[18:38] <Atamira> morning
[19:04] <olly> morning
[19:04] <mwhudson> morning
[19:05] <hads> morning
[19:36] <ajmitch> morning
[19:51] <ibeardslee> morning
[19:51] <ibeardslee> http://store.steampowered.com/sale/linux_release
[19:59]  * mwhudson is installing
[20:01] <mwhudson> although i'm not sure any of the games on that page look super super appealing
[20:01] <ajmitch> hopefully there'll be a few more over the coming months
[20:12] <ibeardslee> a number of rumours of the next iteration of some popular games coming out on (steam for) linux first
[20:14] <ajmitch> I'll believe it when I see it happen :)
[20:14] <ibeardslee> likewise
[20:15] <thumper> morning
[20:17] <snail> the only reason i can see a linux-first approach making sense is if the games were developed in a way that made an extensive build / test farm useful in dev, which seems unlikely
[20:24] <snail> OTOH; if you're using 1000 hours x 1000 boxen to fine-tune a learning, adaptive AI, that may make sense...
[20:27] <ajmitch> I don't see why that's relevant to the platform that a game would be released on
[20:30] <ajmitch> with valve confirming plans for a linux-based console spec, that'd generally be the main business reason for releasing first on linux
[20:42] <snail> ajmitch: a thousand windows licences is $$$$ right, of have they changed their licensing, again?
[20:46] <ajmitch> licensing changes all the time for windows, there's always some difference between retail licensing & what an organisation might be able to negotiate
[20:47] <snail> fair enough
[20:48] <ajmitch> microsoft are especially friendly with licensing costs towards developers because it helps more people stick with windows :)
[21:54] <snail> so the steam announcement might be more closely related to steams' current licence negotiations with microsoft than the actually chances of a linux version?
[22:09] <ajmitch> who knows?
[22:10] <ajmitch> valve do appear to be serious about linux support, but game developers still need to port games
[22:10] <thumper> oh hai there
[22:10] <thumper> I have a theory
[22:10] <thumper> "steam box"
[22:10] <thumper> is linux based
[22:11] <thumper> valve want their box to get new titles first
[22:11] <ajmitch> yeah, that's what I mentioned earlier
[22:11] <thumper> ajmitch: oh, sorry
[22:11] <thumper> lines were too long :)
[22:12] <ajmitch> it's nothing we can really change, so I won't worry about it too much :)
[22:12] <thumper> ajmitch: sure you can, write less on each line
[22:12] <thumper> :)
[22:12] <ajmitch> I was meaning about valve :P
[22:12] <thumper> heh
[22:13] <thumper> valve have little to no interest in windows 8
[22:13] <thumper> microsoft have little to no interest supporting less than windows 8
[22:14] <ajmitch> valve provides the distribution platform, but game developers still choose which to support
[22:14] <ajmitch> HL3 on linux would still be nice :)
[22:58] <snail> i'd buy civilisation-type games on linux