I still go back and listen through the original Arrow Pointing Down/Giant Bombcast up until Ryan's passing. The age of the content makes it downright historically interesting now for their commentary on game releases.
The chemistry of those guys (Vinny and Brad included) is still untouchable, no one can rein Jeff in and play off him as well as Ryan did, and Ryan is by far my favorite person to ever grace that website and podcast, and rightfully so as it was his child with Jeff. Rest in peace.
Assuming the price is exactly the same on both platforms (or even within like $10 if I’m not getting a Steam key from the GOG purchase), I’m buying from Steam every time. Mainly for the convenience of having it in my Steam library, so I can’t just flat out forget that I own the game already when I finally get around to playing whatever it was, because god knows I don’t immediately play straight through the vast majority of games I buy.
At the moment I pretty much only buy games on Steam. GoG has been pretty hostile to Linux over the years, whereas Valve is the only gaming focused company that robustly supports Linux on both a hardware and software level. The money I give to their platform directly supports Linux gaming and everyone directly benefits from this.
Valve is also an exceptionally rare example of a privately owned, not publicly traded company of their size. Gabe Newell himself owns a majority stake and has shown that he is more interested in running a company that can make effective long term decisions than a company that desperately suckles at the teats of short term profits and corporatocracy. As long as this stays true, Valve is in a vastly better position to resist enshittification than most big tech companies out there. Valve doesn’t need to pull a Red Hat unless fundamental things change, and Gabe seems pretty happy to be in a position where he doesn’t need another layer of corporate overlords.
I’d definitely prefer to have DRM free stuff, but Steam is a pretty good compromise at the moment. If Valve ever goes to shit, I’ll just take steps to access the games I own in a way that is independently well supported on Linux. I suspect there will be multiple ways to do so if it ever comes to this. Proton being open source counts for a lot.
I have a ROG Ally and a Steam Deck. The Steam Deck experience is miles ahead. Windows is such a limitation on these handheld devices (and dare I say PC gaming in general). SteamOS is the real MVP behind the Steam Deck, it makes everything feel seamless.
The Ally feels like a crappy ASUS launcher stapled on top of an unoptimized Windows desktop, since that’s exactly what it is.
Also, the ASUS ROG Ally controls are nowhere near as nice as the Deck’s. The Deck sticks feel better. The touchpads allow for mouse control.
I haven’t used other handhelds, but what you say is what I’ve seen from other discussions and reviews. Yes, there are more powerful systems with better screens, but the SD’s OS is miles ahead (but not without a lot of quirks as well). The touchpads are incredible - I couldn’t imagine trying to use a handheld PC without those touchpads. Also, the custom control configuration abilities built in to steam OS are incredibly versatile and detailed.
Hopefully Microsoft releases a handheld mode instead of just experimenting with it. Besides the interface, they also really need to optimize for performance. Even though, with the steam deck, proton is converting draw calls it still outperforms the same deck running windows with native driver support. This really shows how the mountains of extra crap running on windows hurts gaming performance on these low power devices.
Hopefully Microsoft fades into irrelevance. I’m glad the Steam Deck is doing something about Microsoft’s control over the PC gaming market. I’m also glad Microsoft is losing in the handheld gaming PC experience. Let Windows die already, it’s long overdue (especially given the continued and intensifying enshittification of the OS every release cycle).
Hopefully this “you will own nothing and be happy” BS also fades into irrelevance. I hate how everything has to be a subscription these days. No. Just NO.
I refuse to move to subscription based platforms. It’s anti-consumer lock-in. Unfortunately, right now, gamepass is cheap because they’re still in the growth phase and need a compelling product to get people to switch from buying their games to subscribing. However, believe me, in time the enshittification will come. What subscription-based platform hasn’t once it captured the market?
I mean, they’ll have to make some big changes to Gamepass before it becomes worse value than buying all those games outright. Most subs are still pretty good value now for the level of content, available, they’re just not as cheap as they were when they were driving users.
That’s exactly the point though. Until they corner the market and start “deprecating” actual game sales entirely, they have to keep gamepass appealing. If they get to the point where enough people have adopted gamepass that they can stop selling games outright, then they’re free to raise the prices all they want. What are you going to do about it, buy the games instead? Not an option anymore. Buy the games, keep your rights as a consumer.
Fuck no, moving to a console is the opposite of consumer freedom lol. Steam seems to be the levelest of heads in the gaming space, making an open platform OS and “console” and not tying people into nasty subscriptions to be able to play their games. Plus, regular sales with usually quite good discounts. While they still offer DRM and allow it on their store, they have plenty of DRM-free offerings and don’t discourage you from running third party games/launchers on their machine.
Although I would love to see it, as long as DirectX is the de facto graphics API, I don’t see Microsoft fading into irrelevance when it comes to the PC gaming market.
Both are great options! Just to counterbalance arguments against:
I can’t buy a Steam Deck in Australia, but I can buy the ROG Ally.
Windows can be clunky, but that less-than-stellar experience is limited to navigating and launching games. The stock launcher works fine, it’s just bare-bones. You can set Steam to launch into big picture on boot at which point it’s the same experience as the Steam Deck anyway.
All games install and run, there’s absolutely no dicking around required compared to some experiences on Steam Deck.
Touch controls are nice. 120hz VRR 1080p screen is a better draw imo as it’s universally applicable to all games. That screen makes sub-60fps experiences much nicer and has better colours and contrast and uniformity (not to mention resolution).
