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[–]enefi 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Could be huge for Linux gaming. If the rumor is true and would get some adoption, this could actually be the tipping point of AAA publishers to start taking Tux seriously.

[–]FediNetizen 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Remember SteamOS? Valve has been pushing linux gaming for years, but it's only as a response to business threats. The windows marketplace, if it had taken off, would have destroyed Valve's business model.

Though to be honest, at this point I wouldn't mind if Valve died. Their 30% cut is obscene.

[–]enefi 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Remember SteamOS? Valve has been pushing linux gaming for years, but it's only as a response to business threats. The windows marketplace, if it had taken off, would have destroyed Valve's business model.

That was quite some time ago. If it was only as a response to the threat, I wouldn't expect Valve to continue to work on Linux stuff as much as they do. They made a lot of work with Proton which pushed Linux from being able to run few percent of games to tens of percent. And it's not only Proton (DXVK, Wine), they are making contributions to graphic stack and I think even kernel. As far as I know they are the only VR that supports Linux (not perfectly, but it's usable). I believe they have further plans for Linux, either another attempt at Steam Machines, or some console like those rumors mention, I don't think their long term Linux support is only to keep MS in check.

Their 30% cut is obscene.

When Steam started it was very cheap compared to physical distribution which was what, 80%? Feature-wise, for users and developers, Steam has no competition, everything else is barebones and/or anti-consumer garbage (e.g. Epic Store - last time I checked it had no basket, no community tools, publishers could disable scores, bribing publishers to move games from other stores to be exclusives on ESG and the list goes on). Since Steam is large, even with that cut I am pretty sure it's still worth it to release on Steam just because of the sheer number of users and if you do your store front right, you could get a lot of advertising by algo very cheaply. Sure, Steam/Valve is not perfect either (e.g. few questionable bans of games or "off-topic" periods in reviews), but compared to everything else it's damn near close and currently is the best, miles ahead of competition.