Sloan the Serval

Doesn’t hurt that Microsoft’s answer to “what if my computer doesn’t meet the required specs to run Windows 11 or later” is literally “switch to Linux”.

Fair, but at that point you’re arguing a technicality that most people don’t really care about.

And if you want to argue technicalities, then I CAN give you a game that was released for the Steam Deck by YOUR definition. Aperture Desk Job. Yes, it can be played by PCs as well, but it was developed with the intent of it being a showcase of the Steam Deck’s controls. You can’t argue it “wasn’t a Steam Deck” game if your definition of whether a game was for a certain platform is based on whether it was intended for that platform.

Not going to downvote you this time because you actually explained your position. Though your tone VERY much tempted me to do so anyway.

Well, if you’re not trying to say something along the lines of “the Steamdeck plays PC games” then what are you trying to say?

Again, you’re missing the point. Yes, they are PC games. No, not all PC games work on the Steam Deck.

The point was that not every game was confirmed to work. For a PC game to work on the Steamdeck, it needs to meet two criteria:

1. Work on Linux, either natively or through Proton.

2. Have controller support and/or be playable with a touchscreen.

Not every PC game meets this criteria. Some games still don’t play well in a cross-OS runtime environment like Proton or WINE. Others are designed specifically for mouse and keyboard, or keyboard alone.

One game I can definitely say is not Steamdeck compatible is SimCity 4. The UI doesn’t really work with touch screens well, the game has no native controller support, and it originally released with SecuROM so a physical copy won’t even work on modern Windows, let alone Linux.

Maybe for some very stylistic installations that are more for looks than practicality?

This comes off as one of those “we asked if we could, but never asked if we should” kinds of things…

The fact that you can fork the code and make your own clean version, either for personal use or for distribution, is part of why most companies don’t usually bother with open source licenses to begin with - it’s just too hard to make the kind of monster-profits corporations and shareholders alike expect without inevitably provoking someone into forking their code and distributing a free, unmonetized version of the product. I’d be surprised if ZipoApps goes full-on monetization if they want people to keep using their versions of the apps, but if they do, it’s going to be a short-lived inconvenience until someone inevitably distributes a fork.

Yeah, it has to stay GPL. So Simple Mobile Tools selling to a for-profit company doesn’t really change all that much. Worst case scenario, the original apps get screwed over but someone releases forks of them. Best case scenario, ZipoApps doesn’t actually change anything and just acts as a host for the projects.

The day the Penguin goes mainstream is the day they decide to finally bite the bullet and start making distros with WINE preinstalled. Same goes for the other UNIX-derived FOSS OSs, like FreeBSD.