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Comment by m4rtink | Hacker News Reader

The possibility of OS vendors forcing users to only install software from their walled gardens is the reason Valve started to support Linux, created their own Linux distro (Steam OS, now based on Arch Linux) and ultimately why Steam Deck was built.

IIRC the main trigger was Windows 8 that back then had a strong push to only use Windows Store to install software.

Valve could not conceivably continue doing business if OS vendors took a cut of all purchases via their walled garden store, not to mention having the OS vendor limit what games they can distribute and how.

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Yeah-- I thought SteamOS was mostly dead, sitting on a shelf "just in case". I was wrong, and it now appears that Valve is sending the message "we're ready to do this thing at any time".

Steam has something like 100 million+ active monthly users. Certainly some are casual and wouldn't make the switch, but that's a lot of home desktop market share to lose even if only half made the switch initially, and there'd be a halo effect on it too, along with a much more motivated & active community dedicated to cross platform compatibility.

We'd probably see a lot of "linux first" applications (not just games) as well.

That's why Microsoft won't do this. Steam users have a big investment in games on Steam, and are quite likely to switch to SteamOS, even if not every game works perfectly, rather than buying all those games again. And that would create a big Linux customer base that game studios and hardware makers would develop for, threatening Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop.

More likely if Microsoft did it, they would integrate Steam into the store, or allow Steam to be installed via the store

They have already signaled their willingness to add 3rd party stores with their partnership with Amazon for Android Apps.

That would still be problematic since Valve would be at the mercy of MS, hoping they didn't change their policies after a while the way other app stores have done. Steam could still roll out SteamOS then, but it would take time. Meanwhile games might start developing integrations (and DRM) in the combined MS/Steam platform in a way that made disentangling for Valve to go their own way much more difficult.

Even if MS didn't demand a cut of the revenue, it would also probably mean Valve could no longer add whatever they wanted to Steam. If MS didn't impose some restrictions then Steam could completely allow circumvention of the MS store. Steam does sell some desktop products besides games, and presumably would want to keep that option open.

I could be wrong, but tying themselves so closely to MS would impose too many potential problems down the road and limit their ability to change or expand business models, too much risk to put their fate almost completely in Microsoft's hands.

Now, if MS purchased Valve, that might be different.

Amazing that Steam, so controversial for pushing it’s locked ecosystem at the time, is now the one pushing Linux gaming forward and a driving force _away_ from windows.

Yes, I remember the debates about truly owning a game when you bought a physical copy vs buying it on Steam. I avoided Steam for that exact reason, but then the market for games that never had a physical distro exploded, and even many/most physical games moved to a physical disk but one-time activation codes.

Once I realized there was little benefit to physical purchases anymore and the hassle of reinstalling games when I got a new machine I made the switch. But with GOG around I at least still get to mostly own the games available through them.

Anecdotally, but my windows machine's sole purpose is to run steam games (and associated utilities around it like discord that all seem to either be web apps, wrapped in electron or chrome). The only thing keeping me from installing Linux for everything is poor proton support on a handful of games.

The only thing that keeps me on Windows is that because CheatEngine doesn't work on Linux. I like playing around with it to enhance my gaming experience (usually to boost enemies in late stages of CK2 / EU4).

You can have any Steam game that supports Windows run through Proton, and then install and run Cheat Engine within that game's Proton/Wine prefix.

Definitely not as user friendly, but it does work. Alternatively you can use Game Conqueror, but it very basic compared to Cheat Engine.

Cheat engine has one thing going for it: ready made scripts for many games that automatically show many important values for you. Conqueror doesn't have that.

(But I'll try your recipe, thanks!)

I wish I could take full credit for this, but I'm paraphrasing Andrew Plotkin (developer for the Inform text-adventure programming language):

Steam machines failed because they tried to replace Windows with a worse user experience. In 2015, there were fewer native games and worse compatibility; nobody is going to just rise up and displace Microsoft from their entrenched throne as THE Desktop PC Gaming platform. Alternately, the Steam Deck is essentially inventing a whole new market; if players want a mobile, AAA game platform the only contender right now is a Nintendo Switch (which has an entirely different games library, with limited overlap mostly in "indie" game titles). So now instead of fighting Microsoft where they're strongest, they're fighting a console manufacturer in one place they can expect to be weaker.

Then once the Steam Deck is a widespread commercial success -- and from pre-orders, it looks like that's guaranteed -- Valve will have the foothold to push SteamOS as an equal games development space as Windows desktop. Coupled with the reports that Proton currently runs over 90% of the popular games which don't have a native client, this very well could introduce Linux (albeit indirectly) to the wider market in a way that could eventually challenge Microsoft's comfortable monopoly position.

I'm happy with what Valve is doing now, but as a whole, the fact that Steam OS is a Linux distro doesn't necessarily mean that Steam OS / Steam Deck won't become locked down in the same manner in the future. Android itself is open source and Linux-based.

One overlooked aspect of why Steam Desk is quite a game changer is the fat that it's the first actually open handheld gaming platforms.

All the predecessors (Nintendo DS, Playstation Vita, Nintendo Switch, etc.) have been regular consoles with heavy weight locked down walled garden, where all content had to pass a lot of byzantine review and respect least common denominator content rules and censorship.

With Steam deck there is finally a handheld platform where a much wider selection of games can be installed from itself that has much less insane content rules or totally separately directly from developers to users. Another community that has been mostly banned from consoles is moders - there are basically no games that support modding on consoles, yet its very popular in many games on PC. And finally, we have a handheld that can run games with mods!

So I would hope that this will turn out to be a big selling point of Steam Deck & that affected communities (independent content creators & modding community) would make sure they are not cut off again like they were on consoles.

They have no reason to lock it down.

While competition focuses on locking down, DRM, anti-piracy, etc, Valve just focuses on selling in-game hats.

In more seriousness: They also have good synergy with the Linux ecosystem, and locking out kind ends up working both ways.

Valve have been pretty good about sticking to their "hackable" guns so far. With exception to the Link, everything of theirs is abnormally tweakable. Newell also seems to understand how tenuous PC gamer loyalty can be (hell, it could be argued that he sowed the seeds of that mentality).

Valve can keep quiet about this until they're ready, too... because the steam store is essentially the de-facto online game store to the extent they could let their game studio heritage exist almost entirely on mythology (half life, portal, left 4 dead)

dude im totes happy when i found out i can do dev work on linux and play valve games on same device!

windows is shit these days oh god.

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