I didn’t realize that but it doesn’t change the fact that:
The PC draws way more power than is needed
The PC must be powered on (mine draws ~40 watts at idle)
A monitor has to be plugged in and turned on.
The aspect ratio on the devices have to match or you’ll get letterboxing.
If your main display is 4k it will run the game at 4k even if you’re playing on a 720p display so you have to go in and change the graphical settings every time you switch devices.
In my limited experience it literally just doesn’t even work at all.
Even if you’re running over the web you’re limited to the strength of your data connection.
It just doesn’t work like it should, in my opinion. Hopefully they can fix this in the future with Steam Machines.
Valves strategy of not doing anything new in the last decade while every other publisber shoots themselves in the foot seems to be working pretty well for them.
I don’t know, it’s only been around for a few months.
Valves strategy of not doing anything new in the last decade
That’s not their strategy. I mean, among other things you may have heard of this thing called the Steam Deck? Or Family Sharing? SteamOS? Shit there’s a new video every week about Steam Client updates and improvements.
I think it ultimately comes down to having to support another platform ads more work and risk then its worth.
For example theyd have to convince people to essentially break androids walled garden which means valve has to make sure everything they offer for android isnt malicous. Then there is the fact that phones are different specs, more testing, potential customer support … Its a whole can of worms, but valve would gain little. There arent many people who want steam on their phones but dont already have it on pc.
Vavle is good at what they do, they have basically cornered the PC and portable PC markets already, i think not mucking around in an already monopolistic mobile market is a pretty wise business decision on their part overall.
I hella want to mod KCD2 to have magic spells and dragons. Though I do find it funny to say “It’s a great RPG based in reality. You get to do awesome quests like digging a ditch or herding sheep!”
I agree with you however I have one barrier to entry that others haven’t elaborated on.
Firstly, I’ll say how they could overcome some of the other challenges mentioned.
Steam would just have to add the ability for developers to upload android builds of games alongside the windows, Linux, Mac builds. All of a sudden, users would have huge, existing libraries of games. Most games built with Unity can target Android. I suspect a lot of indie developers would happily add the build.
Leaks have implied they were working on an arm emulator/translation layer but I assume this had to do with VR prototyping. Possibly the same effect as above but so many more configurations to target, they couldn’t handle it the way they do with steam deck.
Require/recommend to users to use a controller on Android
If either or both of those first 2 points succeed, Valve doesn’t need to do much more to ensure the utility of Steam games on Android. PC gamers are considered among the most willing and able to jump through hoops for a result. Going to a website to download the steam store plus a little warning on Android wouldn’t stop a reasonable percentage of them. It wouldn’t stop me.
It’s almost 0 risk to them, right? Right? I don’t think so.
Here’s the big barrier I mentioned. I assume they have a not-insignificant number of sales through the the android app. If they start allowing users to install android games, Google is going to stop them from having purchases in their play store app. And while I said that users would install their app from a website, what percentage of users would do it? How many fewer PC game sales would they make (from the Play Store app) in order to let their current users play games on Android?
Additionally, what would Steam do if they started getting android-only games being submitted. Or mobile-quality games dominating their store? Does this dilute Steam’s identity?
Additionally, it might be something they’ve discussed but they would have rather focused on steam deck-type gaming for mobile. Or perhaps an ARM-based steam OS+steamdeck approach would make more sense for them and then the difficulty/cost (and opportunity cost) increases do instead they simply don’t pursue it.
The cross-buy thing is something that Gog or Epic could do but they don’t have nearly the same “customer profile” (size, behaviour etc) so it isn’t as likely to have the same impact.
Regardless, in my view you’ve asked a great question and it’s a solid idea.
They would have to distribute it independently. Google would have no say in the matter.
That’s exactly my point. The current app lets you buy PC games despite being distributed through the store. If you can buy Android games on it, well, I doubt Google will ignore it. And even if Google was okay with it, there’s no way to easily communicate to users who start using the app there that they need to download another app from a website.
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. I’m just saying I think there are reasons they haven’t done it (yet?). I think they certainly must have considered it. I’ve certainly been wondering about it for a long while too.
why not both?
Sure. I would assume they would do it the same way as steam deck, where that’s the priority. The wide variety of phone specs on the market might have an impact on how they could support it etc.
That’s exactly my point. The current app lets you buy PC games despite being distributed through the store.
And they could continue doing so while also distributing a separate app independently that allows you to buy Android games.
Notice if you try to buy a movie from Amazon on Google TV they redirect you to the website. They could do the same or redirect you to the non-Google version.
I’m just saying I think there are reasons they haven’t done it (yet?)
I agree, I just find it very curious what those reasons are.
I don’t think they would get away with selling games in the app if games were playable on Android (demonstrating Android compatibility). I think they would have to do what Amazon kindle does and tell you to go buy your game somewhere else.
Now that I’m thinking about it they’d probably have to de-list those cross-platform games from the Google app or make them unavailable, which would probably lead to a lot of confusion.
Dave the Diver has a very good early game, but eventually the grind just became needlessly tedious in my opinion. I liked going down and getting the fish etc. but the grind in mid to late game is just very time-skip heavy
Probably will get some groans but World of Warships is actually modeled very nicely. And yeah its a free to play monetized game, but it is miles ahead of war thunder in terms of actually having fun and playing the game at high FPS and great quality even with a potato computer.
