Google ends Steam for Chromebook effort

In 2022, Google launched a major push for gaming Chromebooks, including a version of Steam for ChromeOS. Steam for ChromeOS remained in Google’s nebulous “beta” state ever since, however, and today Google is doing a Google by killing Steam for ChromeOS altogether.

Entering “Steam” into the ChromeOS Launcher starts the install process like before, but there’s now an intermediary message: “The Steam for Chromebook Beta program will conclude on January 1st, 2026. After this date, games installed as part of the Beta will no longer be available to play on your device. We appreciate your participation in and contribution to learnings from the beta program, which will inform the future of Chromebook gaming.”
↫ Abner Li at 9To5Google

Chromebooks are cheap devices for students, and while there are expensive, powerful Chromebooks, I doubt they sell in any meaningful numbers to justify spending any time on maintaining Steam for ChromeOS. Of course, Steam for ChromeOS is just the Linux version of Steam, but Google did maintain a list of “compatible” games, so the company was at least doing something. The list consists of 99 games, by the way.

It’s just another example of Google seemingly having no idea what it wants to do with its operating systems, made worse in this case because Google actually had OEMs make and sell Chromebooks with gaming features. Sure, Android games still exist and can be run on ChromeOS, but I doubt that’s what the six people who bought a gaming Chromebook for actual gaming had in mind when they bought one.