3mo ago

Playtron wanted to take on Windows and SteamOS with their GameOS, now they're announcing a cryptocurrency

www.gamingonlinux.com

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cm0002 @lemmy.world

3mo ago

Playtron wanted to take on Windows and SteamOS with their GameOS, now they're announcing a cryptocurrency

www.gamingonlinux.com /2025/05/playtron-wanted-to-take-on-windows-and-steamos-with-their-gameos-now-theyre-announcing-a-cryptocurrency/

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3mo ago

Playtron wanted to take on Windows and SteamOS with their GameOS, now they're announcing a cryptocurrency

www.gamingonlinux.com /2025/05/playtron-wanted-to-take-on-windows-and-steamos-with-their-gameos-now-theyre-announcing-a-cryptocurrency/

23 comments

Playtron can keep their GameOS, anything associated with Cryptocurrency is a hard pass. I remember a lot of cryptobros were financing the fuck out of Playtron. Naturally, this is a product I consider dead to me. I will buy a Steam Deck from Valve, as they aren't actively trying to scam their potential user base with Crypto nonsense.
- I'm probably going to get the middle tier of Steam Deck as it does provide a decent value; as I play a lot of farming sims and cozy games, the Steam Deck fills this purpose well for me. Better than my Switch ever could. I was also considering the Lenovo Legion Go S, but waiting for hardware and software reviews for that device is a smart move. As it could be an amazing device, or it could be fucking shit on launch.
- Valve, as they aren't actively trying to scam their potential user base
  I love Valve, but let's face the reality here. They're operating an unregulated bank and casino.
  
  They were sued in 2019 by a Native American tribe over that, I haven't heard much about the issue since. It's likely they are merely being neutral in the situation now, as no one is throwing up a fuss. Still, it's not cool behavior on the part of Valve.
- Yup.
  Me before the comma: Good luck to them, more options can't be a bad thing.
  Me after the comma: I intend to wipe the existence of your useless company from my memory entirely, so I'm just going to point and laugh at your failure in advance and immediately move on with my life.
Peddling shitcoins in 2025. Lmao.
Cmon now, announce your gAmInG chatbot to complete the stupidity bingo.
- Oh, the dream of earning crypto while I chat with AI chatbots to maybe one day buy NFTs.
This will fail. You don't start with step 1 being enshitification. That's like step 100 after something is already really good. Like if valve sold popup ads inside steam or some shit.
Coming straight out of the gate with this bullshit is a dumb idea and it will fail. Not to mention, having to make your own OS is no small feat, even if you're forking a Linux OS.
- I suspect they don’t even believe in this themselves, this is just a last ditch attempt at squeezing a little more cash out of dumb investors before declaring bankruptcy eventually. Seeing how one of their investors was Square Enix, that might even work.
- Anyone who is even remotely involved in developing commercial software knows this.
  Step 1 is growing a customer base,
  Step 2 is making that customer base loyal,
  Step 3 is and in ads, free tiers with more ads, bonus currency and other BS
  Everyone knows that if you're ever going to charge money for your product you charge money for your product day one. You don't have a free alpha release or something and then expect everyone to pay later on, that sort of misdirect gets up people's noses. Star citizen is an absolute master class in how to do this well, not morally of course, but definitely done well.
Called this a while ago https://urusai.social/@neatchee/112255667073894754
Through this lens it became clear: stablecoins will become a financial backbone for the $500B global gaming economy.
The people interested in alternatives to SteamOS for Linux gaming probably aren’t going to be the sort of people who are interested in cryptocurrency or more micro transactions. I don’t think they have much of a clue what their target audience likes.
I'll stick with my steam deck
So... Microtransactions.
They want more microtransactions?
Even giving them the benefit of the doubt, is there any game dev or gamer currently dissatisfied with existing payment systems? Are people in certain countries struggling with the mechanics of paymernt? Like, there are tons of ways to shoehorn in random charges or in-game ownership systems, and I don't see what crypto brings other than moving the purse-holder.
Again, devil's avocate: one could argue current platform fees (30%) are very high, but this is more of a monopolization issue than a fundamental payment system one,
- And even then, the SteamOS has a desktop mode so you could play only games from Itch or other platforms

23 comments