Ah yes, a tortuously slow gui with late 90s “skin” design sensibilities…

Basically the anti-DRM stance. If I can buy through GOG, I will do that because I know that edition is not DRM encumbered. In steam it should be optional, but plenty of games that are DRM-free on GOG are DRM-enabled on steam. And while GOG galaxy is Windows-only, at least they do bother to provide Linux installers for some of the library.

I will grant that Valve are doing a lot more on Linux and ecosystem, with more integrated support and extending the Linux support to cover a lot of games where publishers didn’t lift a finger to enable Lniux. Probably stemming from having a significant more amount of money to work with and freedom from public investors to let them spend as they see fit.

I will grant that particularly steam frame I don’t think Valve could have done as a public company, investors would be rioting over the attempt.

Public companies get heavily penalized for “labor of love” type endeavors.

Though CD Projekt seemingly does some things I’d have assumed investors would have balked at as well.

With respect to the cited companies, sure.

But if we had a GoG gaming ecosystem, then I would favor that in terms of consumer friendly.

I’ll even given them a name for a VR headset: GoGles

He’s right though, SteamOS was triggered the first time around by windows 8 and the associated store and surface rt launching as a “store only” device, widely considered a harbinger of Microsoft trying to get their whole ecosystem to be apple like (in house hardware design with software distribution platform that gives them a cut of everything).

When they came up short, they tried Windows S on x86, thinking that a Windows that could run fewer applications would somehow be seen as more valuable to customers because “security”.

I think they have learned their lesson, again, that long reaching app compatibility is the only reason their OS has a hold on the industry, but around window 8 release it was abundant clear they wanted to lock down the platform apple style. I recall at the time Valve said as much when they tried SteamOS and steam machines and pushing developers to do Linux versions. It was a flop then, but Valve ultimately revitalized it with Proton and the Deck.