If Steam keeps extending like this, people will stop buying Windows for gaming.
Good for those people. Unfortunately, Windows has other use cases outside of gaming, and I’m not planning to switch to Linux because it won’t be able to cover those for me.
I just don’t want to see something like “Half-Life 3, built first for Steam Hardware” in an announcement five years later, and ending up having some issues on Windows because that was not a priority. So far, Valve only keeps improving their platform to hook everyone on the Steam ecosystem, but we can’t be sure of their next steps. No one is immune to increasing profit margins, even Valve.
The vast majority of the software updates they do appear to be open sourced, which makes it really hard to lock the market using anti-competitive measures. And making Linux more mainstream makes it better for everyone, not just gamers. And if Valve makes games that are optimized for their hardware spec, how is that any different than an XBox, Sony, or Nintendo game, except for the part where it will also work on other PCs without having to wait for a port?
It’s reasonable to be cautious about any actor, especially one as powerful as Valve. But nothing I’ve seen, except for the loot box stuff, has been actually anti-competitive, to the point where my GOG and Epic games work well enough on Linux these days that even the games that warn me I’m on an unsupported platform work just fine.
Good for those people. Unfortunately, Windows has other use cases outside of gaming, and I’m not planning to switch to Linux because it won’t be able to cover those for me.
I just don’t want to see something like “Half-Life 3, built first for Steam Hardware” in an announcement five years later, and ending up having some issues on Windows because that was not a priority. So far, Valve only keeps improving their platform to hook everyone on the Steam ecosystem, but we can’t be sure of their next steps. No one is immune to increasing profit margins, even Valve.
The vast majority of the software updates they do appear to be open sourced, which makes it really hard to lock the market using anti-competitive measures. And making Linux more mainstream makes it better for everyone, not just gamers. And if Valve makes games that are optimized for their hardware spec, how is that any different than an XBox, Sony, or Nintendo game, except for the part where it will also work on other PCs without having to wait for a port?
It’s reasonable to be cautious about any actor, especially one as powerful as Valve. But nothing I’ve seen, except for the loot box stuff, has been actually anti-competitive, to the point where my GOG and Epic games work well enough on Linux these days that even the games that warn me I’m on an unsupported platform work just fine.