Samsung TVs had Steam Link, but now the game streaming app is going away

In a post earlier this month, Valve announced the Steam Link app will “no longer be available on Samsung TV after November 30th, 2023.” The service lets users wirelessly stream PC games from their Steam library to other devices, such as a TV or phone. It launched with the Steam Link dongle in 2015, which was discontinued in 2018 in favor of the app.

Samsung brought the Steam Link app to its TVs in 2017 but stopped supporting it on newer TVs after the launch of its Gaming Hub, which focused on cloud gaming services like the ones from Xbox and Nvidia GeForce Now. However, Steam says users can access the Steam Link app on Apple TV and Android hardware, including the Nvidia Shield or Amazon Fire TV.

While the Steam Link app might’ve seemed like a viable alternative to the dongle, users have had mixed experiences with the app on Samsung TVs. For example, some Samsung TV users have encountered an issue where the right thumbstick on their controller controls the TV’s volume, while others have said their app freezes when trying to stream in a resolution higher than 1080p.

On the days when it does work, the stream randomly freezes or crashes (despite having a solid internet connection) and the input lag is so unbearable that I usually abandon efforts and begrudgingly play on my PC directly. Some days the app randomly disconnects from my PC or refuses to load, forcing me to delete and then re-install it on my TV. These are all issues I never experienced with the original Steam Link hardware — it worked effortlessly every time it was plugged in.