this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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I assume the primary reason for Valve supporting Linux is to protect themselves against possible hostility from Microsoft. So yeah, it's a business decision to protect Valve's profits; but frankly - it's also beneficial to everyone who isn't Microsoft.
Overall, I'm not a great fan of Steam. (And generally it's me talking down Steam; recommending itch.io and GOG; and sometimes even defending Epic against what I think are unfair attacks.) But here I'm just saying that I don't really see the negative of Valve creating Steam OS. Although I don't intend to use Steam OS, I think I'm already benefiting from the support Valve has given Linux to create Steam OS.
Just to be totally clear: Steam OS is a distro for the Steam Deck. It's great that they based their handheld's OS on Linux. There is pretty much universal agreement that is a net positive for gamers. Up until recently, there wasn't a way to install Steam OS on a device other than a Steam deck, except by using third party tools to hack together a bootable version of the Deck's recovery image. That's now changed - Valve have recently released generic install images of Steam OS. Hence this post about a Valve dev's comments about Steam OS competing more directly with Windows, which it previously did not on really any level.
I don't think anyone in the thread is positing that Valve creating Steam OS is a negative. I and the other poster are saying that regardless of whether the dev's comments are truthful, the reason Valve has now released Steam OS more widely is money-oriented, not some altruistic act toward gamers. The benefits to gamers generally associated with Steam OS are simply not related to this new development. Steam OS is not an especially useful distribution for PC gamers. For example, it doesn't include Nvidia drivers like other gaming-oriented Linux distros. But one feature it does have is that it's inseparable from the Steam ecosystem. And while you could describe Steam as "a games store", you could just as easily and accurately describe it as "a DRM platform". In other words, anti-consumer, money-grubbing, etc.