Valve releases linux betas of Half Life 1 and Counter Strike 1.6

[torrentthief]

Half life 1 beta announcement: http://steamcommunity.com/gid/103582791433699581/announcements/detail/1766803738387712627

Counter Strike 1.6 beta accouncement: http://steamcommunity.com/gid/103582791433699581/announcements/detail/1766803738391201366

[SuperKid]

Impressive of Valve to actually make Linux versions of these games. You'd never see a company like EA do this to any of there games haha.

[torrentthief]

Impressive of Valve to actually make Linux versions of these games. You'd never see a company like EA do this to any of there games haha.

It appears as though they are porting ALL of their games over to linux as they are creating their own steam console specification. They obviously need to port all their own games if they want gamers to switch to linux and for other developers/publishers to release games on steam linux.

Exciting times :)

[SierraSonic]

Impressive of Valve to actually make Linux versions of these games. You'd never see a company like EA do this to any of there games haha.

EA= no support and shut down of server after 1 year. False lock out of games for selfish greedy corporate reasons.

Valve= Maintaining servers, releasing patches, and releasing Linux versions over a decade later.

I buy valve games when they are full price, one of the only game developers I do that for. I will THINK about getting any EA game for a while when they hit around $5 bucks.

[threesixtyflip]

I wonder if this means that eventually us Mac users will get a port too?

[Panda X]

I wonder if this means that eventually us Mac users will get a port too?

Think it may be already there?

"Hot on the heels of Half-Life 1, Counter-Strike 1.6 is now available as a Beta for your testing pleasure on Linux (and OS X)."

Not sure though as I don't have a Mac.

[threesixtyflip]

Think it may be already there?

"Hot on the heels of Half-Life 1, Counter-Strike 1.6 is now available as a Beta for your testing pleasure on Linux (and OS X)."

Not sure though as I don't have a Mac.

Didn't even see that part. Will have to have a look :)

[Glassed Silver]

It appears as though they are porting ALL of their games over to linux as they are creating their own steam console specification. They obviously need to port all their own games if they want gamers to switch to linux and for other developers/publishers to release games on steam linux.

Exciting times :)

This x10000000000000.

It's good to know there are least some in the industry who care for retro gamers, although I'd say those two games are somewhere between retro and current.

Now look at EA and their ridiculous excuse to require an internet connection at all times with their new SimCity, because parts of the game run on their servers...

Yeah... that surely was really needed. :rolleyes:

Sorry, but if your game can't run on my i7 quad-core, gtfo and release it in the next generation or pimp it down a bit.

Single player games MUST be able to run offline and not require a server. (especially when talking about EA, although they did support the Sims 2 server for quite a long time for their standards. Still, I don't want single player games with an expiration date. I've got enough of that with multiplayer games that are also starting to exclude LAN play more and more...)

Slap future retro gamers right into the face, well done EA.

I've long been rather loyal to EA and never got the hate for them, but year by year I see more how absolutely anti-gamer they are becoming with all of their titles and their awful store.

At least Ubisoft backpedaled on their DRM tactics a bit and don't require always-online anymore. Props to them. (Y)

Glassed Silver:mac

[Aergan]

Are these the Source version? If not, they have ran under Wine/WineX for a very long time.

Props to them for the effort though.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

Are these the Source version? If not, they have ran under Wine/WineX for a very long time.

Props to them for the effort though.

No, these are not the Source versions. SoldSrc. :o

[threesixtyflip]

The Mac versions actually seem to be working pretty neatly :)

Downloading Ubuntu 64-bit now to see how it works on a spare laptop I have :)

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

It's interesting to see them porting something as old as the original half life. I think Goldsrc might be quite easy to port, since it used OpenGL for it's stuff (although DirectX was available as an option IIRC), so there's probably not very much code in there that couldn't be ported straight over to Linux/Mac.

Kudos to them.

[Chasethebase Veteran]

Yep, Mac OS X versions are also available now. Feel free to pick them up, especially Half Life, it's entirely necessary.

[Andre S. Veteran]

Valve is wasting its time and resources bringing a few games to desktop Linux. The market share of these OSes will remain insignificant for the foreseeable future, and that means new games will keep supporting only Windows and latest-gen consoles, and occasionally Mac.

[Denis W. Veteran]

Valve is wasting its time and resources bringing a few games to desktop Linux. The market share of these OSes will remain insignificant for the foreseeable future, and that means new games will keep supporting only Windows and latest-gen consoles, and occasionally Mac.

Clearly they see a business justification to push forward for platform independence of their games instead of the traditional Windows dominance. If that business justification is their Steam boxes then so be it.

Other than allegience to a platform I find it a bit puzzling why people (not referring to you, but in general) would stand opposed to efforts to bring games to a wider audience.

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

Valve is wasting its time and resources bringing a few games to desktop Linux. The market share of these OSes will remain insignificant for the foreseeable future, and that means new games will keep supporting only Windows and latest-gen consoles, and occasionally Mac.

