From the opinion piece:
Last year, I pointed out how many big publishers came crawlin’ back to Steam after trying their own things: EA, Activision, Microsoft. This year, for the first time ever, two Blizzard games released on Steam: Overwatch and Diablo 4.
It is the simple fact that linux is too low a market share, even with steam deck, to bother throwing money at it.
It is the simple fact that linux is too low a market share, even with steam deck
Three million Steam Decks sold.
to bother throwing money at it.
You act as if packaging existing open source software is such an insanely expensive task. It is not.
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Which is why steam invested in said FOSS projects to begin with, they can now forego having to pay licensing costs to microsoft. It is not like steam did this out of the goodness of their hearts, but rather for their own bottom line.
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Yes it absolutely is for a megacorp, for 0 return. Anybody who wants to run games on non-steam launchers can do so just fine, there is mostly only convenience to be gained. The megacorp needs to hire entire teams / departments that understand linux, that understand wine/proton and that can maintain and keep said packages up to date, it is realistically not simple or cheap in corporate hell.
The idea that there is money worthwhile for any store but steam in linux gaming is detached from reality. There is only money in it for steam only because of steam deck.
Which is why steam invested in said FOSS projects to begin with
Steam is not a company, Valve is.
they can now forego having to pay licensing costs to microsoft. It is not like steam did this out of the goodness of their hearts, but rather for their own bottom line.
I don’t care. My experience matters to me and Valve delivers on that experience, so I only buy games on Steam.
there is mostly only convenience to be gained.
I pay for convenience. If I wanted to jump through burning hoops, I pirate the games.
The megacorp needs to hire entire teams / departments that understand linux, that understand wine/proton and that can maintain and keep said packages up to date, it is realistically not simple or cheap in corporate hell.
No. Valve for the most part didn’t (Pierre-Loup Griffais is a notable exception) but I wouldn’t expect someone who can’t get Valve’s name right to know what outsourcing is.
The idea that there is money worthwhile for any store but steam in linux gaming is detached from reality. There is only money in it for steam only because of steam deck.
Through Flathub Epic, CD Project, etc. could get on Steam Decks and completely circumvent any royalties to Valve. Epic also have an affiliation with One-Netbook, the makers of OneXPlayer, though Tencent. An Epic Deck is only one phone call away.
Steam Deck sells well because of superior usability to Windows handhelds.
