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Comment by em-bee | Hacker News Reader

the risk mitigation hasn't played out yet. if that's what it is. we need to wait until microsoft tries to squeeze Steam out of windows. we have yet to see whether it works to keep valve alive against microsoft. the attack hasn't happened yet. and judging by microsofts actions it looks like they are cancelling themselves. for now at least. the war is not over.

of course as a linux user i am not complaining about linux support, but for now it still looks like valve supports linux from the goodness of their heart, and not as a way to make money. lets hope that this changes.

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> we need to wait until microsoft tries to squeeze Steam out of windows.

Steam Machines were a direct result of that: Microsoft announced plans to block non-Microsoft app stores on Windows 8. This was a credible existential threat to Valve, which got off to a rocky start, and they wisely persisted despite Windows 8 (and yhe threat) flopping. Microsoft os no longer in a position to try and squeeze Steam, thanks to Valve's diligence, and Microsoft going half-cocked the first time.

interesting. i was not aware of that. and i would not be surprised if microsoft tries that again, so the threat remains.

Some mainstream gaming channels on youtube are already half recommending linux except for online games. Really doubt microsoft would have the balls to try something like that now

curious, i wonder why not online games? i play a few online games on linux just fine. they are not the newest ones, but that's the thing, any older games work, online or not, and only some of the newest don't, and that's only because wine/codeweaver/valve didn't get around to implement the fixes for wine for those games yet.

microsoft doesn't need courage, they just need a few leaders dumb enough to try again.

Probably various flavours of anti-cheat still being very much hit or miss at the moment.

(Still annoyed that Rockstar added BattlEye to GTA Online one day out of the blue, _and_ refuses to set the flag to allow it to work in Linux)

ok, good point. anti cheat only makes sense for multiplayer, so only online games. didn't think of that.

Not goodness, it's an insurance policy. It takes many years to achieve anything like this, so groundwork needs to be laid early.

of course. my point is that we don't know if it will be enough. and i am not saying linux is a risky bet, because there are no safer bets to make. (other than gabe taking his earnings and keeping them for himself)

if microsoft shuts out Steam, then valve will lose more than 90% of its current revenue. despite the insurance policy that just might kill the company outright.

and, the more revenue valve gets from linux, the more of a threat it becomes to microsoft, which makes microsoft trying to shut out Steam even more likely.

our only hope is that regulators prevent microsoft from even trying...

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