Review: Steam

Steam needs no introduction. (Credit: Valve. Fair use.)

When it comes to PC gaming platforms, Steam is the king of the hill.

Steam pretty much has it all. A store with massive selection, community mods, cloud saves, you name it.

What I really would like to focus in this review, is the work they’ve put up to make gaming possible on Linux. Their compatibility tool Proton (or SteamPlay) allows you to run Windows games with just hitting play on Linux. Of course it doesn’t work on every title, but in general the results are impressive. Underneath it’s based on Wine.

Many of the games also simply have native Linux versions available. This is the case for all major Valve titles, which deserves them even more Linux-points.

Privacy issues seem to be in quite good shape too. When creating an account, only an email account and a country of residence are required. It’s also fine to have multiple accounts. One minor hiccup here though: It’s forbidden to use a VPN when creating a new account. I suppose that it’s partly to reduce smurf and cheater accounts in CS:GO and the likes. A minor bummer though.

I have no experience of Steam as a publisher so I cannot comment on that.

Sometimes games (or their steam codes) can be bought cheaper from somewhere else but overall the prices are good. And I’m anyway happy to support a company that has such a strong positive influence on Linux gaming.