ROG Ally cooling system is really great, and really quiet. I don’t feel like there’s a desktop machine wedged between my hands.
The ROG Ally performance isn’t what ASUS sold, but it’s still a good bit faster than Steam Deck, and most games I’ve tried I can hit a visual and performance fidelity roughly on par with an Xbox Series S. Which ain’t bad at all.
Both are convenent and versitile systems, I think probably Steam Deck is more convenient whereas ROG Ally is more versatile.
I really bought the ROG Ally to experiment with Linux on it. I think it is getting there. I have Arch Linux with chimera kernel on mine as well as gamescope-session which allows it to function very similarly to the Steam Deck, but at the moment it seems TDP control isn’t working so games don’t run as well as they should. I also can’t get the ROG button to work as a Steam button even though that should be working according to ChimeraOS. I wanted Arch because it allows for dual booting vs. Chimera which does not, as well as for development purposes. I think the hardware of the Ally is solid, though I still hold that the Deck’s controls are much better. Once the Ally is better supported on Linux I think it would be a better option, as I refuse to use Windows anymore except for testing/reverse engineering purposes.
Handheld Companion are doing good work implementing better controller options (including gyro) and power management (including autoTDP) and I believe will have napping to the OEM keys sorted out eventually. If that sort of stuff could go into a distro I could see Arch or ChimeraOS being really interesting options. Hopefully the ROG Ally sells well and there’s a community to support it in this way, it could be great!
The Deck’s power management features are a solid selling point. There’s no reason they couldn’t be implemented elsewhere, and it would be a boon for other portable devices for sure.
I haven’t used the Ally, but the Deck’s touchpads are just intuitive and functional, it seems so obvious in hindsight that it’s actually shocking that nobody had thought to put them on a portable until now. They work great for replacing a mouse in mouse-focused games, and for navigating desktop mode. Much more effective than navigating with a joystick.
I would have loved to see something like that on the Ally. It’s very situational, but I can imagine in those situations it feels great (I own a Steam Controller, so I’ve used something very similar).
I think if you had a chance to see the Ally screen in person you might have a similar feeling. It changes the experience a lot.
For example, Diablo 4 with upscaling and the right settings is a 1080p experience, so text is crisp and UI elements are clear. At those settings in 15w I get mostly 60fps in dungeons, when things get hectic and the frames drop to 45 or 50 the VRR makes it hard to notice. Fan noise and heat aren’t really notable either, I just wish there was a little more battery to round that all out.
I feel like the Deck’s 800p screen is plenty for the size, and it helps it perform better. But maybe that’s just my boomer eyes that can’t tell the difference. Though a bigger screen would have been amazing.
1080p is a more flexible choice though. You can always just set it to 720p for better performance. Or upscale to 1080p or drop the internal render resolution so the UI remains 1080 while the game itself renders 720. You gain many options and lose none (other than just battery).
All of those are visually worse than rendering at native resolution though.
I think battery life is an important factor since these are high-drain portable devices. Any additional battery life you can squeeze out of it is a big plus.
Not really. A screen of that size is really forgiving. I’m not sure if you have seen the Ally in person? In a lot of games you can turn some GPU intensive settings down or upscaling on and it’s not nearly as noticeable. The sharpness really stands out though.
Anyway, you seem pretty thrilled with the Steam Deck, which is great. I’m just pointing out that there are some pretty sweet perks with the Ally (there’s plenty of downsides too). All the best!
I wouldn’t say I’m thrilled, I still use my PC a lot more. I’d say the dual touchpads are probably the best feature for the form factor. And I think the power management features are great, but that’s just software, and I think the other platforms should implement similar systems.
Fair enough. I can’t even buy a Steam Deck in Australia so I’m pretty happy the ROG Ally exists and is what it is. Maybe we get the Steam Deck 2 done day, I would be keen to check it out.
Ive used the Ally and I would agree. The hardware is great and feels good in hand, but Valve is going to have much more to gain by supporting the software of the deck as much as possible.
The steam deck definitely shipped undercooked, but Valve has made amazing strides to make it my a reliable and versatile experience.
I use a steam deck dock to hook it to my TV, but A LOT of the time im using it in desktop mode in this setup. I get crisp 1080p out and its a fantastic experience for playing youtube and twitch from the couch.
Point 1 is always such a killer, isn't it? I still try to get into games with friends and wife whenever possible. It's like any activity, we just try our best to schedule it, and make a commitment to trying to find said schedule when we can.
Considering pretty much all the legally obtained digital download games I have on PC come from Steam, I think it’s safe to assume I’ll just get the game I want from Steam.
Endless Sky. The save game is a text file. Save a file on the mobile app (F-Droid), and on the PC (Flatpak), and note the last line. This is the line you must swap to transfer the save file. It is the first game I have played on both practically. The game mechanics are different between the two and you need to alter your strategy accordingly. On mobile, I travel with a ship setup for boarding pirate vessels and never target enemies directly; all of my guns are automatic turrets. I just use a fast ship and travel with a large group of fighters. It is more of a grind on mobile, but it can be used to build up resources and reserves. The game is much bigger than it first appears to be. You need to either check out a guide or explore very deep into the obscure pockets of the map.
Move to a place that doesn’t care about international copyright violations, make sure local content never gets posted, never cross any borders again in your life.
If you need to ask, you’ll get caught for sure if your torrent websites gains any popularity. Your best way out is to make sure you can’t be punished severely when that happens.
I’ve got to say, Steam’s native Wine/Proton implementation works decently well, and really entices me to buy games without native Linux support on Steam.
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