Nobody ever lost money betting on Valve.
“The message to me is that it’s an operating system designed around gaming, and it’s pretty open,” says Ken Levine of BioShock fame, as he welcomes the SteamOS announcement made earlier this week. Sure, it’s Linux, but Linux is a means to an end; besides, if you’ve developed for Mac, you’re already halfway to Linux, so why not go the rest of the way? The key, to Levine, is that this is an open system, and that’s “a brave and powerful idea” that gives power to everyone. Put your faith in the audience – something Valve has a lot of experience with – and then, Levine feels, you’ll be creating something special.
Imagine being able to play on any screen you want. That’s an important part of the future, says Levine, and while there are systems that do something similar already, those systems are linked to a proprietary network. Not so with the SteamOS, which means putting a PC game on any screen you want. Levine’s overjoyed at the thought of making every screen into a receiver. Pause in one room, pick up in another. Switch from the big screen in the living room to the tablet in the bedroom. Become the ultimate screen agnostic, no longer caring what device it is, so long as it’s there. “Owning the living room could be less interesting than owning every room,” Levine feels.
Does all this mean Levine’s already developing for the Steam OS? No, he says; Burial At Sea is his obsession right now, and that’s for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. But in the future? Levine’s got great confidence in the concept, and in the company. “I don’t think anyone ever lost money betting on Valve,” says he.
Source: PC Gamer
Published: Sep 26, 2013 02:05 pm