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

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Maybe, just maybe, they are waiting for proton for ARM to be a thing.

Imagine having actually a big percentage of your steam games just work on android. Now that would be disruptive for the market.

If it worked like I imagine it would.

[–] mp3 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Knowing Valve, they wouldn't wait but build the thing.

Personally, I'd be happy to have another reputable place to buy Android games that isn't Google Play, Amazon or Epic Games.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

It's not that simple. Proton implements the Windows API functions required to run a Windows game on x64-based Linux, but it's not a CPU emulator. Emulating x64 on ARM at the speeds required by a game is virtually impossible.

If Steam comes to ARM / Android, it would have to be a whole separate ecosystem of games. But Valve is late to the game there since we already have several players on that market, not least the standard Google Play Store.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago

Emulating x64 on ARM at the speeds required by a game is virtually impossible.

This has been done and it works reasonably well on a case by case basis.

Much like protondb they have a list of confirmed broken and working games.

https://box86.org/app/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Thats a possibly I didnt think of. My thought were with Deckard, ARM laptops, or possibly better mac support cause they use ARM now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

I think that's the more likely scenario. They plan to transition their hardware to ARM processors.