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…?
Valve is in the business of selling PC games. Moving into a new market wouldn’t be trivial, and Google has put up a lot of barriers to make it especially difficult for a third-party app store to challenge their monopoly.
They support games for Windows, Mac and Linux. And I’m sure they would support them for PS, Nintendo and Xbox if they weren’t created with explicit intention of not allowing that sort of thing. Android is the only market they could feasibly enter and choose not to.
No but it also wouldn’t be that difficult for a company with Valve’s resources, and would be extremely lucrative.
Such as?
Paragraph 4.5 of Google Play’s Developer Distribution Agreement is a rather large barrier. I’ll paste it here:
I’d wager the majority of Android users have never downloaded an application other than from the Google Play Store. Even among those who would try, a large amount of them would probably get scared off by the “unverified sources” popup Android gives you if you try to install an app in another manner.
That’s like saying Amazon has a “barrier” to online sales because they refuse to allow Target to sell products on their site for free. They’re competing services, why would they allow that?
Developers most often distribute software outside of official repos in Windows and MacOS, and they do so successfully.
It’s not that hard, you just follow the prompts on the screen.
I think you’re overestimating the tech savvyness of the average person :P
The average user already uses Windows and/or MacOS, and I would argue those installation procedures are far more complicated.
The average person has never had to install Windows or MacOS, they buy a computer with it pre-installed. And they buy phones with Google Play pre-installed.
We’re not talking about installing an operating system. I’m not suggesting Steam create their own OS (although they’re also doing that). We’re talking about installing an app.
Then why did you bring it up?
Those are all PC platforms. And Mac support is mostly dead after what Apple did.
Yes, I am aware. Which is why I continued my explanation after that.
Why would you think that? Of course it would be difficult, it’s a massive undertaking.
Amazon and Epic have both tried to launch their own Android storefronts. Neither one has been even remotely successful. Amazon will be shutting theirs down soon.
For the reason I mentioned in the OP. Because it’s been done before, several times. Including by Epic, with a fraction of Valve’s resources.
Everything I’ve read about the Amazon store indicates that it sucks on every level, for all parties.
The Epic Store is only a few months old. And they can’t even make a decent or profitable app for PC so I’d be very unsurprised if their mobile app is also trash.
Amazon and Epic both failed because it is not easy to move into a market that Google has such a dominant monopoly over. It’s not that simple.
Epic has not failed (yet). As I just said, it’s only been around for a few months.
I disagree about Amazon for reasons I’ve already stated so we’ll have to agree to disagree on that.
Why’d you even make this thread if you were just going to reject any answers given to you?
I’m not rejecting anything. It’s called a discussion. They could very well be right. I just disagree.