Linux Gaming, while increasingly viable, isn’t currently a threat to MS. There are enough reasons people will stick with Windows. But Valve are doing a good job of showing that it’s possible, that Microsoft’s hold on PC gaming isn’t absolute and that an increasing number of games are playable on Linux too (with the right tools). Wine and co. have been around for a while, but they never enjoyed the spotlight of a major videogame platform investing time and manpower into developing a dedicated gaming compatibility engine.
I don’t think MS would intentionally run it into the ground. They’d probably try to squeeze it for money, which might end up doing so anyway.
I also don’t think they’re really worried about Linux gaming. But I also doubt they’d leave Proton untouched entirely. Whether they’d kneecap it, whether they’d enshittify it, whether they’d work on interfacing it with their proprietary stuff in an attempt to put it ahead of any competition and tip potential Linux Gaming developments in favour of using their engine to more easily target both platforms at once, I doubt they could resist doing something to squeeze money from it.
Maybe the very idea that they’re challenging Microsoft’s supremacy is unpleasant to them. Maybe their analytics show enough of a trend to concern them. Maybe they just want to make sure they have a piece of the pie if it ever becomes worth something.
Or maybe the whole thing is baseless bullshit made up for attention and site traffic.
according to unverifiable rumours.
…
The leak comes from an unknown and unreliable source in the gaming industry.
But continues to write an entire article about it. I wouldn’t be shocked if the rumor was set by the person who writes the article itself. Edit: Which itself is only a few paragraphs, but filled with ads, links and images on the entire page.
Yeah, I think all indications have been that Microsoft is getting out of the video game business. Or, if they were planning on staying in, why would they close a bunch of studios, including successful ones like Hi-Fi Rush’s Tango games.
Microsoft wanted to buy Nintendo and Valve before. It was in the leaked documents. And I’m sure Microsoft makes suggestions all the time, we just don’t hear about it usually. We mostly hear about deals that happen.
Besides that, I can’t imagine that a competitor could buy a competitor. That would be illegal in most cuntries. Unlike Activision, which was not a competitor to Microsoft.
I was okay with them getting Blizzard because, well, how much worse could Blizzard actually get with the merger?
But this? I sincerely hope this never happens. Valve isn’t the complete shit-show that Blizzard has been. Valve actually understands its customers and seemingly, mostly, respects them. Please for all things good in this universe, keep it that way.
What if there was an open source Steam clone, where everything is federated, and you could add repos like on KDE Discover, GNOME Software or F-DROID’s Android client?
The big issue would be getting game developers onboard. The service valve provides is both to developers and to consumers.
The appeal to developers is that they can toss the game on steam and valve will manage putting it in front of players and getting them to buy it, and all the associated payment processing that entails.
Developers like steam because it has all the users and does a good job of “based on your games, buy these too”.
Users like it because it has all the games, installation is inevitably trivial, and it does a good job offering them games they could plausibly like, often on sale, and there’s a feeling of platform security: valve won’t screw you over.
Any new distribution system will have a tough time breaking in. Just look at the difficulties epic has had despite giving away games constantly and offering extremely generous developer revenue shares.
Valve aimed to make steam $30-60 dollars more convenient than piracy, and that seems to extend to other forms of free as well.
First step is figuring out secure decentralized credit card payments. 😊
Imagine plugging Flathub into this as a starting point. Also, if everything is federated, developers could sell directly. That’s one way to get them onboard.
Well, I don’t think they’re interested in selling directly. There’s a lot of overhead in handling credit card payments and dealing with the jurisdictional issues of sales tax, currency conversion, and regional age and content restrictions.
Your notion sounds perfectly lovely from the consumer side, but from the creator side it’s not much different from not using the system at all.
I could see a federated recommendation engine/ranking system/the social parts of game ownership, but I just don’t see it panning out for the actual commerce part.
