They never pretended it was going to run literally everything. It’s a handheld.
The fact that there are still very few games it can’t run (excluding the publishers actively blocking Linux) is impressive, but it was always expected that some games would leave it behind.
Hell, the whole reason for “deck verified” is because their default assumption is that a game won’t work.
I do think it’s about time for a successor. But that didn’t mean the current Steam deck isn’t viable any more. There are still thousands of games it will happily play. And the others can probably be made to run with some TLC from the developers.
The only thing cooler than a living miracle of portable computing is an undead miracle of portable computing that I’d still be playing games on come 2025 🧛
IMO that’s more of a problem with the industry not really caring to support lower specs, or generally not seeing the deck as a real console or platform to target. People still make Switch games and the damn thing was already outdated at launch and they even underclocked it for good measures.
At 800p you’ve got to start thinking, is most of the detail those games compute even actually visible the on screen? How many PCs does that make obsolete? If the deck can’t run it at 800p, even at 1080p you’re gonna need what, an RTX 2060 for the lowest settings on a PC?
Some of the example titles don’t even sound like they’re the kind of titles that are made to showcase what your 4090 can do, which logically you’d want as many people as possible to be able to play it.
It’s not even about the lower specs, it’s the optimization in general.
My PC is a little old, but still fine for most games up to medium settings.
But when I tried FF XVI, which is mentioned in the article, I couldn’t get anything close to acceptable performance with everything turned as low as possible and looking like shit.
I agree with you, handheld can never compete with a desktop when it comes to raw power. So, if companies don’t consider it as a platform to target for, you’ll always have problem with latest games. Maybe not at launch, but you can’t upgrade a handheld “console” every year or two.
That’s the good thing about consoles, you buy it, and you know (most of) the games that come to the platform will just run on it.
I don’t have a SteamDeck so not sure how it works, but maybe they should make a sub-store for SteamDeck, that only has games that are verified to run on it. They can still have an option to search and download game from full steam store, but it should come as a warning that these games aren’t specifically made / optimized for Deck.
Just thinking out loud. Don’t actually know what SteamDeck owners really want. :-)
That is how it sort of works the steam store displays the games the games that work with the deck. You can install other games but you get the a warning that either it has not been testet enough to make sure that it works, or that it is not recommend because that issues with the deck.
I think, that the steam deck is popular enough, so that it can be treated as a console, were you make special “ports” of your game, which has it default settings adjusted for that console (and maybe some other patches to make stuff work)
They literally included a screenshot of valve asking to not share information about the game with a little quip about how they pressed escape instead of ok. Blantant disrespect to valves wishes even if it’s not a legally binding agreement.
They chose getting clicks over doing right by valve. Shame on them.
20,000 people are playing it at a time. Not exactly a secret. The way they’re testing this game is radical and newsworthy in itself. I’m glad Verge reported on it, and they don’t seem mad they they were banned
If every news outlet avoided a topic because the company wouldn’t outright confirm its existence, we would never have reporting based on leaks and rumors. That’s dumb and would make journalism worse for everyone.
It wasnt a rumor or hearsay but literally breaking a gentlemans NDA.
I havent played it but as I heard they requested not to show it and the journalist supposedly recorded whole gameplay and wrote about it?
Seems like a clear deal to me to cut of and ban his account for breaking an agreement for early access.
Reporting about leaks and rumors is totally fine. But that’s like being the primary reporter of a whistle blower
“Gentleman’s NDA” is not a thing. It’s either a legally-binding NDA or it’s not. It’s within Valve’s right to ban him from the game but saying the game shouldn’t be covered at all is silly.
If I call you a friend and tell ypu something confidential I trust you to not talk about with someone else and you do regardless, I will quit the friendship.
Eh. I find it difficult to have any sympathy for Valve. Sounds like it was only a matter of time before someone did this. If anything this is just free marketing.
Valve gives you access to a game and tells you not to spew your mouth off. A gentleman’s agreement if you will.
You spew your mouth off and valve takes access away.
shocked pikachu face
This is a non-issue of you ask me. A person, who happens to be a writer, got access to the game through a steam friend and was asked not to talk about it but thought they could just not agree to a warning and write about it anyway? I got access too and i didnt write about the game. I get to go back and play it today, they cant.
So what. They already have their article and it will be out anyways within like two years latest probably. The value of talking about deadlock is much higher and valve profits from this advertising as well.
The so what is that this writer for the verge will likely never be trusted with NDA type pre-release access for any other games going forward, and this may even impact all of the Verge.
This isn’t just a one and done kind of issue, this will be seen by the entire industry as a “can’t trust that guy with pre-release access”
The rest of the industry uses embargo agreements with mutual consent if they have private information. This doesn’t change anything for other game companies, unless they also want to do private-but-not-private beta tests.
Sure, and they proved that they won’t respect valves wishes unless legally required to do so. Valve is now in a position where if they want to do future play tests they will have to manage NDAs for everyone which is probably more trouble than it’s worth. The general population is now less likely to get an opportunity like this because the verge wanted to get some easy clicks. It’s pathetic of them to sell us out like this.
Except this is a game industry reputation ruined. It isn’t just valve, why would any dev ever give the verge access again knowing that they will not only disrespect your requests but bitch and moan if you hold them to it.
It’s a full rep killer. They will never have early access again for any company.
That’s not how this works. The Verge didn’t break an NDA or embargo because they didn’t get either of those things. Valve allows random people to invite other random people to play, with just a “pretty please don’t talk about this game” warning. There was already people talking about it online and leaked footage.
They didn’t break any laws, they broke trust. Random people can leak all they want, they don’t have institutional standing and respect. If what you said was true then it’d be pretty weird that every other institutional news, even gaming focused ones, have honored that request. Because doing otherwise is a dick move that kills your reputation, and the gaming industry is legendary for blacklisting for far less disrespectful moves. Downright petty with it.
If Valve wants to be shitty about it, that’s within their right (unless they want to sue, which would be difficult to defend in court without a written legal agreement). It is also true that other outlets are free to do handshake agreements to not cover the game. The Verge didn’t break any rules, and Valve already maintains a minimal relationship with the press, so not talking to The Verge probably wouldn’t change anything.
even if it doesn’t, they lose consumer respect as well, I personally won’t engage verge anymore because as someone who wants to go into the development trade, it puts a bad taste of any platform to blatantly disrespect a creators wishes like that.
The biggest thing would be that a game under playtest is likely to undergo drastic balance changes and potentially even changes to core gameplay, a review of a game in that early of a state would likely not reflect the finished product, and is unlikely to be updated or taken down when the game is released, this possibly poisoning public opinion with content that doesn’t reflect the actual game.
Closed playtests are usually with very in-development builds. People post the barely functioning game to social media and the game gets bad press. Release day rolls around and no one buys it because “that was that one game that looked bad a while ago”
This seems like a stupid train of thought but a lot of people think like this
Others have pointed out the concerns around negative reviews of things still subject to change, but the other aspect is just the relations with media.
I’m sure tons of journalists have been playing. And probably even working on content covering the game, but not publishing it yet. Once valve is ready for coverage they’ll have polished content ready. And valve can control the timing so that coverage happens right when they want the hype like maybe a few days before an open beta.
By covering it early you encourage other journalists to do the same, rushing out low quality content to get the views before others do. And for valve to not let any journalists see the game early to avoid this.
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