Steam Should Sell Apps on Android

[ラチェットマイルズ]

I would really think Steam could benefit at least a little if you made an app store of sorts for Android. What I mean is, there are games that are on both PC and Android. What if you allow developers to sell games for Android through a Steam app? This could be beneficial because there's an increasing interest in mobile gaming, and phones are becoming increasingly capable of light gaming. Some developers may not be interested in making games on Android having to pay a separate fee to publish on the Play Store, so you could help cut the middle man.

Here's an example of how this could work.
GRID is on the Play Store and on Steam, so I know it can be played on both platforms. What if I bought GRID on Steam, then downloaded the Steam store for Android? theoretically, if the developer supports it, I can carry over my save data from PC to continue on my phone without streaming. When I get home, I can continue from where I left off on my phone while out. This could also allow for carrying over potential DLC and such as well.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Valve does have android apps.

But Valve can not sell games they don't own.

It is up to the game devs to enable cross saves for their games.

Ask the game devs/pubs to port and sell their games on the app stores.

[Crashed]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Valve does have android apps.

But Valve can not sell games they don't own.

It is up to the game devs to enable cross saves for their games.

Ask the game devs/pubs to port and sell their games on the app stores.

:qr:

Most Android devices can install and use third party store apps.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Crashed:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Valve does have android apps.

But Valve can not sell games they don't own.

It is up to the game devs to enable cross saves for their games.

Ask the game devs/pubs to port and sell their games on the app stores.

Most Android devices can install and use third party store apps.

None of it has to do with Valve though.

[Crazy Tiger]

Corss saves and DLC availability already exists. Various card and board games I own on Steam and IOS/Android already support that through in-game/publisher accounts.

[Crashed]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Originally posted by Crashed:

Most Android devices can install and use third party store apps.

None of it has to do with Valve though.

:qr:

Valve could open a store and invite publishers.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Crashed:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

None of it has to do with Valve though.

Valve could open a store and invite publishers.

Why? That would mean the publishers would have 2 cuts from their sales. From the app stores and Valve.

[Crashed]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Originally posted by Crashed:

Valve could open a store and invite publishers.

Why? That would mean the publishers would have 2 cuts from their sales. From the app stores and Valve.

:qr:

Android doesn't enforce a single storefront like Apple. When a third party store tries to install an app my S10 simply asks me to authorize the third party store app to install apps.

[夢]

Originally posted by Ratchet Miles:

I would really think Steam could benefit at least a little if you made an app store of sorts for Android. What I mean is, there are games that are on both PC and Android. What if you allow developers to sell games for Android through a Steam app? This could be beneficial because there's an increasing interest in mobile gaming, and phones are becoming increasingly capable of light gaming. Some developers may not be interested in making games on Android having to pay a separate fee to publish on the Play Store, so you could help cut the middle man.

Here's an example of how this could work.
GRID is on the Play Store and on Steam, so I know it can be played on both platforms. What if I bought GRID on Steam, then downloaded the Steam store for Android? theoretically, if the developer supports it, I can carry over my save data from PC to continue on my phone without streaming. When I get home, I can continue from where I left off on my phone while out. This could also allow for carrying over potential DLC and such as well.

Originally posted by Ratchet Miles:

I would really think Steam could benefit at least a little if you made an app store of sorts for Android. What I mean is, there are games that are on both PC and Android. What if you allow developers to sell games for Android through a Steam app? This could be beneficial because there's an increasing interest in mobile gaming, and phones are becoming increasingly capable of light gaming. Some developers may not be interested in making games on Android having to pay a separate fee to publish on the Play Store, so you could help cut the middle man.

Here's an example of how this could work.
GRID is on the Play Store and on Steam, so I know it can be played on both platforms. What if I bought GRID on Steam, then downloaded the Steam store for Android? theoretically, if the developer supports it, I can carry over my save data from PC to continue on my phone without streaming. When I get home, I can continue from where I left off on my phone while out. This could also allow for carrying over potential DLC and such as well.

Oooooh

[Lily McFluffy Butt]

Originally posted by Franz:

Originally posted by Ratchet Miles:

I would really think Steam could benefit at least a little if you made an app store of sorts for Android. What I mean is, there are games that are on both PC and Android. What if you allow developers to sell games for Android through a Steam app? This could be beneficial because there's an increasing interest in mobile gaming, and phones are becoming increasingly capable of light gaming. Some developers may not be interested in making games on Android having to pay a separate fee to publish on the Play Store, so you could help cut the middle man.

