COMBINING THE BEST OF DESKTOP AND SMARTPHONE GAMING
Not content on dominating PC gaming, Steam now wants to head into the lucrative smartphone market with a brand new Link app. The idea behind the new app is simple - to allow gamers to stream content from their Mac or PC over a wired Ethernet or 5GHz wireless network to their iOS or tvOS devices. In short, the app would allow traditional PC gamers to play their favorite titles using their smartphones; so long as they have WiFi and leave their PC or Mac device online with the Steam interface open.
If the app was approved and added to the App Store, it would mean that powerful games that require an expensive processor, a suped-up graphics card and significant RAM and memory can be played in the palm of your hands - offering PC-like gaming performance wherever you are in the world.
While Steam’s new smartphone app was rejected from the App Store initially, many predict that the companies will soon come to some agreement and have a modified version available in the coming months. After all, Apple and Valve have worked together in the past, with the companies partnering to bring SteamVR - new virtual reality technology that offers 90 FPS - to macOS.
And although Apple usually stays silent on App Store disputes, marketing chief Phil Schiller has spoken publicly about the new app being rejected from the App Store and offered some insight into the next steps for Valve and the Link app. Schiller also confirmed that “Apple is working with the Valve team to rectify
the issue” and bring the app to the App Store soon.
Speaking in an email to concerned customers and Reddit users, who reached out to Apple after the app was rejected, Schiller said that Apple cares “deeply about bringing great games to all of our users on the App Store,” but that his “review team found that Valve’s Steam iOS app violates a number of guidelines around user-generated content, in-app purchases, content codes, etc.”
The suspected reason behind the rejection of the app is Apple’s lack of control over the Steam marketplace. “I could see a very real situation where many people just straight up stop buying things from the App Store and exclusively purchase Steam games through Valve instead,” Eli Hodapp, of TouchArcade, said.
Valve is yet to comment on the proposed changes, and it’s not currently clear when a tweaked version of the Steam Link app will be available for purchase, but all signs lead to a positive outcome and a product that makes PC gaming even more accessible on the go. Until then, we’ll have to stick to games like Pocket Build and Heads Up!, in hopes that the next wave of PC gaming is just around the corner.