Monopoly - we all heard that word. You dominate the market, set the rules, choke new entrants before they even appear, and profit from that. The world witnessed many anti-monopolistic measures of European Commission in action, especially in digital world: DMA, DSA, and countless, ongoing fines issued to Big Tech are most well-known examples. Titans with monopoly over user data are what gave birth to the idea of decentralized tech, such as established ActivityPub, promising ATProto, and notorious Bitcoin, which all aim to eliminate the possibility for monopoly to exist. But what if I tell you that one company managed to use the monopoly of another as a weapon against that very monopoly? That's where we move to Valve's headquarters.

A lesson learned

The year is 2018. Valve is in aftershocks of its failed Steam Machine experiment. No one wanted to buy a console-like PC - why when you already have Xbox and Playstation? No one wanted to adapt their games to Linux-based SteamOS - why when no one uses SteamOS? Thanks to their own infinite money glitch called Steam, they likely didn't even notice that from financial point of view, but who knows? Valve is a private company, so they are not obligated to have half of their office filled with accountants- excuse me, middle managers just to have neatly categorized financial numbers to disclose and pursue infinite growth of said numbers in the Wall Street hamster wheel. They are also left with some of their key assets - Steam Controller, Big Picture, SteamOS 2, and of course, the whole existing Steam library of (almost) every PC game ever made. Months later, they released Proton, but no one seemed to care.

But this is the exact moment when Valve made use of Windows monopoly with a touch of its own - if you have only one PC gaming platform, you need to develop only one compatibility layer, and floodgates for potential switchers are open.

It exploded. In a good sense

In 2021, fun things began happening. Ars Technica compiled a quite comprehensive report on "SteamPal," which we all now know as Steam Deck. Touchpads and gyro almost from Steam Controller alongside conventional Xbox-like buttons, SteamOS 3, boots right into Big Picture mode, lets you play everything you ever bought on Steam, courtesy of Proton, and even more. It quickly earned the "backlog annihilator" moniker. That beast is still in top sellers as of June 2025, and Linux market share was surely rising since its release. Heck, even PewDiePie and James Lee decided to switch to Linux (specifically Linux Mint) simply because it lets the user do what it wants.

Steam Deck has shown the world that life on Linux exists and is arguably better than on Windows, if you don't mind giving up on Adobe software and games tainted with kernel-level anti-cheat. Things have gone so far that Valve employee had to explain that SteamOS is not a Windows replacement, and Microsoft let Xbox team optimize Windows for Xbox gaming experience on handhelds. This is a shocker, considering that for the first Xbox to happen, DirectX team debloated and optimized Windows 2000. The history repeats itself, eh?

Now that there are actual people to flow through the floodgates Proton opened up, the giant awoke. We are yet to hear the price, but I have no doubt that Asus's upcoming ROG Xbox Ally handheld will be just as good bang for the buck as Steam Deck. Of course, Microsoft will let you use Steam if you jump through some hoops and Game Pass ads. (Or, as they worded that, "other leading game launchers and storefronts".) Maybe, Microsoft will even resist its urge to urinate onto it with its Copilot and Recall spyware "features" for about... half a year. Perhaps, you will even be able to install that Windows 11 skin on a Steam Deck.

Closing thoughts

It all will not last for long if that Windows with a lipstick kills Valve's SteamOS ambitions. I think Valve should hurry up just a bit with their third-party handheld expansion plans. Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS is good and may be enough to compete with Xbox Ally, but Microsoft won't stop until it kills SteamOS with fire. If that rivalry sustains itself, we will get better things, at least in gaming space. If people suddenly realize that Linux isn't that bad and/or Macs become affordable, Windows will be bleeding users into these platforms, and the only way to stop that bleeding will be to become better. If Microsoft attempts to aggressively lock things up in any way, antitrust lawsuits will arise.

I can't help but chuckle when I think about it - Windows' dominance is being exploited against Microsoft. What a time we live in.