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this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Steam Deck
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A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
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They tried. Then apple dropped 32bit binaries support.
Apple is a very expensive partner to have. They do whatever they want with their ecosystem and many developers have been burned when apple decides to make their work obsolete or outright copies it and makes part of the bundled in apps.
So. It would be amazing if valve updated every one of their games for new versions of macOS and if they would kept MacOS proton support. But macOS is a moving target that will break backwards compatibility whenever it suits apple. So I understand that is hard to justify the investment.
In the end MacOs and Linux where less than a 1% of the Steam user base. But one is an open ecosystem where there is competition and some semblance of respect for backwards compatibility and the other is a closed and sometimes hostile environment.
It's very low, but to be precise, macOS is 1.53% and Linux is 1.91%, according to the November 2023 survey. Almost 3.5% between them.
SteamOS is by far the largest Linux version, at 42.99% of Linux installs, followed by Arch at 7.81% and Ubuntu 22 at 6.67%.
Steam isn’t dropping support for all Macs, just those on Mojave and older, and Apple no longer even supports them. This impacts 2% of Steam customers with Macs - meaning roughly 0.03% of Steam’s customers, or around 46,000 people (assuming 150 million customers worldwide, which would track with historical numbers that end at around 2021).
Their dropped support coincides with Google ending support for Chrome in those OSes, and Steam has Chrome as a dependency. It’s not just because of having a tiny market share.
It’s getting bigger, but I said they WERE less than an 1%. And macOS was bigger that Linux for ages.
Then Apple proved they were not an ideal alternative platform, being even more closed than Microsoft, and not understanding the games ecosystem, so Valve pivoted and got into the Linux thing, failed with the Steam Machines, pivoted into Proton, and now I have a Deck.
Valve only source is not a legitimate source to prove anything. Valve is known to lied to everyone and everything.
That’s ONLY according to Valve and has many court cases revealed, Valve has a history of lying.
Valve lies about ownership of the game controller.
Valve lied to AU to not get refunds to the people.
Valve lied about VR funding.
Valve lied to the EU government officials in GEO region lawsuit.
Valve is not a trusted company and you should not trust sources based solely off Valve.
It's certainly reasonable to be sceptical, but you should also ask yourself: what would be their motivation for lying here? What would they gain by saying there are 3.5% non-Windows users when there are actually less than 1%? Lying about funding and legal compliance has obvious motivation. And maybe there is some reason for lying about their platform usage breakdown too, but it's certainly not as obvious.
People are just believing in the status. In the old days the sales numbers from individual businesses were the focus. Nowadays they are used as a console indicator for sales.
Steam blocking people from accessing API sell means Valve can lie without proof.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/steam-privacy-changes-block-steamspy
If you play Genshin Impact, a false god was believed to be their god for years. Only it wasn’t their actual god. This is the same thing, Valve wants people to believe in the status and they want people to not question it.
But why would they want people to believe in the status of Mac being much higher than it is? Or Linux?
There’s a thing where if you make it unbelievably easy to get caught, you will get caught. The numbers are just balanced so people won’t question it.
Not to mention having zero support for Vulkan or modern OGL, excepting compatibility layers on top of Metal (which is not an easy task) by third parties.
Steam also drop 32bits in their games. Again it’s a corporate problem not support or game related problems.
Steam recently announced that after February of 2024 they’ll no longer support Mojave (a 5 year old OS) and older versions of MacOS, which Apple no longer even supports with security updates. The dropped support is due to Chrome dropping support for those OS versions, and Steam relies on Chrome for some of its functionality. The lack of support also doesn’t mean Steam will suddenly stop working, simply that they are no longer going to provide updates or customer service for it. This impacts 2% of Steam customers with Macs - meaning roughly 0.03% of Steam’s customers, or around 46,000 people.
Just to be clear, is that what you’re talking about?
You do know Valve could have not use Chrome and just spent money to build it right. Don’t defend Valve for being cheap.
The technology used by Valve is Irrelevant. The operating system losing support is not even supported by apple. The users of that version of MacOs are at risk because they use a closed source unmantained operating system.
As I said Apple is not concerned with kind of old software. They expect everyone to move up with them, developers and users, or get left behind.
Portal is a game released THE SAME YEAR the iPhone was. In classic hit PC game time that’s “nothing”, you expect to be able to run it, but in Apple’s timeline is ancient history. Take a look into how many iPhone games just won’t work anymore.