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this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Steam Deck
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A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
[Selling] - If you are selling your deck.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
- Follow the rules of Sopuli
- Posts must be related to the Steam Deck in an obvious way.
- No piracy, there are other communities for that.
- Discussion of emulators are allowed, but no discussion on how to illegally acquire ROMs.
- This is a place of civil discussion, no trolling.
- Have fun.
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This is why I have respect for Valve. They're willing to invest into changing the status quo instead of seeing it as not profitable immediately. They're playing the long game, and they've put their version of Linux into millions of hands. They've built hardware for it, they've invested a ton into Wine/Proton, they've invested in open-source graphics drivers. They're actively fixing up third party games to the point some of them run better on a their handheld than decent Windows PCs. And a good chunk of it is open-source and given away for free to everyone to use.
Meanwhile Sweeney is just there whining that Linux is too hard. They can't even be bothered to try.
I would give money to Valve just so they keep going. I have no desire to buy an Epic game they're not even willing to try to at least make it easier to run in Wine.
Meanwhile Sweeney is being litigious instead of inventive.
Not that the lawsuits don’t have merit, just very interesting to see the vast difference in focus between the two companies.
I am all for valve in terms of games, even though I don’t like the buying but not owning things stuff I would always prefer Steam over anything else. They earned my trust, something no other non-human entity will ever get. This company just has it figured out.
It's what can be done only with a private company and some decent people in charge. Once you go public your company loses its soul.
Valve is one of the few companies left that are not just a pure investor-pleaser and actually do some meaningful progress rather than changing the colors of their button every so often.
Valve pushes the medium forward in most everything they do. And they do it while not being dicks, too. I hope they can stay true to this direction forever.
I'm with you on Valve trying to be more open (in a semi-walled-garden with Steam on Steamdeck, circumventable with some effort). But gaming on Linux - practically nobody is actually writing games natively for Linux. They're writing for Windows (or a console) and the community is making the run under Proton/Wine on Linux. Is Epic intentionally preventing them from running on Proton? Well, effectively, yes - but that's not a Linux-to-hard problem, more of a "we don't want to have to police cheating on another OS" problem.
Do you mind elaborating on why you think the Steam Deck is a semi-walled garden?
Sure. By default you get the Steam store. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the only option to load games from the default Gaming interface. There is no option to load from Gog, Epic, Uplay, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo, or any other 3rd party store. If you are not willing (or able) to manage the deck in desktop mode, you can't install non-Steam games so - as a console - it's a walled garden. I say semi- because it's not terribly difficult to switch to desktop mode and install other applications, launchers, and games - but if you've never used Linux and are not computer savvy, Steam is the only way to get games onto the device.
Thanks for answering and explaining.
I feel like you’ve just described a garden. There are no walls. You can just walk out of the carefully curated garden and nobody will stop you. Heck, you can even bring things from outside of the garden back with you. Yes, things aren’t as pretty outside the garden, and yes, it may be a bit intimidating if you’re not familiar with the wild lands of Linux, but that’s just the nature of modern computing (regardless of what OS you’re using).
By default you start in Steam Big Picture mode, but you can, without doing anything unusual, likely without even needing to read a manual or follow a guide, easily get to Desktop Mode. From there, you can easily install anything that’s available for Linux. You can even install an entirely different OS. At no point does Valve do anything to stop you - if they did, that would be the “wall” in question. And they make it pretty easy to add anything available in desktop mode to Steam, which means you don’t even have to leave the “garden” to play those games.
You can also, once in desktop mode, easily install Heroic or Lutris (which enable installing games from other third party stores, like GOG and Epic), EmuDeck, or Chiaki via the Discover Store. (You can even install RetroArch directly via Steam.) AFAIK, the repo Discover uses isn’t maintained by Valve, so everything available there is “outside the garden,” as it were.
