Given that Gabe Newell says that a steam client for Linux will be launching later this year (assuming this isnt like other Valve long-delayed projects), will this influence your decisions regarding targeting Linux as a platform for your ongoing / future projects? If so, why or why not?

For me, I think this is will push me multi-platform and is one reason I'm looking into things like mono and monogame.

It will influence my productivity when working on Linux

Given the OpenGL ARB are about as useful as a choclate teapot in the depths of hell I'm not holding out much hope 3D wise... OpenCL is better but still has gaps and support issues, heck even finding out if NV supports 1.2 on Windows isn't easy.. as for sound... I've not played with Windows sound and I don't know what exists on Linux; I use to like OpenAL but XAudio seems like a saner API... same for input; if I was making a game which used the 360 controller than XInput is easy, even windows messages is easy; last time I tried to deal with in on linux I woke up 2 days later hung over and with a gap in my memory.

To be fair, with SDL you can easily cover about all I/O stuff a game may need (network aside, but on Windows sockets aren't very different), so that pretty much makes things a lot easier, especially for SDL 2.0 which is under the zlib license (not LGPL). Your only issue would be OpenGL... which is what I was worrying about, since that part doesn't work very well in the general view of things.

Given that Gabe Newell says that a steam client for Linux will be launching later this year (assuming this isnt like other Valve long-delayed projects), will this influence your decisions regarding targeting Linux as a platform for your ongoing / future projects? If so, why or why not?

For me, I think this is will push me multi-platform and is one reason I'm looking into things like mono and monogame.

I think this is a good strategic move for Valve and linux gamers will benefit from it, but I have my doubts about the cost vs. benefit ratio for game developers. If I make a game in XNA/C#, then I'd have to port it over to some comparable platform on linux and run through the whole gamut of QA, from top to bottom. Therefore, it would be much better to decide to target Linux and Windows from the outset and choose a platform which is supported on both OSes (Java? C++? ...Flash?). It'd also be good to look for targeting mobile devices, depending on the type of game being developed.

It's also interesting to see the competing interests. Microsoft and Apple are trying to get vendor lock-in within their markets. Financially, it makes sense from their perspectives and we can see that evidenced in the API's and business models they release to developers. Developers, on the other hand, want to get as much market exposure to their products as possible so platform agnostic languages/API's let that happen easier. If Valve opens up their digitial distribution network to more platforms, its a big win for the developers who support multiple platforms and the consumers who don't necessarily want to be married to a particular corporation. I think that the long term effect of making the linux gaming market more accessible to developers via steam may cause a gradual shift away from windows and make it easier for gamers to say "yes" to running Linux. What I'm really curious to see is Microsoft's response to this move. Here's a list of the possible moves I see for Microsoft:
1) Ignore this (they probably can, to a large degree)
2) Attempt to saturate the desktop & gaming markets further with windows OS (to maintain and grow market share)
3) Continue to make their C#/XNA/DirectX API's the easiest to use compared to alternatives and make sure they have the shortest dev cycles
4) Release a competing digital distribution service (XBLA doesn't seem to compare very well to Steam)

I think the real meat and potatoes in the future is going to be about who can capture and secure the digital distribution market for phones and tablets. Currently, the apple app store is dominating the apple hardware and the Windows7 phone app store is pretty dismal. I think a MAJOR play would be if Steam gets released for mobile devices across multiple devices (iPhone, iPad, WP7, etc.). It could seriously undercut the app store and apple would probably try to cut them out of the market by denying steam on apple devices, so valve would have to pull a pretty tricky move to get market access (anti-trust lawsuit? business deal with apple? some other shenanigans?). It would be a huge win for developers and consumers though.

If this does go ahead, then I see one other nice benefit coming out of such a move: Valve supported APIs for Linux.

They're not going to do this out of the goodness of their hearts. If they make such a move, then they are going to push it, and they are going to supported, otherwise it is a wase of money to them that produces nothing. If no one is making games for them to sell on their service, then they won't be selling games over it. If people aren't making games because it is too hard for them, then Valve is going to have to step in and help make things happen.

