Valve got a scare with Windows 8 that they could be pushed off the platform.[0] It became clear to them that they were just guests in a house owned by Microsoft

Valve got a scare with Windows 8 that they could be pushed off the platform.[0] It became clear to them that they were just guests in a house owned by Microsoft. That was in 2012, the first Steam Machine (running Linux) came out 3 years later and they've been working at it ever since. It's not about saving the cost of a license, it's about guaranteeing their own survival. As for "supporting native games," I take that to mean "sufficiently incentivize game devs to port their games to Linux." How would that work, or did you have something else in mind? [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18996377 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18996377