As Geek.com pointed out Monday, Steam is promoting a download of Ubuntu Linux right on its web site (see below). System requirements for the Steam platform are Windows XP, Vista or 7. There is no mention of Windows 8 -- which has been broadly available since November. (For the Mac side of the house, the requirements are Intel Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8, Snow Leopard 10.6.3 or later.)

Valve managing director Gabe Newell has complained about Windows 8 for months, as detailed by Arstechnica. And, The Verge had an in-depth interview with Newell early this month in which he addresses his issues with the Microsoft operating system.

In the piece, Newell said:

“Windows 8 was like this giant sadness. It just hurts everybody in the PC business. Rather than everybody being all excited to go buy a new PC, buying new software to run on it, we’ve had a 20+ percent decline in PC sales … it’s like ‘holy cow that’s not what the new generation of the operating system is supposed to do.’ There’s supposed to be a 40 percent uptake, not a 20 percent decline …”

Of course, if Valve did not support Windows 8 in the quarter it was released, that could have affected sales, I suppose.

Last September, word leaked that Valve was working on gaming hardware of its own and Valve has since confirmed that it’s working on a Linux-based game console, so it makes sense for it to bless Linux as the OS of choice for developers if it’s going to compete with Microsoft Xbox consoles.

Bellevue, Wash.-based Valve Software is definitely diversifying. In August, it said it would open up its Steam online storefront to include productivity applications as well as gaming titles. As GigaOM reported at the time, that move would also put it into competition with Microsoft which fields its own online stores for its cash-cow Office and other productivity applications.

This story was updated at 11:04 a.m. PT to reflect the operating systems supported by the Steam platform over time.

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According to the job description — also posted on the Coroflot job board and first spotted by website Nowgamer – Valve seeks talent to help the company’s existing engineers who are:

defining new entertainment experiences through both hardware and software. We’re hoping to add your expertise in product design and manufacturing, ergonomics, usability, aesthetics, and surfacing to our team.

There’s not a ton of detail about what, exactly, the Bellevue, WA. company plans to build, but the post leaves no doubt about the company’s dissatisfaction with the current state of hardware design:

Valve is traditionally a software company. Open platforms like the PC and Mac are important to us, as they enable us and our partners to have a robust and direct relationship with customers. We’re frustrated by the lack of innovation in the computer hardware space though, so we’re jumping in. Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven’t really changed in any meaningful way over the years. There’s a real void in the marketplace, and opportunities to create compelling user experiences are being overlooked.

Valve Steambox on its way?

In early March, rumors surfaced about a mysterious Valve “Steambox” gaming console project but the company discounted those reports (sort of). This job posting, if nothing else, will bring them back to life.

Earlier this month, Valve also said it will start offering productivity applications as well as games on its Steam online delivery service. Whatever happens in hardware, Valve is definitely looking venture beyond its gaming stronghold.

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Apparently not, according to a recent excerpt from Seattle-based games company Valve’s handbook for new employees, which is stirring up loads of fascinating conversation on Boing Boing. Founded in 1996, the company lists its hundred or so team members on its site in simple alphabetical order and claims it’s more profitable per employee than Google or Microsoft. It also has a corporate culture some would view as paradisaical (and some probably terrifying), according to the handbook:

Why do I need to pick my own projects? We’ve heard that other companies have people allocate a percentage of their time to self-directed projects. At Valve, that percentage is 100. Since Valve is flat, people don’t join projects because they’re told to. Instead, you’ll decide what to work on after asking yourself the right questions… Employees vote on projects with their feet (or desk wheels). Strong projects are ones in which people can see demonstrated value; they staff up easily. This means there are any number of internal recruiting efforts constantly under way.

If you’re working here, that means you’re good at your job. People are going to want you to work with them on their projects, and they’ll try hard to get you to do so. But the decision is going to be up to you…

How does Valve decide what to work on? The same way we make other decisions: by waiting for someone to decide that it’s the right thing to do, and then letting them recruit other people to work on it with them. We believe in each other to make these decisions, and this faith has proven to be well-founded over and over again….

While people occasionally choose to push themselves to work some extra hours at times when something big is going out the door, for the most part working overtime for extended periods indicates a fundamental failure in planning or communication. If this happens at Valve, it’s a sign that something needs to be reevaluated and corrected. If you’re looking around wondering why people aren’t in “crunch mode,” the answer’s pretty simple. The thing we work hardest at is hiring good people, so we want them to stick around and have a good balance between work and family and the rest of the important stuff in life.