If you’re not computer savvy and aren’t familiar with all this, there are tons of resources out there that can help. But even if there weren’t, I struggle to understand how the Steam Deck would be different from any other computer, with the exception being that it provides a console like experience with Valve’s storefront emphasized - and every modern OS I can think of has an app store or GUI package manager, so… that’s not really all that different.
So I guess my follow-up question is: how could Valve change the Steam Deck to make it not a “semi-walled garden” (optimally without making the experience worse for the people still in the garden)? I can’t really think of anything other than somehow enabling anyone (e.g., GOG or Epic) to add their store as a Steam app and then letting those stores add games to your Steam library - and unfortunately that would be problematic for a number of reasons (both legal and practical).
I still say it's semi-walled. It has a bunch of gates in and out but and, unlike the Switch or iOS, there are no locks on the gates or gatekeepers. But the gates are latched in a way that requires specialized - if freely available - knowledge to open.
No, no as a Steam App, but as an alternate startup interface. I would say that the garden is open if there were a startup screen allowing you to pick the launcher of your choice. For argument's sake, I'll say Android TV. You can one-click download any content launcher with no technical ability. You can watch content ("play games") purchased at Amazon, or on Netflix, or HBO Go (or whatever they call themselves now) and it's the native store interface. You can do the same thing with Google's in-house launcher. An acceptable alternate would be any other content player - like Apple's TVOS, Roku, or Amazon's FireTV. You can't just load anything you want like it's Linux or Windows, but the startup page lets you select a content provider and then you use their interface to navigate your content. It's a good analogy as the same content is available from multiple providers, and all three (four if you include Google/Youtube) have their own in-house content libraries - which often overlap with competitors. I have both Roku and Apple actively on my TVs and I don't purchase any content from either one of them except the hardware.
I should say that I don't blame Valve for not including competitors stores. It's a cleaner interface not to have a loading or Home screen. They also have customized their interface for optimal user experience. And, if they are still selling at a net loss (after engineering, marketing, and distribution) then this is a loss leader to drive gamers to their store. You could say, of course, they have done it on an OS that doesn't natively support other game launchers and therefore it is impractical, but Linux also doesn't natively support the vast majority of major game titles, so that's a little disingenuous. And that partly wraps us back to the Fortnight topic at hand.
I think your Android TV metaphor is a bit off base. By default you only have access to Google Playstore apps (the equivalent to games on Steam). And it takes a not insignificant amount of research to learn how to sideload apps. And many Android TV devices flat lock you out of doing so to begin with.
Android TV is more of a "large enough walled garden that you can miss the walls and might not noticed you've even been locked in" situation imho.
I mean, the whole Epic v Google lawsuit was about the walls in this garden.
Yes, but for the purpose of video content, those aren't "games" in the context of the steam deck. For the steamdeck (or any console) you have games and launchers instead of shows and apps. Steam loading Gog or Epic or Uplay as the interface from an initial "home" menu, analgous to the home menu for Android TV (not Android), Apple's TVOS, or the Roku home page loading Netflix, HBOGo, Prime, or AppleTV+. None of those are "games" - you don't do anything with them - they launch the content from their catalog - content which competes with the hardware/OS vendor's own catalog. I can buy a movie from Apple or Roku or Amazon from within their launcher, even though I could have bought it through Youtube.
So I might load up my SteamDeck and choose Epic as my Launcher. Then the Epic Launcher shows me all of my games and allows me to buy new ones or collect Epic Points (IDK, I don't use their launcher, tbh) and chat with all my Epic friends. If I want to play a Steam game, I press Home and select the Steam interface (which is the only one on the real Deck) and then I have the familiar Steam launch interface.
Epic v Google was about Fortnight and the 30% fees on in-app purchases which had to go through Google with no way around it. Same with Apple. This same problem might exist in SteamDeck if Steam required that any purchases made in the Gog or Epic launcher had to be processed through the Steam store and Steam took 30%. And, of course, the only reason this doesn't exist for the steam deck is because you can't even buy Fortnight on Steam. I don't think, if you purchase a video through Amazon Prime on AppleTV or Roku, if Apple or Roku get a cut. If you subscribe to their monhtly license, they do - but not for discrete purchases made. The gaming angle - and fortnite's fight with the stores, is about this cut applying to everything.
