Steam (launcher) on android?

[Alex17416]

I know technically it's not possible to run heavy windows games on android. But there's some casual games on steam that are on the play store or app store too. Epic games has it own launcher for their android ports, so I just wanted to know which is the reason why steam does not have an android launcher? Or it is probably coming soon? Even Netflix has some games on android (Gta trilogy, Inmortality, etc).

I mean, it would be nice to keep my steam progress while I'm playing some casual games on my phone, so I'm reading what do you think or what do you know

[Anonymous Helper]

None of the games available on Steam will work on mobile platforms. Also Google and Apple won't allow competition in their walled garden ecosystems. It's like asking why doesn't Valve offer Steam for Xbox or PlayStation and the answer is games on Steam aren't compatible with these systems and Sony and Microsoft wouldn't allow Steam in their platforms as they want all profits for themselves.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Alex17416:

Steam (launcher) on android?

I know technically it's not possible to run heavy windows games on android. But there's some casual games on steam that are on the play store or app store too. Epic games has it own launcher for their android ports, so I just wanted to know which is the reason why steam does not have an android launcher? Or it is probably coming soon? Even Netflix has some games on android (Gta trilogy, Inmortality, etc).

I mean, it would be nice to keep my steam progress while I'm playing some casual games on my phone, so I'm reading what do you think or what do you know :tobdog:

Because Steam Link and streaming.

[Ben Lubar]

Originally posted by Anonymous Helper:

Also Google and Apple won't allow competition in their walled garden ecosystems.

They're actually required to by law now. The Apple App Store just recently started selling game boy emulators, and Google has always had third party app stores like F-Droid and whatever Amazon's one is called.

To the OP: The reason you can't play Steam games on an Android phone is that the systems are completely different. More different than just Windows vs Linux that you could handle using something like Proton. The processors on most computers use an x86-based instruction set, and the games expect that. Android phones generally use an ARM-based instruction set, which is more power efficient and less complex.

In order to run games compiled for x86 processors on an Android phone, you'd have to emulate the processor. And that's something that's painfully slow. Stuff like "move this number from this register to this other register on the processor" would take many instructions rather than just one because the code would be interpreted by other code rather than run directly on the hardware.

Games that run on both Windows and Android are actually completely different compiled code for each platform.

If you want a mobile Steam gaming device, I can personally recommend the Steam Deck. Other ones that I've heard are good are the Asus ROG Ally and the NVIDIA Shield (although that's closer to just running the Steam Link app on an Android phone than it is to actually running the games on your computer).

[Alex17416]

Thanks for your replies guys, but I meant more about some ports for specific games for Android just like Epic Games is doing with their Android launcher. I know is complicated (almost Imposible) run pc games on android, but there's android ports already made for some causal games on steam (Vampire survivors, Risk, Governor of Poker, just for give some examples).

I mean, there's ports of games made for android (ports made by each game developers I think), so does steam just need to distribute the android based games? I think the reason is more like what Anonymous helper said,

Originally posted by Anonymous Helper:

Also Google and Apple won't allow competition in their walled garden ecosystems. It's like asking why doesn't Valve offer Steam for Xbox or PlayStation

Anyway, I'm here to read and learn what do you think about this