Gabe Newell Wants to Support Linux, Because Windows 8 is a 'Catastrophe'

Re:Gabe Newell Wants to Support Linux, Because Windows 8 is ... by Ralz on Wednesday July 25, 2012 @11:25PM (#4294251)

Unless the video game developer is creating a game only for metro then the Windows Store will not cause any harm to Valve. Although it is possible to list a non metro application in the store (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsstore/archive/2012/06/08/list...) users will not be able to purchase or directly download those applications from the store and MS does not take a cut of non metro apps.

You bring up a good point about the WinRT ARM devices. These devises are very closed off similar to the IPad, the only option for WinRT tablet users will be to go to the Windows Store but I don't think Valve even cares about this market too much ( I don't think you can download games directly to your iPhone from the steam app, can you?). Steam in my opinion is geared towards the PC desktop gamer not the (ARM) tablet* user, so Valve has nothing to worry about.

*x86 tablets will most likely be able to download steam.

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Re:Gabe Newell Wants to Support Linux, Because Windows 8 is ... by prawks on Thursday July 26, 2012 @08:47AM (#4295693)

> Steam in my opinion is geared towards the PC desktop gamer not the (ARM) tablet* user, so Valve has nothing to worry about.

The problem is that the PC desktop-gamer market is shrinking, and may shrink further if a large population adopts WinRT tablets. I'm sure there are many edge-case customers out there that would rather pay <$500 for a PC in exchange for not having access to the few indie games they or their children purchased on Steam.

While most avid PC gamers will keep with the desktop model, this sort of fork in the road for PC buyers is in essence also a narrowing of accessibility for future generations of would-be PC gamers.

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