Valve has the potential to revolutionize and capture the mobile gaming market.

[masterchef341]

Originally Posted by Bierno

well i have Onlive on my phone?
so why cant steam do this?

because steam isn't a cloud gaming platform that runs games in the cloud and then pushes the video stream out to users.

You might as well ask why steam doesn't make you breakfast, or answer your emails for you.

[Scared]

Originally Posted by Tito Shivan

Valve enters as a late competitor in the iOS market and Apple has the higher ground on it.

Apple doesn't have the higher ground on iOS. They own the whole freaking land!

[shado028]

TL;DR. It is a good idea and I can see where you're coming from, but:

Good luck getting Apple to allow Valve to put games on iOS devices (without going through the App Store), ha.

And for Android... I feel the Market already does the job in terms of buying games/apps, and since it also keeps everything updated, if steam were to do this... I would feel exactly the same as if I installed Origin and Steam on my computer... Two programs that do the same thing when there should be one.

[Left 4 bread]

limbo for android perhaps?

[masterchef341]

Originally Posted by shado028

And for Android... I feel the Market already does the job.

This.

Even on android, there isn't some huge potential market to capture in terms of game publishing. It's already well established as the android marketplace.

[jamieoscar]

Valve should release their own phone!! Solves problems with IOS legal issues =p

[Mangr0v3]

ye-no.

[Z Overlord]

Originally Posted by masterchef341

because steam isn't a cloud gaming platform that runs games in the cloud and then pushes the video stream out to users.

You might as well ask why steam doesn't make you breakfast, or answer your emails for you.

Big picture mode is gonna bring cloud gaming as a feature to Steam (not officially confirmed yet).

And I never said they have to sell Steameworks titles through the Steam app. But them making their own mobile games with Steam achievements would be nice.

[nu1mlock]

Originally Posted by DigChrono

and google might object because of their contracts with developers in the android market.

No they won't. There are already different stores besides Google's own market and Google is just fine with it. Apple isn't though and it will most likely never happen on iOS.

[RedYellowBlueCR]

Originally Posted by Scared

Apple doesn't have the higher ground on iOS. They own the whole freaking land!

And this is one of the MANY faults of of the apple platform. No offence to the iphone users here, but I really wish apple would just drive off a cliff and die already. They are way too restrictive of what you are allowed to do on they're hardware, that of which is subpar in most cases. And the fact that they charge so much for a mediocre machine is just ludacris in my book. I think Valve really needs to focus on the Google Android platform in terms of mobile devices, even though I'm not terribly fond of mobile gaming. Google will let Valve do as they wish because of the open nature of Android.

[nu1mlock]

Originally Posted by RedYellowBlueCR

And this is one of the MANY faults of of the apple platform. No offence to the iphone users here, but I really wish apple would just drive off a cliff and die already. They are way to restrictive of what you are aloud to do on they're hardware, that of which is subpar in most cases. And the fact that they charge so much for a mediocre machine is just ludacris in my book. I think Valve really needs to focus on the Google Android platform in terms of mobile devices, even though I'm not terribly fond of mobile gaming. Google will let Valve do as they wish because of the open nature of Android.

I'm an Android user myself but I have been using both the first iPhone and the iPhone 3G.

The good thing about Apple "being in charge" and not letting anything in on the Appstore is that "it just works". And it usually does (with a few exceptions which is off-topic).

Google usually doesn't (unless there's an obvious virus/scam/etc) and lets developers upload almost anything to their market. And that's also a good thing about Android.

When it comes to Valve, Steam and Android, Steam will be able to sell games through their application if they want. Or through a separate "Android Steam Store". It's fine with Google, just as you said.

However, seeing Apple is the worlds third biggest phone manufacturer, and the worlds biggest smartphone manufacturer, I'm sure Valve would want to get their hands on iOS too. And unless they come to an agreement with Apple regarding the sales, that's never - and I mean never - going to happen.

One of the problems with Steam + Apple is that Apple wants in on it. That would mean Steam would have to take a bigger cut from the developers (on the mobile market), which means developers would either have to increase their prices or go with less revenue.

It would most probably just be easier to put their application on the Apple Store instead.

Regarding Android, that's a whole other thing, as it would be allowed and such a problem wouldn't exist.