In anticipation of their own OS and ecosystem. They are not the saviours of gaming as being professed by so many, they charge 30% to sell there and lock your games under DRM. It’s great Linux has become a bit more of a thing but still far from mainstream outside of custom builds like SteamOS.
I have not looked it up but I do recall proton being a thing way before the steam console was.
Okay I looked it up before posting. The deck was released in 2022 and the initial release of proton was on 2018. Steam has had native clients for Linux and native Linux support for dota for ages too.
It’s true that their recent big push is because of the handheld but it’s also true that they have been pushing for gaming on Linux since way before.
ABCDE@lemmy.world 7 months ago
fushuan@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Their os is based on Linux, every tool they develop and improve can be used in any other Linux systems. I’m not calling them saviours of gaming, I’m happy that they improved the Linux gaming experience by a fuckton for everyone not only the people using their products.
Linux has always been a thing, gaming on Linux is what was not, and steam has always had support for it, I remember playing native Linux dota back in 2015 ish on uni.
I’ve been playing several games installed through steam offline, so idk about them locking games under drm. For example, stardew valley, grim dawn. Beside that, most other games I play have an online component so I would need to authenticate in some form anyway, like path of exile, last epoch.
They are not saviours, but the competition is so bad that it’s not strange for people to see the difference.
30% seems a lot yeah but I’m not discussing that, I’m talking about them being pro Linux as a policy way before the deck.
ABCDE@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Indeed yes, I did mention SteamOS (I think that was the original name). Steam hasn’t always supported Linux, it was years after it’s release (maybe ten?) before they did from what I remember.
Yes it’s good, but my part of the discussion is highlighting they aren’t doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, otherwise there would be more evidence of it including lower fees, no DRM and and whatnot.
How is Dota on Linux? It’s, well, a bit crap on Mac as the menu bar gets in the way (tried fiddling with settings but doesn’t seem possible to fix it) and other stuff.
fushuan@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Well, my pc could barely run in in windows so the performance was basically the same haha. I tried it some years later and it ran perfectly.
msage@programming.dev 7 months ago
Steam console (not deck specifically) predates any proton release (2015).
Valve has been trying to break from Microsoft for a very long time.
The Deck is the first successful one, but far from the first.
fushuan@lemm.ee 7 months ago
You are absolutely right, I forgot about it. Still, this shows that they have been pushing for popularizing Linux (for their own devices, sure, but in exchange benefiting everybody else) far longer. As any company, avoiding blind trust is advice but they are kinda cool.