> "Also: turns out that, if you put enough effort into it, Linux is actually a quite-usable gaming platform."

Valve is the one putting in the effort and paying for it at their own expense. If they ever lose interest in paying for it, like GabeN retiring and Ebenezer Scrooge replacing him, then it's game over for Linux gaming (literally).

> paying for it at their own expense

valve would recoup the cost from a bigger customer base, as well as paying it as insurance against windows/microsoft targeting them as an existential threat.

It's cheap for what they're getting. And iirc, it being open source means the foundation could be built upon by others if they do decide to call it quits.

That would make very little sense business wise. Steam “consoles” are not big break just for linux but also for valve. What could easily happen though is locking down their consoles once they get profitable.