4 ms·

I think you're missing the spirit of the question. If Apple doesn't want to wreck gaming on its platform, and if there are few gamers on Apple platforms, and su

I think you're missing the spirit of the question. If Apple doesn't want to wreck gaming on its platform, and if there are few gamers on Apple platforms, and supporting Apple platforms doesn't give Valve the upper hand against MS the same way supporting Linux would... Why would Valve bother? Why shouldn't it be on Apple to make it work? Maybe install Crossover and play the Windows versions of games through there?

donatj 5y ago
I think you miss Valves motives entirely. They want to sell games. Windows 8 was bad for them selling games. Microsoft showed their hand at wanting an Apple-like walled garden. They made their own OS to sell games. They want to sell games. There are a lot more Mac users to sell games to than Linux users or even potential Linux users. Mac users are far more willing to pay for software. If you can sell more games to Mac users, that’s money from selling games for Valve. They want to sell games.
- ridgered4 5y ago
  That's a decent reason to have Steam on Mac, which they do. But I don't see the incentive to build proton for Mac, which would just move them from one potential walled garden into another one.
- striking 5y ago
  Obviously their motive is to sell games, but their priorities likely don't currently include Apple's hardware as a result of wanting to compete in the console market and wanting to twist away Microsoft's near-monopoly on PC. Not everyone is a Linux user, but there are lots of people who would be willing to use it if it was sufficiently packaged. The Steam Deck is likely to be exactly that. Fine, they want to sell games. They can still sell games to Mac users. If the back catalog isn't quite there, that's probably not a huge deal, as it's not exactly where the most money is made. Could they go ahead and license Crossover, today, for every Steam user that tries to open a 32-bit game on macOS? Probably! Could they slap together a distribution of Proton for Mac? Absolutely (and for a time, it existed)! But my guess is that the Apple juice just isn't worth the squeeze. It's probably not super important to their strategy, it's probably not going to yield back enough profit to be worth it, and if it were really so easy I suspect they would have furthered their work on Proton for Mac (https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/1344 https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/1344).

donatj 5y ago

I think you miss Valves motives entirely. They want to sell games. Windows 8 was bad for them selling games. Microsoft showed their hand at wanting an Apple-like walled garden. They made their own OS to sell games. They want to sell games. There are a lot more Mac users to sell games to than Linux users or even potential Linux users. Mac users are far more willing to pay for software. If you can sell more games to Mac users, that’s money from selling games for Valve. They want to sell games.

ridgered4 5y ago
That's a decent reason to have Steam on Mac, which they do. But I don't see the incentive to build proton for Mac, which would just move them from one potential walled garden into another one.
striking 5y ago
Obviously their motive is to sell games, but their priorities likely don't currently include Apple's hardware as a result of wanting to compete in the console market and wanting to twist away Microsoft's near-monopoly on PC. Not everyone is a Linux user, but there are lots of people who would be willing to use it if it was sufficiently packaged. The Steam Deck is likely to be exactly that. Fine, they want to sell games. They can still sell games to Mac users. If the back catalog isn't quite there, that's probably not a huge deal, as it's not exactly where the most money is made. Could they go ahead and license Crossover, today, for every Steam user that tries to open a 32-bit game on macOS? Probably! Could they slap together a distribution of Proton for Mac? Absolutely (and for a time, it existed)! But my guess is that the Apple juice just isn't worth the squeeze. It's probably not super important to their strategy, it's probably not going to yield back enough profit to be worth it, and if it were really so easy I suspect they would have furthered their work on Proton for Mac (https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/1344 https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/1344).