If the Steam Machine/SteamOS fails will it take Linux gaming with it?
 

First of all I would like to thank Valve for developing the Steam Machine and SteamOS. It is not even out yet and we already have a flood of games since they released the Steam client for Linux a few years ago.

I don't want to jinx Valve here, but I don't see the Steam Machine or SteamOS taking off. The controller however might go through the roof. What is the use case for me buying one or switching to SteamOS?

How much is Linux gaming dependant on the succues of SteamOS and/or the Steam Machine?

I don't think the Linux game market would crash if the Steam Machine and SteamOS were to fail. I think the market would just grow less quickly.

Bummer that Witcher 3 didn't have a same day Linux release. Are they waiting on the Steam Machines coming out later this year?

The real question is "What will make SteamOS better for gaming than Windows with Steam installed?
- Nothing. Free Windows 10 is going to be a killer for Linux gaming, in my opinion.

And what will make Steam Machine able to compete with XBox or Playstation?
- The answer is that which has allowed both of the current console giants to survive, and that is exclusive offerings. Games that you want to play badly enough that you'll go buy the console to play them.

In my opinion, Steam Machine will enter the console market and immediately start getting gank'ed by Microsoft and Sony. If Steam doesn't have some rock-solid, exclusive handshakes with game developers early on, I am afraid there will not be a 'Steam Machine 2', 'Steam Machine 360', nor a 'Super Steam Machine'.

There never needs to be a Steambox 2, since the entire concept is based on open hardware specs. Need a more powerful Steambox? Just upgrade the parts in it or buy a more powerful version.

Having said that, until the recent E3 neither Steamboxes nor SteamOS was openly available (yes, one could download and use SteamOS, but it didn't came pre-installed on anything), yet we have over 1000 Linux games on Steam now, with more, even AAA titles, getting ported or released for Linux from the beginning. The upcoming Batman will have Linux support, Grid: Autosport will get a port, I just played a few hours of Bioshock Infinite, bought DLC for ETS 2 and consider buying Tropico 5, ... .
Many developers and publishers have realized that Linux is a viable gaming platform and that Linux users are not a bunch of "we want to have anything for free" people, as so many people thought. I would even go so far to propose that piracy is much less common for the Linux versions of games than for other platforms.

So, my opinion: Even if SteamOS fails, Linux gaming will, if at all, only see a minor impact, as long as we Linux gamers actually buy games for our platform.

I do very little gaming but I am pleased there's Steam to turn to.
I get the impression that a significant number of developers think that developing for Linux and more open standards is a more pragmatic and possibly even "cooler" thing to do than always chasing the next big Microsoft games API. So, I would hope that Steam on Linux will continue even if the Steam Machine fails even if it's just a possible escape route for Valve to use to pressure MS (I'm thinking of Dell and their Linux offerings here). I also think Linux-friendly games will continue to be produced by developers who are interested in more open engines (I'm thinking Quake of old etc.).

Why do you say that?

I say it because the reality is that - what - 97% of the games people play in Steam are Windows compatible? No developer is going to create awesome games that are exclusively Linux, so every new game will at least be "also Windows" compatible.

With Windows 10 coming out, and new manufacturer's moving to it, with the severe disconnection between ATI and NVidia for graphics card drivers, I cannot see a good scenario where gamers migrate to ChromeOS.

Hey, I am a Linux'er...and I ALWAYS try very hard to get games I love working in Linux, and sometimes it works. Guild Wars 2 is one of the two games I play frequently, and it works almost as good as it does in Windows, and that's good enough for me. But I'm also really into Path of Exile, and I have yet to get it working in Linux. I have spent hours trying, though!

What I believe will occur is the same thing that has been for most, if not all, Linux'ers - they will either keep a dual-boot config for gaming, or they will steadfastly - if not stubbornly - restrict themselves to games built for or ported to Linux.

So why does Windows 10 change anything? The same could have been said for the last 17 years or so yet, despite things, Linux games are still produced. Why on earth did Half Life work on Linux at all, for example? Why was Doom so portable?
I'm not sure why you think Windows 10 changes things and I admit that things are against Linux -- yet people seem to carry on writing games for it.
I will admit though that if I were to buy an OS for gaming I would buy Windows as I would have done for the past 20 years or so.

I'm now doing the later since I no longer use Windows. I hope that the new Batman game is fixed when the Linux version comes out this fall.

Let me go ahead and give a thumbs up to stories like this though, and hope other companies follow suit!

Crytek's powerful CryEngine is the latest gaming engine to embrace Linux

I don't think steam & linux is going to fail. Personally, I think that steamos machines will hit modest appeal with drastic shifting in the "perception" of linux gaming.
I have a debian computer running steam "big picture" which is basically steam os but lets me run other stuff (like kodi and a lot of daemons :). Is that a loss on steams side, or a win? I have to say, it's pretty fancy and works well with a gamepad or keyboard.

While I find it annoying when consoles try to be a media center, steamos could potentially thrive since all the technology for sharing is basically at their fingertips. Then possibly permitting mods, further customization and you could up end with a very popular machine.
I hope they do good advertising on how it would be better then a tradtional console versus advertising how similar it is. There's a few limitations on consoles (file format support, limited graphics card capability, generally very minimal user configuration) that could be used to sky rocket past consoles. Not to mention keeping games for life (go ahead and try to play your original xbox games with xbox 1), their recent library sharing policy, game return policy... steam has a lot of usability consoles cannot match (and don't seem to want to)

Your link is invalid (URL=http://Crytek's powerful CryEngine is the latest gaming engine to embrace Linux)

Is this what you're referring to?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/29401...ace-linux.html

Looking at some of the Steam Machines specs, I'm suprise that some of the lower end models only have 4 GB of memory and a geforce 750 1 GB card. While quite a few Linux games will run on this, a game machine should have 8 GB of memory, at least a GF 750 Ti w/2 GB, and due to the space AAA games are now taking up, at least 1 TB HDD.

SteamOS is not going to fail any more than another Linux distro, but actually the gaming market is big. Enough people are playing with it.

What is has already done is for people like me, I ditched Windows for Linux because I can run Steam and play many of my games from the library. The mass-exposure will increase the usage of Linux massively.

I have mentioned it before but there are Youtube gamers buying games on Linux and reviewing them. On some recent titles Linux games sales have overtaken Mac - may not seem like much, but it is an upward trend.

In my team at work, 3 of us have recently built Linux gaming rigs because the amount of games is big enough for there to be too much choice already (2,300+ right now).

Any idea how many Lnux gamers/Desktop users there are?

So the Linux gaming market is growing then.