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Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

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Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#311

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

sznio wrote: post #297
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why would they care? Not even Microsoft really cares about Windows licensing for consumers and businesses are never going to use computers running fake Windows. There is no real business case.

>businesses are never going to use computers running fake Windows. why not? If it's cheaper and compatible, why not?

That’s not how Big Enterprise works. “No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft”. Can you imagine the reputational risk of whoever decided that when something goes wrong they didn’t go with Microsoft? No one is going to trust a gaming company when it comes to their entire IT infrastructure.

Besides businesses have an all in one contract with Microsoft for Windows, Active Directory, probably SQL Server, Office, a certain number of seats for MSDN for their developers, Azure DevOps (separate from Azure - it’s the modern equivalent of Team Foundation Server), and the list goes on. They don’t care about saving a couple of dollars on Windows license.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#312

Post by torginus »

YmiYugy wrote: post #284
levocardia wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve is one of the few companies regularly seen on HN where the headline is something like "[company] is secretly doing something really great" as opposed to "[company] is secretly doing something evil"

I have plenty of complaints about them. The highly addictive gambling mechanics in their games, the extortionate cut afforded them by their dominant market position or the very rough UX in many parts of the Steam client (takes forever to startup, shows pop up ads on startup, is quite the resource hog, the store that is a pretty poorly optimized website and a lot of cruft in the less well trodden areas). But they do m…

If you're a dev and think their cut is too high, you can generate infinite keys for your game through Steam for free and sell them through third parties - Valve doesn't even police this.

The fact that people still tend to buy throught Steam shows their cut is worth it.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#313

Post by squigz »

MattDaEskimo wrote: post #289
TulliusCicero wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People complain about the gambling/loot box stuff, and yeah there's legit ethical concerns there. But overall Valve just seems straightforwardly less shitty towards the consumer than other major companies in their space, by a long shot.

Let's be honest about this current situation. Valve pushing for Linux gaming is for survival, not charity. Windows is closing in on them: stricter kernel access (tougher time for anti-cheat) Encouraging users to use the app store, or more accurately: discouraging users to install from binary They threaten Valve's business model, and Valve is responding with proton & SteamOS

> Windows is closing in on them: stricter kernel access (tougher time for anti-cheat)

Why would Microsoft not work with leaders of a multi-billion dollar industry they benefit from to develop anti-cheats that work with whatever limitations they put on kernel access? Also isn't stricter kernel access in part being done for anti-cheat and related measures?

> Encouraging users to use the app store, or more accurately: discouraging users to install from binary

Why would this threaten Steam? Unless you're suggesting they can't just distribute Steam through this app store?

> They threaten Valve's business model, and Valve is responding with proton & SteamOS

You didn't even mention Game Pass or their store, which are actually more of a threat!

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#314

Post by SchemaLoad »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #296
simianparrot wrote: post #291

Thank god. Microsoft has shown they don't care about their users as anything other than eyeballs to shove bullshit to for _years_ and Gabe called them out on it back with Windows 8, and Valve has been working on this since. Steam Deck is fantastic to use. Good riddance to Windows.

> Gabe called them out on it back with Windows 8 Context?

He made some critical comments to the media about the Windows app store and Microsoft's position of trying to turn Windows in to an iOS type situation with everything locked down. Remember that Microsoft had just released Windows RT and later Windows 10 S which could only run apps from the Windows app store.

This could have pushed Steam out of the market if it had succeeded. Valve then spent the next decade building up Linux gaming almost from scratch to reduce their dependance on Microsoft.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#315

Post by saghm »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #217
nialv7 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve is estimated to make $16.2 billion from Steam alone in 2025 [0], and CS:GO loot boxes only netted them ~1bn in 2023 [1] (and CS:GO player count is only slightly higher now compared to 2023, so I expected the income number is similar). Why don't they just take a 6% pay cut and make sure there is nothing to criticize them about :/ [0]: https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/valve-mak... [1]: https://c…

There's an argument that loot boxes that give you cosmetics just aren't that big of a deal, at least if we're talking about adults. Especially since Magic the Gathering and similar card games are very normalized, and have a straightforwardly more evil monetization strategy, since you need to do gambling there to even play the game, it's not cosmetic. There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are peopl…

> There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are people more upset about gambling for cosmetics in a game than gambling for power/features in a game?" It's a clear double standard, and I've never heard an actually good explanation for it that makes it sound justifiable.

