Play Steam games on phone without Steam Link

[diba89]

Hello Steam community

this is a feature request for making games in the Steam Library playable on a mobile platform natively, without having to stream it using the Steam Link app. I hope this could start a little discussion about this topic.


I'm a dad of two little kids and I have a lot of work to do. I don't have time to get sucked into a PC monitor for hours anymore, because I'm not available for my responsibilities then. Also often I'm just too tired to sit on the PC in the evening after a long work day, where i already sat on a PC all day. But sitting on the couch, playing on the phone, when my wife is watching her shows on TV is still totally feasible. The Steam Deck would be perfect for my usecase, but it is also really expensive and i don't have the budget to buy such things or the newest games anymore. I heaviliy rely on Steam sales to get some older games i always had an eye on.

So good mobile games would be perfect for me. I don't need to buy another device, because I already have it. I get to play for 15mins or so without any problems and can put it away anytime. But the common mobile games just make me angry. I don't want to watch ads, I don't want to pay real money for in-game currency and I hate wait to play. Also the gameplay is usually so dumb... Its ok, when you have to switch your head off, but there is nothing challenging about it or even a little bit of story to enjoy.

Then I discovered two things: The good games, which are usually ports of PC games (Stardew valley, Dead Cells, KotOR, Titan Quest, GTA, Morrowind for instance) and Steam Link. The good games are paid, so you have to spend about 2-10€ for it, but then you never have to get angry about anything anymore. And with Steam Link the whole Steam library can be streamed on the phone and the touchscreen can be used as input device. Both things work great! But Steam Link has a major disadvantage: You have to be around a capable PC if you don't plan to pay much for a mobile data plan. And it also means i have to possess a PC capable of playing games, which becomes more and more unaffordable looking at the price of graphic chips. Also you have to deal with all those Wake-On-Lan settings which makes it a bit inconvinient. And the problem with the ported PC games is, that my favorite games are not ported and will probably never be ported because of several reasons.

My conclusion is, the phone itself or the touch input is not the problem. Mobile games could be great and a lot of fun. I played city builders and role playing games made for PC with the touchscreen and this has some possibilities which are sometimes even better than the original keyboard + mouse input. The problem is, the phone was never considered a serious gaming device, maybe because of all that garbage floating around in the app stores and of course the poor performance compared to consoles and PC. The mobile market seemes to be very different from the PC market. Sure companys can make a lot of money relying on In-App-Purchases. But with that monetization model they scare players like me away. And i guess im not the only one in this situation.

Now comes the interesting part: Why can we not make regular PC games from the Steam library playable on iOS and Android? Emulators like Exagear and the Steam OS already showed it is possible to play games which are made for PC on a device which is not a PC without having to make a real port. There are already gaming smartphones, like the ASUS ROG phone, or the Lenovo Legion phone, but right now there are no serious games what they could be used for. In this gap Steam could have its own market. Mobile players would get some real games finally and could use the configuration possibilities for touch control already provided by the Steam Link app. Game developers would not have to port games to mobile anymore and could be bound more to Steam when it comes to support mobile platforms.

The benefitical part for Steam is they could make their own ecosystem for mobile gaming which no one else has yet. If there are any players in a situation like me that want to play some better games than the ones in the app stores, they will surely get to use Steam. Maybe even a dedicated Steam phone is possible? Netflix already has an agreement with Google how to distribute their games. It is necessary to buy a game on the app store but you need a Netflix account in order to play it. I guess the costs will be spilt into the price you have to pay in the app store and the monthly fee, which already goes to Netflix. I don't know how a model with Google and Steam could work. I guess Google will not allow an alternative distribution platform besides its app store, but maybe there could be worked something out. I would even pay twice for a game, one time for PC and a second time if i want to play it on my phone.

I know this is quite lenghtly and not the usual support request for Steam. I also don't expect to get a "yes" or "no" to this idea here, but i would be glad, if this idea might be taken into consideration.

Best regards!

[ebali?]

Ok lets GO

[diba89]

Apparently there are new players poking in that direction. With Winlator it's possible to emulate 2000ish games on a smartphone. But Steam does not work with it, you need an Installer.exe from your favorite game from elsewhere. Project Cassia will be released next year and they want to explicitly support Steam.

Winlator is a one-man project and cassia has two devs. I just asked myself why Valve doesn't do anything here, if such things can be done by two guys. It seems like in the end it's not difficult because things like Wine already exist.

[Cathulhu]

Simple, too much effort and no money in it.
The average smartphone does not have the power to run any game with more than the absolute basic requirements.

Those that can afford a high performance smartphone can easily afford a computer as well and most likely do have one.
Which means the target group you're proposing, can not afford powerful hardware.
Which makes them an unattractive target group, the ones without money to spare.

That such projects like Winlator or Project Cassia are basicly hobby project by individuals only proves my point.

[diba89]

I'm just curious how all this turns out. The mobile market is huge, since everyone has a device, but it could definitely need more good games.

Valve stated somewhere 'mobile' means Steam Deck to them, so I guess my wish will not come true.

If project Cassia will be as good as it seems as of now I will definitely use it. My biggest advantage will be cross save out of the box. I can play a little on PC and resume with the same save file on my phone later. I can buy a game once and use it on two platforms.

[x1no]

Yes

[Thanone]

"Make Gaming Great Again"

[Pedro]

Publicado originalmente por Cathulhu:

Both Google and Apple would ban Valve and Steam from their ecosystem as they do not allow direct competition.

And really? Emulating x86 on a smartphone?
Doesn't even work properly on PCs like the ARM based Macbooks.

And x86 emulation is one thing, what about DirectX? Or other dependencies and APIs?

[BrattishRat384]

Here's something you might be interested in, there's a tool that allows for some steam games to be played on mobile devices, all be it with some problems. It's called "winlator" and it uses Wine to allow you to port over DRM-free games. So if you pair this with GOG.com or something you can play tons of PC games on mobile. (Performance may be limited)

Winlator:
https://github.com/brunodev85/winlator

Here's where to find DMR-free games:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

heres a list of steam games that are DMR-free:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam

[Thanone]

beam.ng drive DEFINITELY does not work

[HikariLight]

Publicado originalmente por thanone:

beam.ng drive DEFINITELY does not work

Remember, the games sold on Steam are made for Computers, not mobile devices.

[Thanone]

well duh

[ELFUGUI25]

yes

[diba89]

Publicado originalmente por BrattishRat384:

Here's something you might be interested in, there's a tool that allows for some steam games to be played on mobile devices, all be it with some problems. It's called "winlator" and it uses Wine to allow you to port over DRM-free games. So if you pair this with GOG.com or something you can play tons of PC games on mobile. (Performance may be limited)

Winlator:
https://github.com/brunodev85/winlator

Here's where to find DMR-free games:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

heres a list of steam games that are DMR-free:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam

Yes I know Winlator and use it a lot. I bought some older games I had on Steam again on GOG so I can use them with it.

Project Cassia wants to go even a step further and directly use the steam launcher.

[diba89]

Publicado originalmente por HikariLight:

Publicado originalmente por thanone:

beam.ng drive DEFINITELY does not work

Remember, the games sold on Steam are made for Computers, not mobile devices.

To be fair, Valve itself emulates games made for PC on an other architecture: Their Steam Deck and obviously with great success!

Technically nothing other happens when emulation games on Android, the compatibility layer Wine is the same. It's just the available power which differs a lot. The Steam Deck is said to be comparable with a PS4, while high end SoCs for Android devices compete with the Switch.

[Thanone]

True, although the Nintendo Switch SoC is from 2015!