OpenTTD, the free and open-source software recreation of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, has been a popular game for a long time, but recently something unusual happened. The team behind the project decided to release the game on Steam (still free as always) and this has changed everything. Let me explain why this matters.
If you have ever played OpenTTD on Linux, let me venture that you have probably relied on your distro’s package manager to keep your game up-to-date. In theory, this is the BEST way to keep your packages up to date. Rely on maintainers. In practice however, it’s far from being something you can rely on, beyond security updates. Debian stable tends to have really old packages, sometimes years behind their latest versions. So on Debian stable you end up with OpenTTD 1.08 as the most recent version. That’s what shipped in April 2018. Just about 3 years old.

How about on Arch? Presently, you would be on one of the most recent versions, 1.10.3-2. After all, it’s normal: Arch is a rolling distro and you get the most recent packages for everything right?

Except that no, 1.10.3-2 is not the latest version. It’s from December 2020. 1.11 is the latest official version of OpenTTD, and Fedora, not remotely as popular as Arch, actually features the 1.11 version in their repos!

I could go on and on with more examples, but you get the idea: the distro fragmentation and the lack of standard when it comes to the maintenance of such packages makes every Linux user under the sun end up with a different version of the same game, sometimes behind by several months or years vs. the current release. While it might not matter much for your typical everyday tools, for games you certainly want to have the latest version as soon as possible. Especially for games like OpenTTD which features a multiplayer mode: having different versions will likely cause clients to refuse to each other’s on the same server.
Having the game on Steam resolves all of these problems: now, the developers behind OpenTTD have a single place to keep the game up-to-date, and all gamers who use Steam can rely on the fact that they are on the latest version of the game, at the same time. And this is not just great for Linux gamers, as already explained, but just as well for gamers on platforms such as Windows, where update mechanisms are even less reliable than on Linux (as in, mostly manual).
The cherry on the cake: having the game on Steam increases its popularity to reach new gamers, and since OpenTTD made it there, a plethora of new servers are available to play OpenTTD online. So it might be easier than ever to find a game to join – and this can all be linked to this single decision.

Now, it’s somewhat of a shame that for FOSS games, we have to rely on a proprietary game store which requires registration to solve this kind of problem. We could also have had a FOSS game center that would package binaries for various distributions and other operating systems, but Valve has already done most of the work with the presence of the Steam Runtime to make single Linux binaries run pretty much on any distro.
The success of this initiative (both in terms of solving updates and increasing community reach) will surely be a good example for other FOSS games out there to follow. Expect more and more FOSS games to make it on Steam this year.
You might want to check out the following articles too!
BoilingSteam lets you access our content for free, but writing articles is a constant investment. We don't use ads or sponsporship, help us make our activities sustainable by donating via Patreon or LiberaPay if you prefer it anonymous. You can follow what we do via our newsletter, our RSS feed, our Mastodon profile or our Twitter feed. We also have Peertube, Youtube and LBRY channels. If you'd like to chat, you can also find us on #boilingsteam:matrix.org. (what is Matrix?)
lol this article was removed on reddit for “promoting drm”
what a bunch of idiots
https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/mpeetp/openttd_went_to_steam_to_solve_a_hard_problem/
Reddit mods surely know how to read?
> Now, it’s somewhat of a shame that for FOSS games, we have to rely on a proprietary game store which requires registration to solve this kind of problem. We could also have had a FOSS game center that would package binaries for various distributions and other operating systems
I guess not?! Not very surprised to see assholes acting as moderators.
OMG we’re on april 12th and .11 get out on april 1st and all linux distro have not updated there package OMG let’s go to steam. That’s so… LOL Instead of going to a proprietary website, they should have made their own website to distribute their last update. A shame they didn’t… O.o Wow I found this : https://www.openttd.org/downloads/openttd-releases/latest.html with last release for Debian and the main used Linux distro (for people) called Ubuntu ! Surely a fan-made website ! A final word to this website writer : where did you see that openTTD dev had a problem with Linux… Read more »
> Surely a fan-made website ! How many users actually update ALL their FOSS clients by going to every single website where the FOSS project is maintained? i hate to break the news for you but that’s going to be a tiny minority. Please consider as well that far from all Linux gamers use Ubuntu or Debian. So if you are on Fedora, where is the download link on https://www.openttd.org/downloads/openttd-releases/latest.html ? Where is the download link for Arch? For Solus ? For such distros you have to either download the sources and compile it yourself, or rely on your distro’s… Read more »
It’s out on Arch, 2 weeks after the release.
Hardly too long to wait.
It’s not about being too long to wait, it’s to show that on Steam you can release to ALL your users at the same time, while distros have a different update schedule that may widely vary.
you know that debian stable doesn’t update their packages cuz it’s how the distribution works, right?
Yes, but even Debian Unstable or Testing do not have the latest package for OpenTTD: https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/openttd
So the point still stands.
What about Flatpak?
You mean Flatpack, Snap, AppImageKit…? That’s the point: there fragmentation here as well. One could argue that there’s Steam, GOG, Origin, Battle.net, etc., but there’s money involved in this choice, so people tend to stick to most popular choice (Steam is the current leader), so it’s easier here.
Snap does not even have the latest version: stuck in 1.10 while it’s been two weeks 1.11 is out: https://snapcraft.io/openttd
Hardly a successful model of distribution.
It’s version 1.11 on Flathub
How many Linux gamers use Flathub?