I guess you don't know how many people actually use Steam then.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

Valve is wasting its time and resources bringing a few games to desktop Linux. The market share of these OSes will remain insignificant for the foreseeable future, and that means new games will keep supporting only Windows and latest-gen consoles, and occasionally Mac.

Linux will be the OS running the Steam box. I think it's pretty much a given that they're releasing these games on Linux in order to test and develop their IP for their console, rather than dedicating specifically to Linux development.

It's also worth bearing in mind that aside maybe from Desura, they don't actually have any competition in Linux gaming, therefore there's a lot of untapped potential userbase there. Humble Bundles have shown consistently that, given the choice, Linux users are happy to pay for games, so why not exploit that fact?

[Andre S. Veteran]

Clearly they see a business justification to push forward for platform independence of their games instead of the traditional Windows dominance. If that business justification is their Steam boxes then so be it.

Other than allegience to a platform I find it a bit puzzling why people (not referring to you, but in general) would stand opposed to efforts to bring games to a wider audience.

Oh right, Steambox, forgot about that. I can't believe that's actually going to run Linux and be successful, considering there's essentially less than 0.001% of games that support Linux right now, and porting their own games to the platform won't skew that figure by much. It's... intriguing to say the least.

I'm not opposed to bringing games to a wider audience at all, I just don't see how bringing a few games to desktop Linux right now is a productive use of Valve's time. I suppose they're just trying to get some expertise and pushing issues out of the way for their Steambox as you mention but I'm extremely skeptical of what Steam can achieve on Ubuntu or such OSes.

[Andre S. Veteran]

It's also worth bearing in mind that aside maybe from Desura, they don't actually have any competition in Linux gaming, therefore there's a lot of untapped potential userbase there. Humble Bundles have shown consistently that, given the choice, Linux users are happy to pay for games, so why not exploit that fact?

Desktop Linux is still hovering around 1% market share like it always did. It's not a big potential userbase, and most of it probably doesn't have the drivers or even hardware to run modern video games.

[FunkyMike]

Oh right, Steambox, forgot about that. I can't believe that's actually going to run Linux and be successful, considering there's essentially less than 0.001% of games that support Linux right now, and porting their own games to the platform won't skew that figure by much. It's... intriguing to say the least.

I'm not opposed to bringing games to a wider audience at all, I just don't see how bringing a few games to desktop Linux right now is a productive use of Valve's time. I suppose they're just trying to get some expertise and pushing issues out of the way for their Steambox as you mention but I'm extremely skeptical of what Steam can achieve on Ubuntu or such OSes.

Back in the days when GoldSrc wasn't called GoldSrc, HL1 and CS already had OpenGL support.

[08993]

Oh right, Steambox, forgot about that. I can't believe that's actually going to run Linux and be successful, considering there's essentially less than 0.001% of games that support Linux right now, and porting their own games to the platform won't skew that figure by much. It's... intriguing to say the least.

How many people are using PS4's and XBox720's?

There's no distinction, Valve could have gone off and created their own ecosystem and released dev kits etc. and people would have still made games for it, as it is they've chosen an already established platform.

It's actually very clever and carries a lot less risk.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

Desktop Linux is still hovering around 1% market share like it always did. It's not a big potential userbase, and most of it probably doesn't have the drivers or even hardware to run modern video games.

True, but pair that with the first part of my response and it makes sense IMO. If you're making games for Linux, why not make them available to desktop users too? We don't know either way if the Steambox will be a hit. A venture into the console market is always a risk, but if the likes of Sony and Microsoft can pull it off, the cards aren't off the table for Valve either.

As it stands, the Steambox is on target to have ~80 launch titles, assuming all developers commit in full before launch day. This could be as high as a hundred, but definitely more than the 49 games currently available to desktop users. Not a bad start if you ask me.

[Colin McGregor]

EA= no support and shut down of server after 1 year. False lock out of games for selfish greedy corporate reasons.

Valve= Maintaining servers, releasing patches, and releasing Linux versions over a decade later to fuel gabes hate for Windows 8. Not him caring about Linux just him wanting to be anti-Win8.

I buy valve games when they are full price, one of the only game developers I do that for. I will THINK about getting any EA game for a while when they hit around $5 bucks.

fixed for you. Don't want people getting the wrong idea. Gabe and Valve didn't give a rats ass about Linux or its users until gabe threw a tantrum about Windows 8 (hows that rage quit and no one using it going?). So don't try to pretend like he's seen the light and cares about us.

[Andre S. Veteran]

As it stands, the Steambox is on target to have ~80 launch titles, assuming all developers commit in full before launch day. This could be as high as a hundred, but definitely more than the 49 games currently available to desktop users. Not a bad start if you ask me.

Where do you get that figure and how many of these will be new games?

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

No new games as far as I'm aware, but I got the figures from a hand count here. Mostly indie games as it stands, but I can vouch that a fair few of them are pretty good.