Those parts benefit from being able to control your own data and who it’s shared with. I don’t think there’s a reasonable way to federate giving a specific individual money and them authorizing you to download or access a resource they control.
Well… good thing I’ve been buying what I can through GOG… but this is terrible news, especially with the way Microsoft has been shutting down gaming studios recently.
Edit: meh, this just sounds like clickbait:
The leak comes from an unknown and unreliable source in the gaming industry.
Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard faced regulatory challenges, making the merger with Valve unlikely.
Plus they are bleeding money from all the acquisitions and haven’t seen the return they expected in game pass subs. The cost cutting isn’t done and it would be very surprising for them to try to dump more money into new storefronts when they are still trying to make their own business model profitable (to their expectations).
It’s an AI generated “article”, on a site that exclusively feeds headlines into AI to write “articles”.
So even if the original headline was - in the now-unknown wording - something rooted in reality, the generative shitcode has now turned both the headline and the content into utter derangement.
Looking at the sales estimates, the numbers appear pretty modest compared to the other gaming devices. They’re probably under 5m units sold since early 2022.
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Valve is way more valuable than Activision-Blizzard-King.
So they can burn it to the ground?
Tinfoil Hat Time:
Linux Gaming, while increasingly viable, isn’t currently a threat to MS. There are enough reasons people will stick with Windows. But Valve are doing a good job of showing that it’s possible, that Microsoft’s hold on PC gaming isn’t absolute and that an increasing number of games are playable on Linux too (with the right tools). Wine and co. have been around for a while, but they never enjoyed the spotlight of a major videogame platform investing time and manpower into developing a dedicated gaming compatibility engine.
I don’t think MS would intentionally run it into the ground. They’d probably try to squeeze it for money, which might end up doing so anyway.
I also don’t think they’re really worried about Linux gaming. But I also doubt they’d leave Proton untouched entirely. Whether they’d kneecap it, whether they’d enshittify it, whether they’d work on interfacing it with their proprietary stuff in an attempt to put it ahead of any competition and tip potential Linux Gaming developments in favour of using their engine to more easily target both platforms at once, I doubt they could resist doing something to squeeze money from it.
Maybe the very idea that they’re challenging Microsoft’s supremacy is unpleasant to them. Maybe their analytics show enough of a trend to concern them. Maybe they just want to make sure they have a piece of the pie if it ever becomes worth something.
Or maybe the whole thing is baseless bullshit made up for attention and site traffic.
But continues to write an entire article about it. I wouldn’t be shocked if the rumor was set by the person who writes the article itself. Edit: Which itself is only a few paragraphs, but filled with ads, links and images on the entire page.
I’ts not about integrity, it’s about clicks. It doesn’t matter if you read the headline, only if you clicked.
Also wouldn’t that pull in major antitrust violation cases especially in the EU?
I don’t wanna jinx it, but there is no way that this deal would go through
They will buy it, then shut it down. Then people will finally buy games at the … window games store?
Almost certainly fake, but what a horrible thought.
Yeah, I think all indications have been that Microsoft is getting out of the video game business. Or, if they were planning on staying in, why would they close a bunch of studios, including successful ones like Hi-Fi Rush’s Tango games.
Microsoft wanted to buy Nintendo and Valve before. It was in the leaked documents. And I’m sure Microsoft makes suggestions all the time, we just don’t hear about it usually. We mostly hear about deals that happen.
Besides that, I can’t imagine that a competitor could buy a competitor. That would be illegal in most cuntries. Unlike Activision, which was not a competitor to Microsoft.
Good Lord, no. Please no.
that seems wildly cheap lol, to kill linux gaming alone is probably worth them 50 billion or more, ignoring money printing from steam store itself
I was okay with them getting Blizzard because, well, how much worse could Blizzard actually get with the merger?
But this? I sincerely hope this never happens. Valve isn’t the complete shit-show that Blizzard has been. Valve actually understands its customers and seemingly, mostly, respects them. Please for all things good in this universe, keep it that way.
