The wiggle room for Valve isn't "just install Windows."

They want customers to be able to install Windows on it, because that flexibility is a key selling point, and they have been testing the hardware with Windows, but they don't want people to actually do that. It's bad strategically for Valve, and a terrible user experience for their customers, if they have to.

The thing they'll have in mind when they say "your Steam library is available" is that those customers who've bought Windows-only games that don't currently work on SteamOS 3 will have bought them for their existing Windows PCs. The simple solution (definitely way easier than faffing about installing an OS) is to just turn that computer on. In Home Streaming is already built into the Steam client, and will work from the Deck. All your library, not the whole Steam catalogue.

They want everything to be able to run on the device itself. Both in terms of compatibility and in terms of performance. Their "good enough" for performance they've stated as 30 fps at the device's native resolution, but there isn't a "good enough" for compatibility; they are trying to demonstrate Linux as a viable gaming alternative to Windows. While they're asymptotically approaching full compatibility to identify the threshold that customers will feel is sufficient to not be reliant on Microsoft, they already have a solution built in to let the non-compatible games run. No extra work for customers, and they don't have to leave the Steam ecosystem.

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The art style is super cool. It's one that I'm planning on getting back to on the Deck: I think the touch screen is going to feel very natural for it.

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Quoting: HoriWhen the Deck releases and Linux becomes "mainstream"/"popular" we'll all need to migrate to BSD and start asking for support there.

+1 Haiku

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It seems that a chunk of Linux Steam users are running it as a flatpak.

Description:Freedesktop.org 20.08.14 (Flatpak runtime) 64 bit 5.58% +5.58%

Other is still the most popular distro, with more than a third of users. Ubuntu-based is close, though, with 35.23%.

Much as I appreciate the variety of Linux distros, it would be good if that was, say, 60% Ubuntu-based and 30% Arch-based (or the other way round: I'm not pushing a particular distro) and 10% Other. That way developers only need to test one to be representative of most users, and two to be representative of the great majority of users. We can say that's what they should do, but it's better if Steam's charts show that too.

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Quoting: scaineThey chose to simply ditch a platform. The people on that platform have been shafted, treated like second-class citizens. Of course they have a right to demand their money back.

Quoting: scaineIf you take, say, £50K sales, and assume we're 1%... that's £500. Sure, that's a chunk of money to an individual, but c'mon. If you run your studio like a business, and your experiment with Linux didn't yield results - pony up the five hundred quid. Take the hit and move on.

Exactly.

Are we tiny minority that doesn't matter, in which case pony up. Or are we actually often a reasonable portion of sales and the dev outfit just can't handle the support burden?

They aren't planning on any support burden. I don't know why people would think that you could skip testing and have no bugs in the result, but here we are. Testing brings its own benefits outside of the final sales, but bugs after release that you couldn't be bothered to test for? 1% extra ain't never gonna cover fixing that.

Even Valve's don't port your single-platform spaghetti code, just use Proton advice says that you need to actually test the thing, and they even give instructions on how to do it [External Link].

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Quoting: ShabbyXIf a developer supports Linux, I buy and play the game to the end, with no intention of replaying it, then they remove Linux support, should they give a full refund?

Yes.

They've had an interest-free loan from all their affected customers, and they get to not be dicks. Easy choice.

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Quoting: ShabbyXI get your point, but your assumption is that any developer who drops Linux support has a malicious intent, and they were trying to cheat people out of their money right from the get go. That's where the disagreement really is. I don't believe for example the developer in this article intentionally thought "let me boost my sales by 1% through lies and deceit". They simply bit more than they could chew.

And regarding refund, I do wish there was a refund system for this, but it's not simple to be fair. For example, I had a lot of fun with Rocket League before they pulled the plug, is it justified that I get a full refund? I don't think so. Some cases are very clear to me though, if I bought the game and haven't played it yet, and support is dropped, then yes a full refund makes sense.

Being unwilling to keep their promise through incompetence isn't actually any better than being unwilling to keep their promise through malice. They don't have to break their game, and they don't have to pull support. If they want to change their game in a way that they struggle to do on a particular platform they've committed to support they can either push on through to make it work, or not make that breaking change, or apologise and return the money to those customers affected. At no point is falsely claiming support and then just keeping the money acceptable behaviour: you wouldn't let a child act like that, much less a professional software developer.

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Quoting: ShabbyXAllow me to clarify, IIUC, kokokk's point is that even if the developer truly wants to support the platform and even if they honestly will try their best, forcing them like suggested may scare them so much they would decide not to take the risk.

They wouldn't be forced to support anything. They'd just have to give the money back if they lied about providing support when they don't, rather than just keeping it.

To put it another way: if you've written on your store page that you're going to support a platform, to entice customers on that platform to give you money, but you are unable or unwilling to provide that support, why should you get to keep the money?

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Quoting: GuestRight, so let's put the following way:
Since most of developers are not so good (tm) at their job, not so much native titles will come in the future if you force them to unconditionally support Linux after launch.

Why the hell should anyone be giving them money for a game they won't support? Just because they lied about it to pretend that they would? Taking money under false pretences is fraud. Those are the people you want to buy games from?

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Quoting: GuestAgain, the support i will give could not be dependent on my will, but on third party engine i've no control over.

As a developer it's your choice which engine and tools you use. As a developer it's your choice if you push an update that breaks your game for your customers, and as a developer it's your responsibility to see if that's going to happen before you do it. It's not your customers', nor Valve's, fault if you're just not very good at your job, and they shouldn't have their money stolen, nor reputation tarnished, because of it.

We can do without those press the build button but never bother to actually test releases, thank you very much. If a customer chooses to risk their money on a purchase for an unsupported platform, that should be their informed choice, not the unwitting result of developer lies.

"There aren't that many of these people, so it's OK to cheat them out of their money," which is the position taken by these developers, is morally bankrupt. But, similarly, if there weren't that many people it's not going to affect the developer much when they have to give back their ill-gotten gains.

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