3 ms·

I think part of the reason is that Steam is pretty utilitarian, not selfish. Valve is actually pretty much a force for good and haven't tried to use any very da

I think part of the reason is that Steam is pretty utilitarian, not selfish. Valve is actually pretty much a force for good and haven't tried to use any very dark patterns to make more money. Steam is nice and its developers care to make a program that works well.

Aeolun 5y ago
> haven't tried to use any very dark patterns to make more money They don’t really have to. They’re still private right? What are they going to do with even more money?
- 1_player 5y ago
  They don't need dark patterns, they're already making a boatload of money indeed. If the trend continues, that means more paid consultants working on open source Linux desktop libraries [1]. Win-win in my book. It actually feels good that the 30% cut Steam takes out of my purchases partly goes to improve my Linux desktop experience. Better for me as a user than if they were taking a smaller cut and focusing on Windows only. 1: Valve has been sponsoring work on Wine, Wayland, KDE, mesa gfx drivers, dxvk, and others.
  - Torifyme12 5y ago
    For all that the Linux community tried, and god did we try, we didn't make real gaming on Linux progress until Valve started throwing developers are the projects. You can easily attribute real gaming (I love free civ as much as the next person, but it's not the same) coming to Linux Desktops.
    - account42 5y ago
      Valve have done a lot, but there were commercial games available for Linux before Steam. Even the first Humble Bundle was before Steam for Linux.
    - BbzzbB 5y ago
      Isn't restricting your choice pool to FOSS games a satisfying compromise for GNU/Linux gaming? https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonfree-games.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonfree-games.en.html Obviously kidding, Valve's efforts will IMO greatly expand Linux's target audience which is laudable. Seems to me that limitation was one of the main pullbacks for Linux adoption, especially in non-developer circles. Requiring dual-booting just for games on the Windows partition is not a convenient band-aid, and Stallman's solution never was one at all.
      - Aeolun 5y ago
        The other one is MS Office. If you get those two right, linux is a viable desktop OS.

Aeolun 5y ago

> haven't tried to use any very dark patterns to make more money They don’t really have to. They’re still private right? What are they going to do with even more money?

1_player 5y ago
They don't need dark patterns, they're already making a boatload of money indeed. If the trend continues, that means more paid consultants working on open source Linux desktop libraries [1]. Win-win in my book. It actually feels good that the 30% cut Steam takes out of my purchases partly goes to improve my Linux desktop experience. Better for me as a user than if they were taking a smaller cut and focusing on Windows only. 1: Valve has been sponsoring work on Wine, Wayland, KDE, mesa gfx drivers, dxvk, and others.
- Torifyme12 5y ago
  For all that the Linux community tried, and god did we try, we didn't make real gaming on Linux progress until Valve started throwing developers are the projects. You can easily attribute real gaming (I love free civ as much as the next person, but it's not the same) coming to Linux Desktops.
  - account42 5y ago
    Valve have done a lot, but there were commercial games available for Linux before Steam. Even the first Humble Bundle was before Steam for Linux.
  - BbzzbB 5y ago
    Isn't restricting your choice pool to FOSS games a satisfying compromise for GNU/Linux gaming? https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonfree-games.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonfree-games.en.html Obviously kidding, Valve's efforts will IMO greatly expand Linux's target audience which is laudable. Seems to me that limitation was one of the main pullbacks for Linux adoption, especially in non-developer circles. Requiring dual-booting just for games on the Windows partition is not a convenient band-aid, and Stallman's solution never was one at all.
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      The other one is MS Office. If you get those two right, linux is a viable desktop OS.