When the Steam Deck was still just an idea, Valve says some staff were like, "I just want that for me" and "the point wasn't even to make a product out of it"
Oh hey, that’s why I hate capitalism as an engineer. The endless pursuit of profit first rather than making good things that people want is disheartening as someone who just wants to make things that make life better
While you're all here what controller do you use for your deck? Been thinking of getting one of the hall effect 8bitdo ones, but I'm open to trying anything.
whatever controller is closest and convenient for me when i happen to sit down, or whichever one is charged lol.
I usually gravitate towards a wired xbox controller because its the one i have jurisdiction over in the household.
Strongly recommend a wireless mouse/kb with one of those couch cushions that is desk shaped. very good for playing some of the less controller-friendly games. I got a half-keyboard with a joystick on the thumbrest that i havent used yet.
I like the steam deck and use it as a controller, but you could make the same argument about the switch. Regarding the switch, my answer would be that while it is a controller, it is - IMHO - a poorly designed and uncomfortable-to-use controller.
While you and I like the ergonomics of the deck, others may not. One can hardly blame those people for wanting something they feel more usable.
I have the 8bitdo Pro 2 and I love it. Works great with or without a custom config, but in my opinion the config I use makes it worth it for the price.
It's also what got me to finally go linux full-time.
I had tried to a couple times before, but always ran into one too many snags.
When the deck was announced I thought to myself "that can't work with every game, can it?" as I'd attempted that myself.
But I had to see for myself, and the improvements in proton were staggering. And it's gotten even better since! Who would have though Apex Legends, Hunt Showdown, and a bunch of other holdouts and anti-cheat games would be running on linux within a year of the deck releasing?
In the early days I thought it would be some niche gimmick that would never take off. Turns out it wasn't and it's the best handheld gaming machine ever made.
To be fair I have invested in a lot of their "niche gimmicks that will never take off". I've owned the steam link and the OG steam controller (my dad still uses that controller to game, he really likes it). I love the steam deck but none of the handhelds have the right ergonomics for my little hands except the Switch, and so I use mine docked. But even then it's a game changer not needing a huge gaming rig to play games.
I adore mine. Not the best for GPU-intensive games like Elden Ring or Resident Evil 4 remake.... But for essentially everything else it's just the best.
Minecraft, 90fps
Balatro, Slay The Spire, Binding of Isaac and similar.... 90fps
Dark Souls 1-3 - 90fps!
I only have a switch because of my nephew. It hardly gets any use otherwise. Then i found balantro and now it's basically a balantro machine. I do wish i had a steam deck instead of a switch.
I love this so much. It reminds me of how AMD Threadripper came to be.
Apparently Threadripper was a skunkworks project by some of the engineers at AMD that they worked on in their spare time. They wanted to see if they could basically slap together a bunch of normal CPU dyes into on mega chip with a high speed/bandwidth interposer connecting them together.
It was almost abandoned and they had to fight to get it taken seriously. But it proved to be a viable product, and singlehandedly was responsible for decimating what was left of Intel's place in the HEDT market so badly, that after several years of failed attempts to keep up, Intel officially announced that they wouldn't be competing in that space anymore.
It's such a cool thing when talented and passionate people come together without having to be subject to strict marketability and just try to create something awesome and revolutionary.
The Steam Deck kicked off an entire new market for handheld gaming devices that had real power to play modern PC games. And despite a bunch of competing and copycat products, the Steam Deck is still king.
I love mine, have close to 200 hours on it, which for me is a ton. I've barely gamed on my main PC in the last year, it's just so much more comfortable to play on the couch or in my bed.
When I heard of it, I was wondering who that was for and what was even the point.
Since I got mine, I barely play on my desktop PC anymore.
I really didn't expect to live it this much.
It really shows, because it's just a well thought out, no compromises device. I'm still crossing my fingers hoping that they're getting somewhere with the steam controller 2 prototypes that I'm sure they're playing with if only for shits and giggles
The first one didn't sell that well, so doubt it. Which is a shame, since it's the best controller I ever had. If they removed the buttons and put in a joystick (or removed the right Gaben nipple) it would've been perfect.
Imo I think the steam controller didn’t take off because it relied so hard on the touch pads (the touchpads also clicked, which I didn’t like). Now with the steam deck it adds two real joysticks, and pressure sensitive touchpads which are so much better. So if they were to make a steam controller 2 it should have two joysticks as well as two touchpads. Pretty much all they have to do is make the steam deck without the screen.
But so many people have decks now, it would make sense to market a dedicated controller for docked mode. At least that's what I'm desperately hoping for.
I remember one of my first thoughts on the Deck was "even if this fails commercially or can't play any new games, I want it for old games and emulation. Even if it goes nowhere else, it would be worth it for me."
It ended up being more powerful than I thought it would be. I thought I'd just be playing some retro 2d games and really old 3d games, but it ended up running some new titles better than expected to be able to play them on the Deck.
I never would’ve expected a handheld console that could comfortably play Baldurs Gate 3 on an airplane. I got it for indie games, but it’s expanded beyond that for me
Running games at 800p targeting 40fps is a lot more viable than I would have expected just looking at the numbers. It looks great for a display that size and 40fps feels like it's a lot closer to 60fps than it really is.
I get why people using it as their primary gaming device would want more power but as a secondary device for me it's stellar.
Funny thing is, now that I have it I keep finding uses for it. Sure, some of it is "well I've got it now so why not?" but I didn't expect a handheld pc of this configuration to be so handy to have around.
I'll be real, before the Steam Deck existed, I was toying around with the idea of either building something basically like it, or how to slap a Steam Link into that kind of formfactor (3d printer, breadboard shenanigans, etc.)
Was very pleasantly surprised when Valve announced exactly what I wanted. Have been happy with it ever since.
"And there are people [at Valve] who were like, ‘I just want that for me.’ The point wasn’t even to make a product out of it. It was just, let’s see if you can actually make something that I would want to use for that purpose.”
I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. Seems highly unlikely Valve was dedicating valuable dev/engineer time and money to make a toy they had no intention of ever producing...
Seems highly unlikely Valve was dedicating valuable dev/engineer time and money to make a toy they had no intention of ever producing...
This actually is basically how Valve works.
They have a pretty small team, and Steam is a fucking money printer.
They are a private company, not public.
That means no shareholders. No need to jam out a product to keep stock prices up, no boards of directors that also sit on 12 other boards that are all scheming to figure out how to push the whole industry toward stupid bullshit like NFT game items or 'replace all our employees with AI' or 'every game is actually just a marketing tool for MTX or battlepasses.'
(The entire idea of loot boxes and in game microtransactions was basically just another 'i wonder what would happen if, or if it would even be possible to...' and then the steam marketplace of ingame items was born, and then basically every one else copied them, poorly.)
(Fuck, its basically the same with modern in game achievements as well.)
...
They could do nothing other than maintain their existing products and basically just coast on that forever, remaining profitable.
Because they have essentially no hard deadlines to put out some new product... this enables them to have a very loose, very voluntary, workplace culture which emphasizes quality over quantity, creativity over 'its the same game in a new setting', as well as not rushing anything.
A whole lot of their projects in the last decade are just people saying 'I'm gonna do this' and then if anyone else thinks its cool or neat, they work on it too.
People are allowed and encouraged to contribute to any project, at any time, as opposed to basically all other corporate software studios that have very rigid and defined roles.
The more I learn about Valve culture the more I realize they definitely have teams just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. I bet there are some really wild prototypes that we never get to see.