Paradox Interactive also jumps in proclaiming the new Europa Universalis IV and Crusader Kings II is ready to go for SteamOS including ”all our future games”.
Double Fine’s Justin Bailey and Greg Rice assure fans they’re ready for Valve’s Steam Machines, especially as they already support Linux versions of games.
“All of our games are supported on Linux,” Bailey told PC Gamer. “Our proprietary engine, called Buddha, goes to PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android right now.” This is great news for their upcoming Kickstarter projects Broken Age and Massive Chalice, with the former arriving on Steam Early Access in January 2014.
“Ultimately, we want to be on the platforms that our fans want us to be on,” adds Rice. “We’ve seen a lot of success on Linux with things like Humble Bundle and Linux sales on Steam already. So it just seems like we’re in a position to take advantage of it.” Double Fine has always pushed support for controllers with their titles.
“With PC games in the past,” he says, “it’s been a problem just because you can’t assume everyone has a controller, and you know everyone has a mouse and keyboard,” meaning a lot considered it ”an afterthought. But now, Steam coming to the TV will just make it important enough to figure out how to have good controller controls in their games.”
Rice is doubly excited about SteamOS because it means his own gaming habits shift.
“I’ve always wanted a device like this that was someone saying, ‘Here’s the official box that will play the games you can buy on Steam, and it will work with a controller well, and it’s all you need and you can just plug it right into the TV,’” he continues. “One of my big bummers right now with the new consoles is that I bought 300 games on XBLA and PSN that aren’t going to work, so knowing that if I buy a game on Steam it will forever work on Steam is pretty awesome.”
“I think that’s a bold strategy,” Bailey adds. “I think we’re rooting for them, that it pays off for them.”
Paradox Interactive and their war chest of grand strategies is primed to reap the rewards from SteamOS too.
“We have been developing for SteamOS for quite a while as it’s basically the same as the Linux version Steam runs,” said Johan Andersson, Studio Manager of Paradox Development Studio. “CK2 & EU4 should run on it natively, as it runs on Linux on Steam, and all our future games will as well. We think SteamOS is great for gamers, as it will give far better performance on the same hardware than Windows does.”
CEO Fredrik Wester adds: “We are actively expanding the number of published games on SteamOS—and as Johan mentioned,” Paradox Development Studio ”is fully supporting SteamOS already,” he said. “SteamOS is a great thing for PC gaming; competition means more choices which, in the end, should favor gamers.”
