PC Game Pass Could Come To Steam In The Future, Valve CEO Says
Game Pass is currently one of the best deals in games. For $15 a month you get access to a rotating roster of hundreds of games from small indies like Unboxing to big blockbusters like Halo: Infinity. You can play them on Xbox or PC, or stream them anywhere. Valve CEO Gabe Newell now says he won’t mind the game coming to Steam. Newell was asked at new interview from PC gamer whether Valve has any plans to release its own competing subscription service. Maybe even call it something like a Steam Pass. A former Microsoft employee said no.
“I don’t think that’s what we think we need to do ourselves, building a subscription service at this time,” Newell said. “But it’s clearly a popular option for their customers and we’d be more than happy to work with them to get it on Steam.”
While it doesn’t look like there are any plans to bring Game Pass to Steam at this time, the two companies have “talked about the topic a bit.” “If your customers want it, you have to figure out how to do it,” Newell said. PC gamer. “That’s where we are.”
Microsoft has made it clear that one of its main goals is to get as many people as possible to sign up for Game Pass. This is an ongoing acquisition., including Bethesda and Activision Blizzard, which are one big part of it. Availability of Game Pass in competing stores may vary.
The company used to hide the PC versions of its games behind the Microsoft Store, but recently it has been releasing them daily on Steam. This has proven to be a huge boon for live service games such as Sea of Thieves the number of players in which has increased dramatically after they became available in the Valve store.
The recently released Steam Deck portable console technically already supports Game Pass. While Microsoft’s subscription service does not support native SteamOS Linux-based devices, Steam Deck can, at least in theory, dual boot Windows 10allowing potential owners to switch between Steam and PC Game Pass.
Of course, one of the big hurdles to getting Game Pass to Steam is revenue sharing. Microsoft gets 100% of what subscribers pay when they use it through the Xbox Launcher, while Valve traditionally takes 30% of everything sold through Steam. Because edge indicates that this is probably why only the base tier of EA’s subscription service is available on Steam, while EA Play Pro remains exclusive to its Origin launcher.
However, it’s surprising that Valve seems so open to solving problems like this. Backed by Microsoft’s deep pockets and growing influence in the gaming industry, Game Pass’s value proposition could completely disrupt marketplaces like the PlayStation Store and Nintendo eShop if it were ever allowed on those competing platforms. Valve doesn’t seem to think the same way about their own.