The closest I've heard to something compelling is that the digital goods aren't the same as actual physical goods, and that somehow that makes it worse, but I still don't find it particularly compelling; I've heard people (often lovingly) refer to trading cards as "cardboard crack" explicitly to joke about how ridiculous it is to be paying for stuff that's essentially just ink and paper.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#316

Post by torginus »

socalgal2 wrote: post #246
bee_rider wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve seems more like Apple than Google: a well-liked company that has an obvious and not inherently exploitive business model. Google as an ad company was always destined to go bad in a way that most non-ad companies are not. No company is your friend, and they are all fundamentally structures around making a profit. But providing goods and services in exchange for money is not inherently exploitive or evil.

> like Apple: a well-liked company that has an obvious and not inherently exploitive business model. Apple does have an exploitive business model. Take 30% from every business that's not them. Apple is trying to own the entire world. They're quickly becoming the bank by offering Credit Cards and Savings. I'm sure once they get big enough they'll turn the screws and add more charges because no company will want to los…

I honestly can't remember the last time I brought something through the App Store - my lifetime total money spent there is probably less than $500

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#317

Post by rincebrain »

ewzimm wrote: post #103
rincebrain wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume Steam Deck 2 isn't dropping before at least H2 2026, if not later, if they didn't bring it out with the announcement of the other devices.

Valve's only official statement as far as I know is that it will come when they see a significant enough hardware upgrade to warrant a new system. If they don't move to ARM, AMD's Medusa APUs are their next architecture with major upgrades, so I would guess that Valve would order another custom AMD chip but based on Medusa, which won't release until at least 2027. I would guess at least H2 2027 but probably early 202…

I would be surprised if they moved to ARM any time soon, because even if the CPUs can punch that hard, they're definitely not competing on the GPU front, from what I understand of the state of the art outside of Apple, so they're gonna wind up with a dGPU anyway if they did.

Maybe my knowledge is out of date, but I'd be kind of surprised if a Snapdragon can get anywhere near competing with even the existing Steam Deck on GPU performance. Looking at [1] for a ballpark number on Snapdragon GPU performance doesn't seem encouraging.

[1] - https://chipsandcheese.com/p/the-snapdragon-x-elites-adreno-...

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#318

Post by lallysingh »

squigz wrote: post #313
MattDaEskimo wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest about this current situation. Valve pushing for Linux gaming is for survival, not charity. Windows is closing in on them: stricter kernel access (tougher time for anti-cheat) Encouraging users to use the app store, or more accurately: discouraging users to install from binary They threaten Valve's business model, and Valve is responding with proton & SteamOS

> Windows is closing in on them: stricter kernel access (tougher time for anti-cheat) Why would Microsoft not work with leaders of a multi-billion dollar industry they benefit from to develop anti-cheats that work with whatever limitations they put on kernel access? Also isn't stricter kernel access in part being done for anti-cheat and related measures? > Encouraging users to use the app store, or more accurately: d…

Microsoft's a competitor. And they have a reputation for being the first ally to stab you in the back (e.g. SGI / DirectX). You don't want to depend or trust them when they like the market you're in.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#319

Post by littlecranky67 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #133
thewebguyd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially looking at Apples recent gaming history. When Cyberpunk, AC, and a couple other AAA titles came to macOS, Apple made a big deal of them being in the mac app store, specifically. They didn't go out of their way to call out that they run on mac, you can get them from Steam, etc. The big deal was they are in the app store. That's where Apple wants mac gaming to happen so they can get their 30% cut. I wish tha…

App stores for desktop computers have pretty consistently failed except for Steam. I don't think I've installed anything from the App store on my Mini, instead I have just dropped all kinds of images into my Applications folder. The Windows store is about as marginal as it can get. My corporate desktop at work is locked down with the Windows store disabled, they made it so I can elevate and do almost anything I need…

Not sure if that counts, but homebrews cask is some kind of appstore. Yes, command line based, but I can install closed-source software using "brew install --cask "

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#320

Post by lallysingh »

sheepscreek wrote: post #309
MattDaEskimo wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest about this current situation. Valve pushing for Linux gaming is for survival, not charity. Windows is closing in on them: stricter kernel access (tougher time for anti-cheat) Encouraging users to use the app store, or more accurately: discouraging users to install from binary They threaten Valve's business model, and Valve is responding with proton & SteamOS

Your argument doesn’t make any sense. What does this have to do with supporting Arm chips? It’s not like AMD and Intel are waging a war against Valve. If anything Steam helps them by strengthening the PC gaming market, leading to higher CPU/GPU sales.

Slowly getting their stuff independent of wintel gives a lot of flexibility. And the big gaming market's on phones / tablets. A steam controller could find itself paired to an iPad running steam in a year or two.
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