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

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months 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] 8 points 2 months ago (6 children)

F-Droid's market share is a rounding error compared to Google's. Just because another app store exists doesn't mean there is significant competition between app stores.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (5 children)

That's not what you said though. You said there is no successful second app store and that's demonstrably untrue. Just because it isn't widely used doesn't mean it can't be.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

For a company like Valve, they are going to need greater adoption than what F-Droid has to be viable.

And I didn't say that a successful app store was impossible, just improbable enough that it doesn't justify investing in Android and that previous failures show how hard this is. Valve is still a for profit company and will make decisions to make money.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

For a company like Valve, they are going to need greater adoption than what F-Droid has to be viable.

They really don't. Valve is a private company and doesn't need all of the money. Just 30%

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

An android app store is going to cost more than $0 to make.

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