The engine has some cool tricks that really makes it shine with water spraying and sloshing onto your vessel.
Definitely not the best, but still worth a mention is “Stormworks: Build and rescue”. Basically a Lego like “build a ship/plane and do missions on the oceans” game - missions nowadays are also including far more than rescue.
I think they might have finally beaten their Nintendo curse though: one console is a huge success, the next is a fair failure. The Switch 2 will be a winner, but there’s no way it can be the same cultural phenomenon that the first was (I’d say)
Valve didn’t expand Steam into Linux to gain market share in a new market, Valve did it because it is a hedge in case Windows becomes toxic to Steam. There is now a fallback position if Steam is locked out of Windows, and I expect Valve to continue to build in this position.
As for Android, there isn’t a successful second app store that isn’t tied to hardware; even Amazon quit Android. I don’t think Valve sees Android expansion as commercialy viable.
Bro why are you being so argumentative? Person gave you a well thought out response, wasn’t even a tone to him but you fire back like he just insulted a core belief
What are you talking about? Do you expect me to just reply to everyone who provides a response “Yes, you’re correct” and move on? Am I not allowed to participate in the discussion I started?
Ideas like this haven’t come up for the first time. I expect this idea occurred to Valve and they thought it was not worth the investment of money/manpower/infrastructure.
Valve would either have to publish on Google Play. That would put it in the role of a developer and Valve is not really pushing on its developer role significantly. A huge cut off sales then goes to google.
Or Valve will have to try to make an alternative store… And that is no small feat. Most people will not sideload apps or install other store fronts. I imagine the proportion of android game sales that Valve can get into will be tiny enthusiast communities, and that won’t be anywhere near enough to pay the bills. On this alternative store, Valve will have to get developers to make games…or again they will have to consider developing games in house to get the ball rolling. Their best bet would likely be to use their existing IP to make mobile spin-offs (DotA card game? Or a wild-rift type MOBA? CS:GO turn based tacticle game? Or try to compete with CoD for the FPS market?).
I can’t see any combination of the above that seem like probable success for Valve. It’s admirable that they’re sticking to their niche and what they know. Pushing further into the handheld gaming and console market has been a much better option for them and they’re trying hard. Even in that aspect, the Steam Deck is universally praised…and is selling roughly 2.5% as many consoles as the Nintendo Switch. And no one I know IRL knows about the Steam Deck (other than my brothers, who bought one after I told them I had pre-ordered mine).
F-Droid’s market share is a rounding error compared to Google’s. Just because another app store exists doesn’t mean there is significant competition between app stores.
That’s not what you said though. You said there is no successful second app store and that’s demonstrably untrue. Just because it isn’t widely used doesn’t mean it can’t be.
For a company like Valve, they are going to need greater adoption than what F-Droid has to be viable.
And I didn’t say that a successful app store was impossible, just improbable enough that it doesn’t justify investing in Android and that previous failures show how hard this is. Valve is still a for profit company and will make decisions to make money.
So, it’s not successful, but it could be. So they were in fact correct that it’s not successful.
I use fdroid, so I know exactly how badly administered it is compared to Play. There are apps that haven’t gotten updated in months or years, despite the app on Play or Github being much newer. There are typo-squatting apps, and apps uploaded by people who do not own or manage those programs. It’s a wild west experience, and the average android phone user isn’t going to know enough to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Valve would be better off doing their own android offshoot OS.
That’s also not what they said. They said there’s no successful second app store that isn’t tied to hardware, which is true. F-Droid exists, but by no metric would it be considered seriously by anyone as a successful competitor to Google. And if there is somebody who thinks that, then you should give me their number, I have this investment idea that is guaranteed to give double or even triple returns, all I need is a seed investment of, say, $20k.
(A few days ago I skimmed a super cool post about Steam’s relationship with Linux that says what you’re saying and now I want to give it a thorough read but I can’t find it bee sob emoji. If anyone remembers and has a link to it I’d be super happy bee laugh sweat emoji)
Personally I’ve been cooking through the System Shock games. The SS1 remake was my first proper introduction to the series and I loved it. I was pretty excited for the impending System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition but it, uh… doesn’t really seem like it’s going to be very enhanced. Especially compared to what you can do with just modding the base game. So rather than keep waiting for that I spent ten bucks on SS2 Classic and have been enjoying myself greatly.
I’ve always liked SHODAN just via cultural osmosis, but now having actually played the games she stars in, that’s cranked up to 12. I fucking love SHODAN. She might be one of the best examples of an evil rogue AI in any media, and also has an actual reason for going rogue besides just “mankind builds a machine too smart for them and suffers the consequences”. The entire story setup is so believable.
Anyway, tl;dr, the System Shock games are hella good and the remake is especially very good. Particularly because controlling classic SS1 is more like playing an operating system than playing a video game. Also SHODAN. step on me again metal mommy
I got to the System Shock games after Prey (2017), not only am I WAY too young to have been around for them, but it just kinda went past me. But after that spiritual successor I visited the System Shock games, and I love them!
I’m hoping the SS2 is good, because I loved what they did with the first! It’s never meant to be a remake, just a polish of the game itself.
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