this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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It's not only goodwill, it's a survival tactic for valve. The worst case scenario for them, is see microsoft expand their monopoly to have all apps and software available only through their Microsoft app store, competing directly with valve, with the unfair advantage of microsoft controlling both windows and the app store. They could (and probably have) tried to get to where apple is with its app store on macos/ios. Though of course this would be an anticompetitive move, but the intentions could still exist making valves life difficult.
The moment they can untie gaming from windows, they have a path forward to keeping themselves not only alive but relevant and probably safe.
Yet other store platforms like epic, gog, blizzard, origin, and uplay don't bother supporting Linux and are content with Microsoft.
So as much of a survival tactic it might be it would seem any other company wouldn't bother and still aren't.
What are their respective market shares compared to steam? Is it comparable? If it's not, maybe they're missing the leverage to try what Valve is attempting. But also, and likely, this is a costly long term development process.
So it shows other companies are short term thinking focusing more on quarter profits, and also explains why they missed put on two console generations worth of time to make a dent in the PC space when the industry was claiming PC was dying.
It's always excuses and lack of willingness to take risks on plans that might not pan out immediately. Then when it becomes successful from another company excuse is what is the market share in the present.