In light of revealing the first prototypes for its in-house Steam Machine earlier this week, Valve also confirmed that it has no plans to release games exclusively for the Linux-based platform. News comes via Greg Comer who, in a recent interview with IGN, ruled out the possibility of releasing a “killer app” solely for the off-the-shelf system.
Furthermore, Valve’s Anna Sweet reiterated the company’s perspective on multi-platform releases during the same interview:
“Whenever we talk to third-party partners, we encourage them to put their games in as many places as possible, including not on our platforms. Because we think that customers are everywhere, and they want to put their games wherever customers are. That would go against our whole philosophy, to launch something that’s exclusive to SteamOS or Steam machines.”
In essence, this will prevent developers from limiting their potential audience solely to the platform. Coomer did, however, reconcile that independent studios may choose to release their titles exclusively on Steam OS purely due to financial restrictions. This ideology in and of itself bleeds from Valve’s primary objective with the Steam Machine; producing a moddable, consumer-friendly device that will be produced by multiple manufactures.
“We believe that, in maybe five years from now, folks will find it a quite antiquated notion that you should assume that when you change devices or platforms, that you lose all of your other games and friends. We’re hoping to unify, to get Steam to be as platform and context agnostic as possible. You shouldn’t have to shed that every generation, or even slightly shed it.”
In tandem with the announcement, the alleged dates for the company’s periodical Steam sale surfaced on Reddit. According to the document, Valve will open the promotional window between November 27th and December 3rd, before beginning the annual Holiday sale from December 19th though to January 2nd.
It’s worth noting, however, that these dates haven’t been confirmed by Valve at this time. Given the company’s stance on first-party releases, it seems that should Half-Life 3 release in the near future, it won’t be tethered to Valve’s own Steam Machine hardware.
