Gaming

Analysis: Can SteamOS drag the PC game industry over to Linux?

Or: Why Valve should make Half-Life 3 a SteamOS exclusive.

Kyle Orland – Sep 23, 2013 6:30 pm | 343

Here's an idea—want users to adopt Linux? You know that game everyone is "OMG GIMME!" about... Credit: Nathan Mattise / Valve / Flickr user: mtellin

Right after I wrote up today’s news regarding Valve’s announcement of a Linux-based SteamOS as central to its living room PC gaming efforts, I tweeted the following instant analysis: “If anyone has the clout to drag the gaming industry towards Linux, it’s Valve.” After thinking about it for a bit, I think Valve has a better than decent shot of actually pulling the transition off, especially if it wisely utilizes its position as what amounts to the biggest first-party developer in PC gaming.

The history of Windows’ current near-hegemony in the PC gaming space is well known. Windows (and MS-DOS before it) had the most users, so developers coded their games primarily (or exclusively) for Windows. This attracted more gaming-focused users to Windows, which gave developers even more reasons to focus on Windows. It’s a cycle that led to a widespread lock-in effect for both PC gamers and game developers, and it’s been incredibly hard for other operating systems to break over the years.

Valve has already begun working to break PC gamers out of this cycle (and away from the “catastrophe” that co-founder Gabe Newell considers Windows 8) by extending its popular Steam distribution platform to Linux, a move that was announced last year. Steam for Linux launched in February with over 50 games sporting native compatibility, and its library has grown to nearly 200 titles since. This effort has been helped along by Valve’s porting of its Source engine (and its attendant classic games) to Linux and by efforts like the Humble Indie Bundle, which has long encouraged its developers to offer their games for Windows, Mac, and Linux at the same time. (Linux gamers, in turn, have been some of the most generous backers of the Humble Bundle’s pay-what-you-want efforts.)

This has all been helpful to prove that there is a viable market for games on Linux, but it hasn’t really been enough to elevate the platform outside of its niche status for gamers. Aside from Valve’s own output, the vast majority of Steam’s Linux titles are the kind of indie games that are darlings with critics and in-the-know gamers, but these aren’t destined to sell millions of copies. Even Valve’s own Linux releases have been ports of games that came out on Windows years ago. That’s nice for Linux-only die-hards, but it’s not the kind of thing that’s going to convince many people to switch in and of itself.

Valve’s ace in the hole

Today, Valve said we should watch for “announcements in the coming weeks about all the AAA titles coming natively to SteamOS in 2014.” There is one AAA announcement in particular, though, that would be bigger than all the others combined. It could instantly get millions of gamers to seriously consider making the jump (or at least adding on) a Linux-based OS for their gaming needs. That announcement would be a SteamOS-exclusive version of Half-Life 3 (or, somehow, another Valve sequel or franchise with HL3-levels of buzz).

It might sound crazy to release such a highly anticipated game on an entirely new OS rather than on the established OS already in use by 95 percent of gamers. It’s important to note, though, that requiring SteamOS wouldn’t technically cut off any of the millions of gamers currently locked in to their Windows or Mac boxes. Those users could still install the free, Linux-based SteamOS on their systems to play the game, after all. They could even set it up as a secondary, dual-boot OS without affecting their current set up much. Installing a second operating system is a technical and onerous process that’s not really of much interest to a mainstream audience. But if there’s anyone that can make the process simple and streamlined, it’s Valve. The company set the standard for streamlined game and update downloading through Steam.

Valve could also try to sell the SteamOS requirement as a way to squeeze every bit of power out of your PC gaming hardware by eliminating the overhead required for Windows or Mac OS. It already made a similar argument when noting that the Linux port of Left 4 Dead 2 was the best-performing version of the game.

Many users would no doubt grumble and complain about needing to install a new OS to play the game, and many of them would no doubt complain quite loudly to anyone who would listen (meaning: on Internet message boards and petition sites). Still, the draw of a title as heavily anticipated as Half-Life 3 would convince most (if not all) of the complainers to suck it up and just go through the installation so they could play the game. In the process, Valve would gain a huge installed base for its nascent platform, making it an instantly viable option for developers to consider developing for. Even releasing Half-Life 3 as a timed exclusive on SteamOS (say, six months before a Windows/MacOS release) would achieve many of the same goals.

If this still seems like a crazy idea, remember that nine years ago it seemed just as crazy for Valve to require users to install a little program called Steam and perform an online check-in in order to play Half-Life 2, even if they bought the game on a retail disc. Players complained back then too, and the launch wasn’t without its share of technical hiccups. But users still bought the game by the millions and gave Steam its first tiny foothold into the new digital delivery landscape. Nine years from now, we could look at the dual launch of Half-Life 3 and SteamOS in the same exact way.

Listing image: Nathan Mattise / Valve / Flickr user: mtellin

Kyle Orland Senior Gaming Editor

Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper.

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