this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
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Some people are making fun about this, but if you look at the history of the steam store and how Gabe is focusing so heavily on Linux, it is because he is concerned that Microsoft is going to shut down Win32 and he will be absolutely screwed.
Due to this, he is creating a safety net for himself and is pushing Linux hard as an alternative to Microsoft Windows so that he can not be so reliant on Microsoft and what they choose to do and not do. Specifically when it comes to win 32.
Can you expand on this please, why is Gabe so worried about win32?,
I just posted a few links to the other person who responded to me and you can follow those and there is more detail there.
But basically if Microsoft were to try, which they did, try and move to their own app store, which removes win32, then all of Valve's games ( in the store) will no longer become relevant over time, on the Windows platform.
You don't just spend millions and millions and millions of dollars on Linux for no reason at all. It's not like he's a fanboy, he's a businessman, and he's protecting his business.
I guess I'm still confused on the why, is it because valve doesn't want to update their games?
Why is win32 so important?
Win32 is a collection of windows APIs that allows applications to freely take use of windows. The problem being that 99% of current windows applications use win32 APIs, so all those programs would just be dead unless the alternative is api compatible. So in order to kill win32 Microsoft would have to release an api compatible alternative.
So what would happen if they did that? That is kill win32 and add an api compatible alternative? Best case scenario: nothing changes. Worse case scenario: every single standalone exe would be dead
So why kill win32? Power; by lets say locking the new api behind the windows store, they basically fully lock all applications to ever be redistributed to said windows store, killing steam, itch, epic games, and every single exe in existence. The only way applications would exist is by approval of Microsoft.
Now obviously this will never happen.
The entire premise of win32 shutting down is made up by people not understanding what they are talking about. However as a corporation, valve rather spends money on an alternative to be able to tell Microsoft, that they are able to significantly influence window's desktop marketshare, than to let Microsoft do whatever they want, even if it is mostly just smaller things.
Yes, I don't think it's just about the execution of Win32 code, but also the possibility of MS using marketing techniques and dirty manipulation methods to give themselves advantages within the Windows platform to sway the general public to their store in a similar manner as how they push their browser, their MS Teams communication platform, their One Drive Cloud Storage, their search engine, their data-collection tech, their assistant, etc.