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Re: 3 Steam Announcements

I'm curious why the instant love for the idea.

One of the key features of steam is to make piracy difficult (just like Apple) and to offer cheap games that are easy to buy and install (just like Apple). So this steam box is not going to be the "open" (easily rooted) install and play whatever you can steal (like that Android kickstarter cube whose name I already forget). Steam will want to keep it so you gotta pay them to play, I don't know how but they're going to make a rooted steam box not be a threat to publishers.

If Apple added ipad/iphone games to Apple TV it would be sneered at. Closed system. Walled garden. Yada. Yada. Go google.

But a Steam closed system and walled garden is ok?

is it just because Steam started with the PC game community?

yeah that's what I thought.

So it really isn't about whether or not a product is closed, curated, open, or whatever. Those arguments are just smokescreen. Because PC gaming is getting saved almost single handedly by Steam and their easy to install hard to pirate $4.99 weekend specials (so similar to the Apple solution - pass the huge savings in cost of distribution vs the $59.99 retail box with a cdrom, right back to the consumer).

Hmm, but the argument aimed *at* consoles (or ipads, iphones) and apple TV, is all about how it is a closed system. Not that it is taking over your PC.

Now steam is simply copying their closed system (that can live on a PC) to their own box. If this is accepted with open arms while I can see someone not liking a company I don't see that the oft quoted reasons that it is a closed system holds any water [if they embrace the steam box].

Keep in mind that this isn't just about what is running on their box. It is about providing a linux distribution that anyone can download and run on their desktop as well so the experience with steam is seamless whether you are playing on their box, sitting at your tv streaming or playing on your desktop.

We don't yet know that the OS will be locked down. Obviously the steam application, under which the games run, is going to continue to maintain control of steam gaming but it doesn't follow that the steam linux OS is going to lock down control. I think its quite different from the closed walled garden of an apple environment where apple controls everything. I think it is more likely that steam wants a steam OS, not to lock down control but to provide a high performance optimized and consistent base for linux gaming and avoid the myriad complexities of forcing non enthusiasts to deal with installing some particular linux distribution that may be constantly changing/evolving. I'm sure valve doesn't want to have to constantly deal with something breaking or performance changing because a distro pushed out this or that update, etc.

maybe.

However if Steam have learned how to create a walled garden safely within an open platform, one that continues to function reliably even if people start mucking and modding "their" OS, then that is a technology that Apple (or Sony, or Microsoft) does not possess rather than something they could also allow, but don't because of bloody mindedness.

if you want to sell an "appliance" experience, at least until now, it much be closed. You must have complete control over the updates to it, signed code, and the whole thing. Otherwise it is no longer an appliance but a hobby.

(Mind you my copy of steam quite often fails to start for mysterious reasons and must be re-installed, re-downloaded, cleaned, whatever).

I'll be interested to see the details. How they balance these two things.

I may be missing something, as I don't mess with Apple at all, so no idea what they offer in the line of "cheap games that are easy to buy and install" but Steam has pioneered the online download of PC titles. Having it instantly available (well, after download time) is a large boon to many PC gamers, and the model has been copied or piggy backed upon Steam itself, by a lot of companies. Couple this with (and this is where I think the larger difference comes into play) the offering of AAA titles / Indie titles / Classic titles at often reduced (eventually) prices, the ability to have access to those games, and often the saved data associated with it, and you get an all in one package that steam is able to deliver, and do it quite well. And it isn't just Candy Crush Saga or whatever...it's full blown titles with minimal DRM intrusion. It's a big deal.

As far as the walled garden being okay, keeping piracy locked down, etc...I think Steam has a fundamental understanding of why what they do works. It's often been said across the interwebs, and I agree with it, that when consumers have a an easily accessible, reasonably priced outlet to turn to for the items they want to purchase, I think more often than not, they'll take the legal way, if it's easy and convenient enough...and the price is right.

Steam does all of this with ease, so I don't think people are looking to this OS as being a hackers / pirates delight, but more of an avenue that will tie all of Steam's offerings together in to one place.

Too bad the **AA's can't figure this out.
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