Gaming

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Why doesn't Steam support Android? (feddit.org)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Ulrich@feddit.org to c/gaming@beehaw.org

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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...?

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[–] savvywolf@pawb.social 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The mobile and PC gaming markets are very different, both in terms of monetisation and what games people expect to play.

If Valve wanted to get into the mobile games industry they'd basically be starting from scratch, and I don't think it's a market they're particularly interested in.

You're also assuming that buying a game on PC steam will also give you a license to play that game on android, which isn't a given. I think many games have completely different monetisation models on mobile vs pc, so sharing between platforms like that wouldn't make sense.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 4 days ago

You're also assuming that buying a game on PC steam will also give you a license to play that game on android, which isn't a given.

It wasn't an assumption it was hypothetical.