As for windows and the walled garden? I doubt we will see massive changes in Windows 8 or 9 in that regard. Mostly because they are going to need to maintain some backwards compatability with existing software. If it becomes known that you can't play your not-exceptionally-old video games on the new OS, then you're likely not going to want to buy it. So complete walling off and limiting what can be run in windows, and where you can source your software from is going to be a long way off.

[quote name='Sik_the_hedgehog' timestamp='1339325742' post='4947878']
To be fair, with SDL you can easily cover about all I/O stuff a game may need (network aside, but on Windows sockets aren't very different), so that pretty much makes things a lot easier, especially for SDL 2.0 which is under the zlib license (not LGPL). Your only issue would be OpenGL... which is what I was worrying about, since that part doesn't work very well in the general view of things.

Honestly, I'd rather stab myself in the eyes with a rusty spoon than use SDL for anything... ever.
[/quote]
To be fair, coming from classic Allegro (i.e. before Allegro 5), I thought using SDL was going to be a pain. Turned out to be much easier than I was expecting, and this is taking into account I'm using raw SDL (with none of the helper libraries). In fact, I was expecting to go insane implementing sound output, and in the end I got it running in like no time. I'm having more issues with Vorbis files than with SDL...

will this influence your decisions regarding targeting Linux as a platform for your ongoing / future projects? If so, why or why not?

No. Multiplatform will always remain an important possibility, but only a possibility. No effort, for the time being, will be spent on removing platform dependancies. For the time being, if I look at my long-term roadmap, I have a component that mandates the use of D3DX. I have spent weeks in searching for a multiplatform replacement with no success.
It seems extremely likely Win will remain the center of operations for quite a while. Because of my past experiences with Linux, it will be left as a last target. Both Apple and Android seems much better candidates to me for the time being. Sorry dudes, that's my sincere decision after having used Linux for close to 10 years.

Honestly, I'd rather stab myself in the eyes with a rusty spoon than use SDL for anything... ever.

Agreed.

As for windows and the walled garden? I doubt we will see massive changes in Windows 8 or 9 in that regard. Mostly because they are going to need to maintain some backwards compatability with existing software. If it becomes known that you can't play your not-exceptionally-old video games on the new OS, then you're likely not going to want to buy it. So complete walling off and limiting what can be run in windows, and where you can source your software from is going to be a long way off.

Given Microsofts OS marketshare i doubt they're even able to force their own download service on consumers without being slapped with an anti-trust lawsuit so any such move is likely to be far in the future.

It seems extremely likely Win will remain the center of operations for quite a while. Because of my past experiences with Linux, it will be left as a last target. Both Apple and Android seems much better candidates to me for the time being. Sorry dudes, that's my sincere decision after having used Linux for close to 10 years.

Not to mention, it's very likely that the amount of Steam users that would migrate to Linux is probably going to be below 5% (heck, even below 1%, I dare say). Users will not switch unless forced to, which means that at best Linux may get some better drivers, and at worst it'll just be let to rot as it has been and eventually Steam for Linux may get withdrawn.

Now, if something serious happens that makes people go away from Windows, that would be more interesting... though I'm afraid PC users would be more likely to migrate to mobile than to Linux PCs, while for core gaming there's always consoles (assuming the console manufacturers don't go idiotic with the next generation, that is).

Given Microsofts OS marketshare i doubt they're even able to force their own download service on consumers without being slapped with an anti-trust lawsuit so any such move is likely to be far in the future.

They have already said they're going to do it for Metro apps though. The issue here will be what will they do with support for non-Metro apps.

While I believe that games on Linux will be the norm one day, I don't know how well Steam will actually do since the FOSS community is quite a bit more aware of the limitations of the online DRM deployed by Steam than the typical Windows user and are quite a bit more likely to boycott it.

Unfortunately other companies might see Steam's failure to take the Linux market as lack of demand which will ultimately cause more harm than good.