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Valve has directly responded to the Steam communities' worries that Steam Machines and by extension SteamOS, Valve's Linux powered gaming OS, were silently being discontinued. tl;dr: No, they aren't dropping SteamOS or the Steam Machine. In fact, they have more in the pipeline for Linux so stay tuned.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/1696043806550421224/
We've noticed that what started out as a routine cleanup of the Steam Store navigation turned into a story about the delisting of Steam Machines. That section of the Steam Store is still available, but was removed from the main navigation bar based on user traffic. Given that this change has sparked a lot of interest, we thought it'd make sense to address some of the points we've seen people take away from it.
While it's true Steam Machines aren't exactly flying off the shelves, our reasons for striving towards a competitive and open gaming platform haven't significantly changed. We're still working hard on making Linux operating systems a great place for gaming and applications. We think it will ultimately result in a better experience for developers and customers alike, including those not on Steam.
Through the Steam Machine initiative, we've learned quite a bit about the state of the Linux ecosystem for real-world game developers out there. We've taken a lot of feedback and have been heads-down on addressing the shortcomings we observed. We think an important part of that effort is our ongoing investment in making Vulkan a competitive and well-supported graphics API, as well as making sure it has first-class support on Linux platforms.
Recently we announced Vulkan availability for macOS and iOS, adding to its existing availability for Windows and Linux. We also rolled out Steam Shader Pre-Caching, which will let users of Vulkan-based applications skip shader compilation on their local machine, significantly improving initial load times and reducing overall runtime stuttering in comparison with other APIs. We'll be talking more about Shader Pre-Caching in the coming months as the system matures.
At the same time, we're continuing to invest significant resources in supporting the Vulkan ecosystem, tooling and driver efforts. We also have other Linux initiatives in the pipe that we're not quite ready to talk about yet; SteamOS will continue to be our medium to deliver these improvements to our customers, and we think they will ultimately benefit the Linux ecosystem at large.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @07:36AM (1 child)
Steam DRM and being open does not have to be opposites.
Games are entertainment. They are an alternative to going to the opera (not the browser).
Having access to use your tools for whatever purpose you need is important. Those making the tools should not get to tell you what purpose you can use them for. They can say "not supported" or "no warranty", but not tell you that you can't do it.
Tools include hammers, screw drivers, operating systems, compilers, editors, spread sheets, etc.
Entertainment is different. They get to tell you to sit down, shut up and turn your phone off. And if you don't like it, you can just leave.
Entertainment includes the opera, theater, movie theater, and games.
Why this difference? Because you NEED your tools, you don't need entertainment. If you don't like the conditions of any of the available entertainment, go out and enjoy nature instead. It's healthy, good exercise, doesn't cost anything and has zero DRM. Your tools,
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday April 05 2018, @05:03PM
For a professional ball sport player, are a ball, a uniform, and a field "entertainment" or "tools"? The answer informs discussion about whether game software used in esports must be free software in order to respect the freedom of players and fans.