I understand your perspective, but it seems to me that Android TV creates the appearance of an open garden by painting the sky on the walls and ceiling. But in reality it is a labyrinth meant to keep you trapped that they allow other companies to setup small garden plots in.
What happens when I want to install an app exclusively available on F-Droid? Or what if I own an Amazon Fire tablet with apps purchased from the Amazon app store? These apps can't be accessed through the Google Play Store.
While the apps you install from the Google Play Store act as content aggregators, it doesn't mean you aren't confined to the offerings of the default app store. Depending on your Android TV device, you might encounter hurdles or find it impossible to use alternative app stores.
They key term there being "with no way around it". Epic's concern was precisely this lack of alternative app store availability. In Epic's own words from their verdict announcement:
Epic not only aimed to reduce the 30% fee but also sought to prevent Google from imposing artificial barriers that prevented users from accessing alternative app stores on Android devices. This was done with the intention of launching an "Epic Games App Store" as an alternative, bypassing the 30% all together.
To relate this to the garden metaphor. You are so focused on the garden fiefdoms Google gives you access to, you never notice you are being prevented from leaving their Garden Kingdom. (Or to put it another way, the Google Play Store is a mall that hides the exits and pays other stores to prevent anyone from talking about other malls)
Fortnite serves as a prime example of this issue. While a capable Android TV device can run Fortnite, you can't download it from Google Play, necessitating sideloading. Many Android TV devices even restrict you from downloading browsers or installing APKs from sources outside the Google Play Store. This means you'd need to research how to sideload it, even though it's technically possible.
In contrast, consider the Steam Deck, where there's only one gate: the "Switch to Desktop Mode" button. Once you cross that threshold, you have complete freedom, with only developers' willingness to support it standing between you and any software you desire. If Epic were to develop a Linux version of the Epic Games Store, it would run on the Steam Deck, and they could even use Proton, an open-source software, for compatibility. You could even add games from it, or the launcher itself, to your list of Steam apps and launch it from "Game Mode". So you could switch between launchers at will (I have done this with Battle.Net, Lutris, and the Heroic launcher without issues or blockers).
From this point of view, the SteamDeck is a fully open garden with a single very visible gate leading to a fully open world (albeit sometimes an untamed wilderness). And as was said earlier, if you find an interesting "plant" out there, you are free to bring it back to your garden, no questions asked. When you see a wall outside that garden, it's not because you have been walled in, but rather walled out, or at the very least deemed unworthy of entry.
I can understand preferring to live in Google's Kingdom, where all the conveniences you are used to are readily accessible. And I can see how the SteamDeck's single well kept garden in an untamed wilderness where you have to learn how to get to any other garden would be less desirable. After all, a home is made up of walls, and even if you are trapped inside, you are "free" from the inconveniences of the wildernesses, but don't mistake the wilderness for walls.
Edit/P.S. To be fair, Android TV's often try to bar your path, but it's not nearly as bad as iOS devices. Most of the time, you can leave the "Google Kingdom", it just requires as much (or more) research and time investment than doing so on the SteamDeck. And unlike Valve, Google makes back room deals to keep it's garden a labyrinth and prevent open discussion of other gardens, so users never even notice they can't leave.
Valve doesn’t want to support Apple computers for their own games. No, Valve is not better, the two companies CEOs are just jerks.
They tried. Then apple dropped 32bit binaries support.
Apple is a very expensive partner to have. They do whatever they want with their ecosystem and many developers have been burned when apple decides to make their work obsolete or outright copies it and makes part of the bundled in apps.
So. It would be amazing if valve updated every one of their games for new versions of macOS and if they would kept MacOS proton support. But macOS is a moving target that will break backwards compatibility whenever it suits apple. So I understand that is hard to justify the investment.
