We heard that a Linux version of Steam was in the works back in April and now Valve have set up an official blog to share the details of their Linux team’s plans and progress.

The goal of the Steam client project is a fully-featured Steam client running on Ubuntu 12.04. We’ve made good progress this year and now have the Steam client running on Ubuntu with all major features available. We’re still giving attention and effort to minor features but it’s a good experience at the moment. In the near future, we will be setting up an internal beta focusing on the auto-update experience and compatibility testing.

Left 4 Dead 2 will be the first game ported and, indeed, there is already a working version. Before release, however, Valve aim “to have L4D2 performing under Linux as well as it performs under Windows”.

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The good thing about always online DRM is, well, nothing. The problem with always online DRM is, well, everything. Perhaps the silver lining to the cloud that is Ubisoft’s UPlay system – the infrastructure for its DRM, DLC and other faintly sinister words which begin with D – being offline for a large chunk of the weekend is that it might> cause important people to worry, no matter what their paranoid personal philosophy of IP protection might be, that singleplayer games having a total dependency on remote servers is inescapably flawed in a practical sense. (more…)

The Steam Summer Sale is happening RIGHT NOW. There’s a community vote for a new deal every eight hours, there are massive bundles, and there are daily deals that include Crusader Kings II and Legend of Grimrock. On top of that, or at the side if you’re looking at the screen, there are also Flash Sales, which are shorter, except for including the Rayman Oranges one which is possibly was previously and incorrectly counting down from 11 days. It’s 11 hours now. Sale runs from July 12 to July 22. Anyone finding things they didn’t expect, or that they haven’t already bought at twice the price?

I, like many of you, have dreamed of creating the next great cinematic masterpiece since I first laid eyes on Kindergarten Cop. Unfortunately, I just never had the tools, so my gift to the world remained wrapped and hidden away. And then I got horribly distracted by Meet The Heavy meme videos created in Source Filmmaker, and that’s a hole I don’t see me digging myself out of any time soon. So my magnum opus has probably been shot by a regular magnum. There is a small spot of good news here, though: Source Filmmaker’s now available to everyone and, more importantly, Valve’s updated it with Meet The Engineer. So hooray, more memes that make me giggle uncontrollably for some reason.

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Oh wow. This came out of nowhere, and it seems basically brilliant. Valve just tossed up a webpage for Steam Greenlight, wherein “developers post information, screenshots, and videos for their game and seek a critical mass of community support in order to get selected for distribution.” So basically, it’s Steam Workshop for entire games, and – in theory – it gives a wartime-battlecry-like voice to smaller developers who felt they weren’t being heard by Valve. Further details and thoughts after the break.

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What a bloody funny world it is to live in these days. Not content with leaking the existence of most every major game before it’s even announced, the internet lately feels it’s necessary to also spread advance, unofficial word about big discount events. A dedicated explore of Steam’s database files has allegedly thrown up alleged details on what allegedly might allegedly be the alleged Steam Summer alleged Sale, which allegedly includes the following games and packs allegedly discounted enormously. There are dozens> of the blighters. Allegedly. (more…)

So Alec declared the wonderfully whimsical Kim Swift’s (which makes her sound like some kind of circus magician) Quantum Conundrum “that most maddening, saddening breed of videogame – the Almost Success.” But what does Alec know? Maybe he accidentally clicked on James Bond: Quantum of Solace or a quantum physics lecture instead. So clearly, the only solution is to take it for a test drive yourself. And now, you can do that with a freshly fluffy demo that’s emerged from Steam’s magical vapors. But, uh, you may not learn quite as much as you’re hoping.

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Well here’s some pretty huge news. The Court Of Justice of the European Union has just ruled that people should be able to resell downloaded games. In an environment where publishers are trying to destroy basic consumer rights like the ability to resell physical products you’ve paid for, this could be one heck of a turnaround for customers. And that’s no matter what it might say in the EULAs. This could have absolutely enormous implications on how services like Steam, Origin, GamersGate and the like work, and finally restore some rights back to the gamer.

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Year after year, many schools struggle to teach kids basic math and reading skills. Portal, on the other hand, taught my childlike, directionally-crippled brain a slew of hyper-complex spatial reasoning abilities. In about 30 minutes. So I guess maybe> it could be a good fit for the classroom. And hey, what do you know (aside from a Portal-imbued slew of hyper-complex spatial reasoning abilities)? Valve seems to think so too. The resulting program’s been dubbed Teach With Portals, and it’s just the beginning of Valve’s new Steam For Schools initiative.

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Remember when Valve said it was looking to hire all sorts of people from every walk of life – from lowly programmers to the giant-bow-tie-wearingest of fungineers? Well, one bit in there stood out: “And if you’re a first-class economist,” Michael Abrash wrote, ”please> check us out. You’ll have a sandbox with 40 million users, and I promise you’ll never be bored.” Well, apologies to RPS’ substantial> audience of budding TF2 hat economists. That position, you see, has officially been filled.

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