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…?
That’s like saying Amazon has a “barrier” to online sales because they refuse to allow Target to sell products on their site for free. They’re competing services, why would they allow that?
Developers most often distribute software outside of official repos in Windows and MacOS, and they do so successfully.
It’s not that hard, you just follow the prompts on the screen.
I think you’re overestimating the tech savvyness of the average person :P
The average user already uses Windows and/or MacOS, and I would argue those installation procedures are far more complicated.
The average person has never had to install Windows or MacOS, they buy a computer with it pre-installed. And they buy phones with Google Play pre-installed.
We’re not talking about installing an operating system. I’m not suggesting Steam create their own OS (although they’re also doing that). We’re talking about installing an app.
Then why did you bring it up?
I just explained this in the comment you replied to.
You didn’t explain anything. You said it’s easier than installing Windows, and then you said you weren’t talking about installing Windows. Huh?
No I didn’t. What I said was:
I’m saying it’s easier to sideload apps on Android than it is on Windows and MacOS, where it is the primary distribution method used by average people every day.