Steam revenue estimated 2024: $10.8B
Google Play Store gaming revenue 2024: ~$31B
Why doesn’t Valve want a part of that? I mean they already have an Android app. Several, actually. I realize there’s some amount of investment but surely the payoff is worth it, and they have the necessary funds and skills? I mean if F-Droid can do it with nothing but volunteers and grants…?
Certainly plenty of games won’t lend themselves well to the mobile experience but also plenty of them do.
From a personal perspective: I don’t really care a whole lot for mobile games but I do like Balatro and want to play it on my phone, but if I want to do that I have to buy another license, which I can’t even do because I don’t run Google Play Services.
Epic got in on this already. Where’s Valve?
Edit: my reflections on this conversation:
Valve could distribute their own app like Epic but they’d also probably have to remove it from the Play Store because now a cross-platform game would give them an Android version, thus breaking Google’s ToS. So would doing such a thing outweigh lost sales from the Google version, and would it impact customer satisfaction? I wonder how many people are actually purchasing PC games in the Steam Android app…?
I mean that’s already the case with PC games…? Only slightly better because they are not Google and don’t allow straight-up ads for third-party products and services, which is what most of these “free” mobile games run on anyway. Valve has the potential to make a much better experience.
If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.
I won’t, because it isn’t a thing and never will be.
Excellent, so you agree it’s not the problem you made it out to be?
That’s the argument you decided to go with? Really?
Yeah, it’s not a problem in the same way that you having a cohesive thought happen to wander through your barren mind is not a problem.
It wasn’t my argument, it was yours.