That’s why it’s ”good to have alternatives” and Valve will ramp up its support of Linux where they want to make it as ”easy as possible” to run Steam’s 2,500 games on the OS.
It’s all because Microsoft is taking a tablet OS style approach to Windows 8 which means its inner workings are largely closed off, unlike previous versions which have been more open.
”I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space,” Gabe Newell declared to All Things D. ”I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market,” he added. ”I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.”
”We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy.”
Elsewhere the Valve boss, but not boss, said Adobe should make Photoshop ‘free-to-play’.
”They say, ‘We have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but it sounds really bad.’ And, then we say, ‘No, no, no. We think you are going to increase the value being created to your users, and you will create a market for their goods on a worldwide basis.’ But that takes a longer sell.”
”This isn’t about videogames; it’s about thinking about goods and services in a digital world.”
Valve also experimented with one of our bodies most ‘mechanical’ instruments; the tongue. ”This is super nerdy, and you can tease us years from now, but as it turns out, your tongue is one of the best mechanical systems to your brain, but it’s disconcerting to have the person sitting next you go blah, blah, blah, blah,” joked Newell.
”I don’t think tongue input will happen, but I do think we will have bands on our wrists, and you’ll be doing something with your hands, which are really expressive.” The house that built Steam has been messing around with wearable computers though, but they’re far from reaching a consumer phase.
”I can go into the room and put on the $70,000 system we’ve built, and I look around the room with the software they’ve written, and they can overlay information on objects regardless of what my head or eyes are doing. Your eyes are troublesome buggers.” Check out the full interview between Gabe Newell and All Things D.