Here's an example of how this could work.
GRID is on the Play Store and on Steam, so I know it can be played on both platforms. What if I bought GRID on Steam, then downloaded the Steam store for Android? theoretically, if the developer supports it, I can carry over my save data from PC to continue on my phone without streaming. When I get home, I can continue from where I left off on my phone while out. This could also allow for carrying over potential DLC and such as well.

Originally posted by Ratchet Miles:

I would really think Steam could benefit at least a little if you made an app store of sorts for Android. What I mean is, there are games that are on both PC and Android. What if you allow developers to sell games for Android through a Steam app? This could be beneficial because there's an increasing interest in mobile gaming, and phones are becoming increasingly capable of light gaming. Some developers may not be interested in making games on Android having to pay a separate fee to publish on the Play Store, so you could help cut the middle man.

Here's an example of how this could work.
GRID is on the Play Store and on Steam, so I know it can be played on both platforms. What if I bought GRID on Steam, then downloaded the Steam store for Android? theoretically, if the developer supports it, I can carry over my save data from PC to continue on my phone without streaming. When I get home, I can continue from where I left off on my phone while out. This could also allow for carrying over potential DLC and such as well.

Oooooh

You don't get a badge for posting anymore

[Night]

Just because a game is available on Steam doesn't suddenly make it become available on every operating system imaginable, that is done in either the development or publishing stage.

So the actual development team of the game would have to make an android-compatible version of a game before it will work on android, otherwise the closest alternative is game streaming.

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Valve does have android apps.

But Valve can not sell games they don't own.

It is up to the game devs to enable cross saves for their games.

Ask the game devs/pubs to port and sell their games on the app stores.

:qr:

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by Crashed:

Valve could open a store and invite publishers.

What would be the point though? They'd be just another (small) fish in the (quite crowded) barrel. The good perks are already in the big marketplaces.

I own apps bought on Amazon and they're a PITA to update and install. My mobile games from Humble are usually outdated and sometimes not up to the GooglePlay store version...

I think Valve's former attempt at becoming a media store kind of proved them how joining an already full market isn't going to be worth it. And how interest in these markets may be distorted. Steam is pretty much aware of the disconnect between what people say they'd like to and what they actually do.

Originally posted by imNTGames:

Just because a game is available on Steam doesn't suddenly make it become available on every operating system imaginable

This is also not true computing-wise, but license wise. Your PC license doesn't grant rights over a mobile version as it doesn't over a console one.

[ラチェットマイルズ]

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[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Ratchet Miles:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Why? That would mean the publishers would have 2 cuts from their sales. From the app stores and Valve.

If the games were sold on a Steam App Store for Android, the sales would only be from Valve.

Incorrect.

If Valve had their own mobile store separate from the app stores, they could sell mobile games.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Ratchet Miles:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Why? That would mean the publishers would have 2 cuts from their sales. From the app stores and Valve.

If the games were sold on a Steam App Store for Android, the sales would only be from Valve.

That is assuming that publishers would want to drop the Google app store.

Originally posted by Ratchet Miles:

The licenses would depend on certain things, yes, but having games I bought on Steam carried over and manifested as an Android variant would be wonderful, assuming they're available.

Except that this technically already can be done. As said, various games have cross saves and dlc policies through in-game accounts.

Keep in mind that even if Steam had an Android store, it won't mean that all games suddenly have cross saves and dlc policies. That all is then still up ro the publishers. In that regard it won't actually make a difference to how it now is.

[aiusepsi]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Your PC license doesn't grant rights over a mobile version as it doesn't over a console one.

You could have made the same argument years ago, before Steam came out for Mac and Linux, that just buying a Windows version of a game didn't mean you had rights to the Mac or Linux versions. It used to be normal that a game purchased for Mac didn't mean you got the Windows version.

Then Steam shook things up with Steam Play (the original meaning of Steam Play, that is). One purchase giving you Windows and Mac and Linux versions used to be such a big deal they specifically invented a marketing term to describe it. Then it became so normal that we forgot it used to be any other way.

There's no reason at all that Steam couldn't do the same thing with games on Android.

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Keep in mind that even if Steam had an Android store, it won't mean that all games suddenly have cross saves

True, but most, if not all, games which already have Steam Cloud support would get cross-saves.

A big part of the point of a lot of Steam features is that although devs could implement equivalent features themselves, it's generally better and easier to use what Steam provides. If a game can use Steam Cloud in the Android version of their game using the exact same API and code that they use for the PC version, then it's basically free for them to adopt, so they probably will.

"Basically free" is a significantly lower barrier to adoption than setting up and maintaining the infrastructure for accounts and cloud storage.