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Shower thought: Valve could do the ultimate boss-move this year (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/gaming@beehaw.org
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If Valve really wanted to make a splash, they could release a desktop version of SteamOS in October, right when support for Windows 10 ends. For additional damage, they could bundle in Half-Life 3. Just imagine the coverage this would get.

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[–] 30 points 1 year ago (4 children)

OP clearly overestimates how many people would use SteamOS or any other Linux distro for that matter. Most users are casual gamers these days, they are not changing OS just because there is a forced Windows update.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    They are if they can't afford a new computer.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Windows 10 won't just stop working. I still see businesses rocking Windows Vista occasionally.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    No one is trying to play games on those vista machines, though. Valve pulled steam support for win 7 and 8.1 over a year ago because they were EOL. If they also pull support from win 10 once it's EOL, then people will need to make a change to keep playing their games. If msft refuse to support existing hardware with win11, then many people will be forced to choose between buying a new laptop/PC, or trying Linux.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I don't know, I think you're clearly underestimating how many people would install Valve's OS. The number of people with a Steam Deck that don't know that what it's running is a Linux distro is pretty high. The other piece to this is that it's not just a forced Windows update for a huge chunk of users, it's a forced device upgrade. Valve offering a free upgrade that negates the need to buy new hardware would absolutely capture people's attention.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yes and no, people can still use win10, it just won't receive patches anymore. And in this particular case, my best guess is, that most people would rather use and outdated OS for a long time, rather than changing the OS altogether. Not every game is on steam, also not every non game programm is easily available for Linux. Humans are lazy.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You're forgetting that valve can also drop support for EOL versions of windows, which so far they have.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    True, but for example for Win7 they dropped support last year I think. So quite some time.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I think that was them drawing a line on eol windows. They cut both 7 and 8.1 at the same time. Could just be the policy now.

    Part of me wants them to take the opportunity to push people to switch to Linux, the other part of me thinks that will be perceived no differently from msft's badgering about win11.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    That would be quite the power move, but unfortunately Steam doesn't hold that much power alone, I think. There are still enough games that are not on Steam. As of today , Microsoft is the biggest games publisher (with Bethesda, Blizzard, Obsidian, ID, Mojang etc. belonging to them) and there are also giants like LoL or Fortnite.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    It's hard to say. I agree, it seems like the MAU data for each of League and Fortnite is roughly the same as MAU for all of Steam (which is nuts). Of course there's no way to know how much overlap is there. Still, both of these titles would be a hard stop for people deciding whether to switch to Linux.

    As for msft themselves though, ironically I don't know what titles they have that keep players on windows. Battle.net works on Linux, Minecraft Java ed works on Linux (not sure about bedrock ed compatibility or player count, but afaik most of those players are on non-PC platforms), all their zenimax titles are sold through steam and work great on Linux. CoD might be their biggest hold.

    I disagree on number of games, but I agree on player count. The number of PC games that are not on steam (or don't work on linux) is tiny these days. But the number of PC gamers who don't need steam, or need something that doesn't run on linux is probably still quite high. Still, even if valve was able to push a few % of PC gamers to Linux, that would be huge. We're currently at 2% on Linux in steam surveys. I could see a power move by valve around win10 eol bringing that closer to 10%.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Yeah that's true, I think the biggest hurdle are games that use anticheat that don't work on Linux, which are afaik usually multiplayer games. So they might be able to pull gamers, that only play Singleplayer games.

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