As long as Gaben runs Valve, I can see him just laughing and saying no to whatever offer Microsoft gives
deleted by creator
Lol I would quit gaming
Imagine a timeline where this happens.
What if there was an open source Steam clone, where everything is federated, and you could add repos like on KDE Discover, GNOME Software or F-DROID’s Android client?
This would be awesome.
It would be!
The big issue would be getting game developers onboard. The service valve provides is both to developers and to consumers.
The appeal to developers is that they can toss the game on steam and valve will manage putting it in front of players and getting them to buy it, and all the associated payment processing that entails.
Developers like steam because it has all the users and does a good job of “based on your games, buy these too”.
Users like it because it has all the games, installation is inevitably trivial, and it does a good job offering them games they could plausibly like, often on sale, and there’s a feeling of platform security: valve won’t screw you over.
Any new distribution system will have a tough time breaking in. Just look at the difficulties epic has had despite giving away games constantly and offering extremely generous developer revenue shares.
Valve aimed to make steam $30-60 dollars more convenient than piracy, and that seems to extend to other forms of free as well.
First step is figuring out secure decentralized credit card payments. 😊
Imagine plugging Flathub into this as a starting point. Also, if everything is federated, developers could sell directly. That’s one way to get them onboard.
Well, I don’t think they’re interested in selling directly. There’s a lot of overhead in handling credit card payments and dealing with the jurisdictional issues of sales tax, currency conversion, and regional age and content restrictions.
Your notion sounds perfectly lovely from the consumer side, but from the creator side it’s not much different from not using the system at all.
Yes. But those would be able to chose whatever distributor fits them better. Humble, GOG, itchio, whatever… For the user it would all be the same.
I could see a federated recommendation engine/ranking system/the social parts of game ownership, but I just don’t see it panning out for the actual commerce part.
Those parts benefit from being able to control your own data and who it’s shared with. I don’t think there’s a reasonable way to federate giving a specific individual money and them authorizing you to download or access a resource they control.
Considering Valve is one of the biggest backers of Linux that would be horrible (ofc it’s ai generated nonsense).
As long as valve say no then they can offer all they like. That is the advantage of not being a publicly traded company!
Well… good thing I’ve been buying what I can through GOG… but this is terrible news, especially with the way Microsoft has been shutting down gaming studios recently.
Edit: meh, this just sounds like clickbait:
Plus they are bleeding money from all the acquisitions and haven’t seen the return they expected in game pass subs. The cost cutting isn’t done and it would be very surprising for them to try to dump more money into new storefronts when they are still trying to make their own business model profitable (to their expectations).
It’s an AI generated “article”, on a site that exclusively feeds headlines into AI to write “articles”.
So even if the original headline was - in the now-unknown wording - something rooted in reality, the generative shitcode has now turned both the headline and the content into utter derangement.
That… weirdly… seems like a lowball given the recent success of the steam deck
Looking at the sales estimates, the numbers appear pretty modest compared to the other gaming devices. They’re probably under 5m units sold since early 2022.
EA is worth several times that and they don’t have the #1 PC games platform or any hardware
Valve should at least be in the same ballpark
Yeah, just saying that most of Valve’s value is probably in their software. Their hardware installed base is pretty small compared to others.
This is an AI generated article and has no basis in reality.
Even if it was real, pretty sure Gaben would just laugh in their faces
Microsoft: How about $16b?
Gaben: The best I can do is a couple thousand skins and crates
Doesn’t his ex wife own half of his shares now though?
Shares? Valve is a private company.
Yes, shares. Employee Stock Ownership Plans are a thing, they’re private shares in the company.
Private companies can still have multiple owners
Even if valve were to sell themselves, They would not sell to them.
Oh thank miscellaneous diety. For fucks sake everything Microsoft touches turns to shit, especially when it comes to game platforms.