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Comment by Skoofoo | Hacker News Reader

I would sympathize with Valve if they didn't completely ignore Linux before acting like the Linux community's best friend when it became apparent that they had nowhere else to turn to [1]. Like many, I'm a fan of their games and their flat management, but they have a history of being as short-sighted and callous as EA and I wish more people would see that [2].

I have a lot more respect for the people behind Humble Bundle/Wolfire, who went out of their way to support Linux long before it was cool [3]. Plus they don't force DRM middleware on you.

[1] http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/steamd-penguins/

[2] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/11/valve-tricked-h/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugaru

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What? Humble BundLe totally sold out their integrity after they let THQ sell their games with the Humble Bundle brand, without linux versions and with DRM.

[1] http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/the-humble-thq-bu...

[2] http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/11/humble-thq-bundle-thre...

I think you're being very hyperbolic. They were very explicit saying the games were Windows only and had DRM (Steam). It was its own isolated bundle.

Technically, and financially it was all good. However marketing wise not a good move. Your post proofs this. And I kinda agree.

Yes, that bundle was upsetting. I hope they don't continue this kind of stuff.

I was disappointed about this, too; not because it's necessarily bad, but because they had set the bar so high for themselves and then totally missed it with this. On the bright side, it raised a lot of money for charity.

It wasn't named an "indie" bundle and it was marked quite well. I don't think it's selling out.

Their integrity? THQ was about to tank, and they wanted to flip the games to whoever they could. I'm sure that if there were THQ-internal beta versions for Linux and Mac, they would have happily shipped them.

Valve has a history of being as short-sighted and callous as EA and I wish more people would see that [2].

Your citation [2] doesn't in any way support that viewpoint. Actually, there probably aren't any citations which support that viewpoint, because EA is about as far opposite from Valve as a gaming company can get. (Zynga is likely the polar opposite.)

If your account is stolen and becomes VAC banned, Valve won't do anything about it and you will be stuck with gimped games, regardless of how much business you gave them (back then they didn't have security codes). I can't find this on Google, but at least twice I've read that Valve just ignores emails from game developers they're not interested in. In Team Fortress 2, the staff is allowed to hop on players' servers and practically cheat by mowing down everyone with overpowered weapons, and they ruined the game's integrity through introducing a microtransaction economy that they take advantage of to promote other Steam games.

Maybe Valve isn't as bad as EA, but it's hardly as good as its reputation.

> I've read that Valve just ignores emails from game developers they're not interested in

Details on that would be interesting. I have to say my first thought is that they probably get a lot of indie developers that want on the Network, and don't want to devote and entire position to explaining why not every publisher gets in Steam just because they want to.

> In Team Fortress 2 ... they ruined the game's integrity through introducing a microtransaction economy

So, they take their free to play game, and add the ability to customize your characters in ways that don't affect gameplay that make them money, and they have all of a sudden ruined the integrity of the game? Is it ruined because they want to make some money from it? I seem to remember that when they were just starting the hats, they were also putting out large updates for the player classes, for free.

> take advantage of to promote other Steam games.

You state that like it's bad for it's own sake. What's wrong with them promoting their other games?

> So, they take their free to play game, and add the ability to customize your characters in ways that don't affect gameplay that make them money, and they have all of a sudden ruined the integrity of the game?

I haven't played any TF2 and don't have any strong opinions on it, I just wanted to point out that it wasn't originally free to play. It was released as part of The Orange Box in 2007 and went free about 4 years later.

As wlesieutre mentioned, Team Fortress 2 wasn't free until after microtransactions have been around for some time.

Early on, the game had a consistent 1960s theme and each character had a consistent distinct sillhouette and behavior, so the game was easy to pick up and it was reasonable to play it competitively. It had great game design. Over time they ruined all of that for the sake of profiting off of addicted players.

I really can't muster much support for your indignation.

I can't help but think that the hats actually add to the game, by allowing players to choose a semi-custom look for their character while playing, making a specific character easily identifiable.

Your reasoning make it sound like you're just upset that they took something that you had been accustomed to, and changed it. I note how you didn't mention any stats, or even a hunch as to whether most players liked or disliked the hats.

Additionally, you cast the players as "addicted", and Valve as somehow taking advantage of their addiction. Let's get this straight. The players aren't addicted to TF2 (even if you somehow proved they could be addicted to competitive FPS muliplayer, there's plenty of alternatives), and Valve isn't taking advantage. To do so they would have to be preventing play unless people bought something, which they aren't. They simply provided an additional, fully opt-in set of features.

Finally, if you don't like playing with hats because it ruins some behavior you had come to rely on, find other people that feel the same way and start your own server and enforce a strict policy of exactly what's allowed. That's done often in serious competitive play anyways, isn't it?

>I would sympathize with Valve if they didn't completely ignore Linux

Can you blame them? I'm surprised they can make the numbers work even now, let alone 5 years ago. The probably still don't...its probably just a long range bet.

>Plus they don't force DRM middleware on you.

DRM is the future (not that I like it). The trick is simply to make it DRM like Steam where people barely realize its DRM and rather than EA's crap idea of DRM.

> DRM is the future

Why?

It seems entirely reasonable to me to have an equilibrium where there's some nonzero market niche of people who oppose DRM for practical and/or ideological reasons, and some nonzero number of developers that realize they can get access to that market by forgoing DRM on their products.

Case in point: Just yesterday I saw Torchlight 2 was on sale on Gamersgate. I was totally ready to buy it on the spot. Then I saw that it was Steam-only. And I didn't buy it for that reason, and that reason alone.

Those dollars from my entertainment budget are now ready to be captured by non-DRM products. If there are enough people like me, we can push back DRM, or at least keep it out of some corner of the market.

If you don't like DRM, vote with your wallet.

This is not about being anyone's friend: they're merely trying to keep their head above water.

If this makes linux more popular as side-effect, so be it.

"After all, isn’t that what open source is all about – the idea that collaboration and teamwork achieve amazing things?" Written by Valve in the cited blog post, despite having nothing to do with open source.

I wouldn't say they completely ignored Linux. They did have nix servers for all of their games back when 3d gaming on nix wasn't viable at all.

they're on board now, that's all that matters.

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