This approach may sound loosey goosey (and there are certainly type-A managerial folks out there hyperventilating at the mere thought of such a non-system) but as a thoughtful blog post by John Geraci, general manager at faberNovel New York, points out there is method to this madness, and it all hangs on letting folks choose their projects and then, critically, determining “the value and compensation of each employee by peer review.”

Do that and this no-boss system will actually “leave no room for unproductive people to hide. Nobody can pass the buck on to the next person, as that person is going to be determining their salary at the next review,” says Geraci. Plus, “you reward people for finding the position in the company where they can make the biggest difference.”

Of course, not every company can take advantage of this sort of productivity-boosting quasi-anarchy, Geraci points out. “Valve is … entirely self-owned with no outside investment, and it owns all of its own IP,” he writes. If you’re firm isn’t, this probably won’t fly. Nor will this structure work as a top-down restructuring, he feels, noting, “Valve didn’t design and impose this structure on itself from the top – it evolved organically toward it from the beginning.”

To be a startup that’s in a position to grow its own structure without outside investment is pretty rare (though GitHub, notably, meets the criteria), but given these restrictions, do you think a complete lack of hierarchy could work for other companies?

Image courtesy of Flickr user Gigi Ibrahim.

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Central to the game’s premise is the concept of a device that can create “portals” between locations, enabling you to walk through one magical hole and emerge anywhere else. Add a physics engine and some crafty puzzles to that idea and it becomes an engaging, addictive adventure that’s strikingly different from normal first-person-shooter fare.

It also becomes fodder for the imagination of fans — including director and Totally Rad Show co-host Dan Trachtenberg, who began shooting a short film inspired by the franchise two years ago. Following a premiere for TRS fans at Comic-Con, he posted it to YouTube this week.

Using, among other things, Terminator 2 as an inspiration, Trachtenberg’s take on Portal strips the franchise down to its central elements — a girl and her portal-making gun. This means that No Escape lacks the whimsical humor of the original games, which is the primary criticism of the short, based on Twitter and Facebook commentary that I saw. Instead it has flawless visual effects that capture perfectly the potential of the Portal gun in a film context. For the first time, I believed that Portal as a movie could actually work.

I’m not the only one who feels that way. The film caught fire upon its release on Tuesday, receiving huge blog coverage, massive amounts of retweeting and a YouTube front page feature. It was even aired in full on cable channel G4′s Attack of the Show (I am currently a writer for the show but had no involvement in the decision to air it). As of writing, it had over 3.5 million views and nearly 150,000 thumbs-up ratings.

Most of the commentary surrounding No Escape‘s release online has taken the form of “Someone just give Trachtenberg a whole bunch of money and let him make a real Portal movie already.” And these days, that’s not such a strange idea — indeed, there’s some precedent for that path, the most recent example being Kevin Tanchareon’s take on Mortal Kombat.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy started off as what would technically be a fan film (despite the participation of Star Trek: Voyager’s Jeri Ryan and Michael Jai White) and then was picked up as a 10-episode web series by Warner Bros. And sure, a web series isn’t a feature film. But Mortal Kombat: Legacy, which was distributed by Machinima, has received more than 46 million views, according to a Machinima spokesperson.

The question is, though, Is it really possible for Portal to get the same treatment?

In an interview with the blog Very Aware, Trachtenberg not only mentioned his inspirations but also addressed that criticism I mentioned earlier, about No Escape’s lacking the Portal games’ quirky humor:

Well it’s certainly redundant to say I love the game and its universe, but to be honest, I was more excited about seeing the technology in the game in a different world. The video game is very whimsical and somewhat cartoony — I really wanted to explore the idea of taking the fundamentals of Portal and placing it in a much grittier, serious place.

Going gritty was also part of what impressed Warner Bros. about Tanchareon’s take on the Mortal Kombat franchise. But what was truly key to the web series’ getting greenlit was the fact that Tanchareon brought a fresh approach to the concept. There will be those who argue that it’s not really Portal without an insane AI playfully threatening to murder you at the start of every level. Those people might include the folks at Valve, which appear to retain the film rights for the franchise. But with No Escape, Trachtenberg has shown Valve that if it wants someone with an original voice to adapt the franchise, he’s probably the right man for the job.

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