much to make a product cross platform.

Why can't they be everything to everyone? They just don't want to.

[zero244]

The last Valve game I bought was HL2 which I regret.
You have to have a internet connection just to install the game.
I will never buy another Valve game........or any game that requires Steam to use.

[phrostbyte]

I would like to think I put a business perspective on this. Have you seen the Steam Linux threads? Annoying user base aside, the threads were getting ridiculous, and I think they got the point. I do think Wine and Cedega mean a lot for Linux Gaming's future; I think it would be a cool idea for Wine or Cedega to offer a "Wine Certified to Work on Linux" type qualification to developers who worked with them, which could be put on the box of the game, or something like that.

Many people say Linux needs games to attract more users. I agree to a point. But Linux needs a better way to attract developers.

You have a better way? Really there is this chicken and egg thing going on with Linux. Everyone is like, "wait till Linux gets more marketshare it'll have more stuff", and other the other hand refuse to use Linux until it supports their pet applications. Quite frankly if people want to see Linux succeed they need to be less passive. There is nothing obnoxious or wrong about asking for Linux support. Even if there are another 1000 people before you who did. You aren't artificially inflating the demand for Linux support by speaking your mind. It's Valve here who is the wrong. By banning discussion about Linux, what they are doing is artificially deflating the demand for Linux. They refuse to see it how it is.

[SuSUntu]

I was just using Ogre to point out that it wouldn't take that much to make a product cross platform.

Why can't they be everything to everyone? They just don't want to.


As I have already pointed out (and which should be very obvious), game development is not just about making the code cross-platform. Simply doing that may in itself be forcing "lowest common denominator" pandering that bleeding-edge technologies like game development are not willing to accept. But beyond that, it requires dependence on bleeding-edge hardware and drivers that can maximize use of that hardware. In turn, that requires a lot of relationships among hardware vendors, the game developers and developers of the OS on which the hardware and games are intended to run.

The "chicken-and-egg" analogy was brought up again, as usual in these discussions. Supposedly, if only game developers would make games for Linux, then it follows that hardware manufacturers would make drivers for Linux. Or, if only hardware manufacturers would make drivers, then game developers would make games. But nowhere in that logic is Linux (or a particular distribution of Linux) brought in to the mix ... as if it didn't matter. And it matters a great deal.

The hardware manufacturers and game developers (or software developers, in general) need to have relationships with the OS developer to ensure a profitable / successful path for all parties. Who, exactly, are the hardware manufacturers and the game developers supposed to go to to develop these relationships? Which distribution do they choose? Do they choose one or a few of the most popular? Will the ones they choose to support still even be around in a year (or as popular)? Who represents the distribution in such a way that "deals" could be struck to ensure mutual success? Would striking such deals in itself actually cause the popularity of the distribution to diminish (i.e., the distro may be seen as "selling-out" to the corporate evil-doers, and therefore, it may lose share amongst the hardcore Linux folks).

Developers of free / OS software have it hard enough, but proprietary / commercial enterprises cannot just put a product out and HOPE that it works. They cannot rely on the "well, it was free, what did you expect" rationale. If a fee is charged, expectations are much higher. Developers are responsible for satisfying customers a very high percentage of the time ... approaching 100%. That requires a lot more effort and resources to achieve. I don't see how the Linux model allows them to ensure such high levels of satisfaction.

Anyway, since choice is the mantra of Linux users, you should also be aware that choosing Linux has its benefits and costs (as using Windows has its benefits and costs). If you chose to rely exclusively on Linux as a platform in its current state of game support, you chose to accept the costs (and you gave up the benefits of using Windows as well). If you need the benefits of both, then use both, for now.

Any talk of boycotts of one or more game developers is ridiculous given the complexity of the issue. You might as well boycott Playboy because they don't use fat chicks in their centerfolds. Or how about boycotting Brembo (http://www.brembo.com/ENG) because they don't make bolt-on brake kits that fit 1986 Yugos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugo#U.S._History).

[Freddy]

You have a better way? Really there is this chicken and egg thing going on with Linux. Everyone is like, "wait till Linux gets more marketshare it'll have more stuff", and other the other hand refuse to use Linux until it supports their pet applications. Quite frankly if people want to see Linux succeed they need to be less passive. There is nothing obnoxious or wrong about asking for Linux support. Even if there are another 1000 people before you who did. You aren't artificially inflating the demand for Linux support by speaking your mind. It's Valve here who is the wrong. By banning discussion about Linux, what they are doing is artificially deflating the demand for Linux. They refuse to see it how it is.
If you would actually read the hole thread (which ain't that large yet) you would have seen that Valve haven't banned anyone for bringing up Linux, they banned people that flooded their forums with posts and threads about porting their software to GNU/Linux.

[amadeus266]

That's it, the next person that brings up Linux on this forum, I'm gonna'..... wait... wait a minute.... nevermind....

:lolflag: Rock on!!! :guitar: