I’ll just keep my excitement at bay until Micrisoft proves they didn’t fuck it up by something like requiring a constant online connection for the single player campaign like Black Ops 6.
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.
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?
If Valve can’t do something that will push their business and the whole industry forward, they’ll just do some other thing that will.
Doing sequels after sequels will only stagnate the franchise, making Valve lose time. For that, they rely on publishers like Activision, EA, and Ubisoft among others.
I know it’s too little too late for most. But last season made the game fair. Even before it was less pay to win than Siege for example. Now it’s only cosmetics like CS2. For new players it’s a solid hero shooter, it’s really fun and the community is not toxic, though I admit it’s crap at competitive. For that, your time would be better spent at CS2.