OPINION : Valve is the unchallenged king of microcomputer gaming , with Steam proving to be the most pop PC digital storefront in the human beings . However , Valve would be naive to stand still with the ever - raise menace of Microsoft ’s Game Pass .
Game Passis a subscription help offer by Microsoft , with a monthly fee grant entree to a large selection of games . It ’s full to call up of it like the gaming version of Netflix , proving to be a price - effective option for those who like to play a slew of game each month .
Not only is Game Pass available on Xbox consoles , but there ’s also a PC version of the service . This currently features popular PC games such as Diablo IV , Cities : Skylines II , Age of Empires IV and Football Manager 2023 , as well as major Xbox exclusives such asHalo Infinite , StarfieldandForza Horizon 5 .
The obvious solvent would be for Valve to launch its own subscription service . Valve already has the infrastructure and contacts in gild to launch its own take on Game Pass . Of of course , it would need to amount to financial organisation with many game publishers in decree to include those game in its subscription service , but I do n’t see why that would be an issue . It would also be able to give in some of its own game such as the Half - Life and Portal serial publication .
Unfortunately , Valve ’s President of the United States Gabe Newel push aside the idea of a subscription armed service back in 2022 during an consultation withPC Gamer .
“ I do n’t think it ’s something that we guess we need to do ourselves , building a subscription service at this fourth dimension , ” Newell said . “ But for their customers it ’s clearly a popular choice , and we ’d be more than felicitous to work with them to get that on Steam . ”
So does that mean the musical theme of a Steam Pass is dead and forget ? I ’m not convinced . I think the landscape has changed significantly since 2022 , which may cause Valve to rethink its strategy .
second , it could give Valve a reason to push into cloud gaming . It ’s becoming more and more clear that gaming is step by step moving over to the cloud , with the likes of Game Pass and Nvidia’sGeForce Nowallowing you to play game without the need for expensive computer hardware . It would be gooselike for Valve to ignore this egress movement , and a subscription service would be the perfect platform for Steam to bid that functionality .
And third , I think a Steam Pass subscription could help to boost sales of theSteam Deck . Valve ’s hand-held gaming PC has been a victory , but its success has also reckon a litany of third - political party maker such as Asus , Lenovo , MSI and Ayano launch their own yield on the machine . Suddenly , the Steam Deck has a lot of rival .
The Steam Deck is my personal favourite of the bunch due to its affordability , but it does devil me that it ’s more or less more difficult to load up Game Pass on the portable compared to the Windows devices . I do n’t see this transfer anytime soon though , as the main rationality the Steam Deck is so much crummy than its rival is because Valve can make money through biz sales , so it probably is n’t keen on the theme of making Microsoft ’s Game Pass wanton to access .
If Valve launched its own Steam Pass and made it uncommitted on the Steam Deck , then it would not only quieten calls for a aboriginal Game Pass app , but also promote participant to keep within the Steam ecosystem . on the spur of the moment the Steam Deck would become an even more enticing medical prognosis .
The more I think about it , the more a Steam Pass subscription make a destiny of sense . Despite Valve previously usher out the estimate of create a Game Pass contender , I in person believe it ’s only a thing of time until the company make a U - twist . refuse to adapt to an evolving grocery , and Valve could finally recede its status as the tycoon of PC gambling .
