this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
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What could an opensource gamestore look like? (programming.dev)
submitted 2 days ago by onlinepersona@programming.dev to c/opensource@programming.dev
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There are a few opensource games out there, but many aren't in distro repos, or for windows, or released on itch.io requiring an account to download, etc. What could a open source game store for opensource games for all distros look like?

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[–] Thorry@feddit.org 4 points 2 days ago

The thing about a games store like Steam or Epic isn't the software itself. Steam has shown having a good client is a large part of it, but it isn't the most important part. The most important part is the negotiations with the publishers and game developers to have them publish the games on that store. There is a whole lot of legal and pricing stuff involved. Another important part is a large CDN around the world to deliver the data to customers at speed.

Many large companies have tried pouring millions into this and haven't had a lot of success. There is so much involved and large market forces to contend with.

As for just having something to manage the games on your system there is Lutris. It allows you to easily manage different game libraries and individual games. Plus tools like emulators and such to run older games for example. It's fully open source and an initiative well worth sponsering.