In the end MacOs and Linux where less than a 1% of the Steam user base. But one is an open ecosystem where there is competition and some semblance of respect for backwards compatibility and the other is a closed and sometimes hostile environment.
It's very low, but to be precise, macOS is 1.53% and Linux is 1.91%, according to the November 2023 survey. Almost 3.5% between them.
SteamOS is by far the largest Linux version, at 42.99% of Linux installs, followed by Arch at 7.81% and Ubuntu 22 at 6.67%.
Steam isn’t dropping support for all Macs, just those on Mojave and older, and Apple no longer even supports them. This impacts 2% of Steam customers with Macs - meaning roughly 0.03% of Steam’s customers, or around 46,000 people (assuming 150 million customers worldwide, which would track with historical numbers that end at around 2021).
Their dropped support coincides with Google ending support for Chrome in those OSes, and Steam has Chrome as a dependency. It’s not just because of having a tiny market share.
It’s getting bigger, but I said they WERE less than an 1%. And macOS was bigger that Linux for ages.
Then Apple proved they were not an ideal alternative platform, being even more closed than Microsoft, and not understanding the games ecosystem, so Valve pivoted and got into the Linux thing, failed with the Steam Machines, pivoted into Proton, and now I have a Deck.
Valve only source is not a legitimate source to prove anything. Valve is known to lied to everyone and everything.
That’s ONLY according to Valve and has many court cases revealed, Valve has a history of lying.
Valve lies about ownership of the game controller.
Valve lied to AU to not get refunds to the people.
Valve lied about VR funding.
Valve lied to the EU government officials in GEO region lawsuit.
Valve is not a trusted company and you should not trust sources based solely off Valve.
It's certainly reasonable to be sceptical, but you should also ask yourself: what would be their motivation for lying here? What would they gain by saying there are 3.5% non-Windows users when there are actually less than 1%? Lying about funding and legal compliance has obvious motivation. And maybe there is some reason for lying about their platform usage breakdown too, but it's certainly not as obvious.
People are just believing in the status. In the old days the sales numbers from individual businesses were the focus. Nowadays they are used as a console indicator for sales.
Steam blocking people from accessing API sell means Valve can lie without proof.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/steam-privacy-changes-block-steamspy
If you play Genshin Impact, a false god was believed to be their god for years. Only it wasn’t their actual god. This is the same thing, Valve wants people to believe in the status and they want people to not question it.
But why would they want people to believe in the status of Mac being much higher than it is? Or Linux?
There’s a thing where if you make it unbelievably easy to get caught, you will get caught. The numbers are just balanced so people won’t question it.
Not to mention having zero support for Vulkan or modern OGL, excepting compatibility layers on top of Metal (which is not an easy task) by third parties.
Steam also drop 32bits in their games. Again it’s a corporate problem not support or game related problems.
Steam recently announced that after February of 2024 they’ll no longer support Mojave (a 5 year old OS) and older versions of MacOS, which Apple no longer even supports with security updates. The dropped support is due to Chrome dropping support for those OS versions, and Steam relies on Chrome for some of its functionality. The lack of support also doesn’t mean Steam will suddenly stop working, simply that they are no longer going to provide updates or customer service for it. This impacts 2% of Steam customers with Macs - meaning roughly 0.03% of Steam’s customers, or around 46,000 people.
Just to be clear, is that what you’re talking about?
You do know Valve could have not use Chrome and just spent money to build it right. Don’t defend Valve for being cheap.
The technology used by Valve is Irrelevant. The operating system losing support is not even supported by apple. The users of that version of MacOs are at risk because they use a closed source unmantained operating system.
As I said Apple is not concerned with kind of old software. They expect everyone to move up with them, developers and users, or get left behind.
Portal is a game released THE SAME YEAR the iPhone was. In classic hit PC game time that’s “nothing”, you expect to be able to run it, but in Apple’s timeline is ancient history. Take a look into how many iPhone games just won’t work anymore.