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I don't play games almost ever, but I'm going to buy all the products Valve releases soon, just to support their OSS efforts. They seem to be the only vendor th

I don't play games almost ever, but I'm going to buy all the products Valve releases soon, just to support their OSS efforts. They seem to be the only vendor that's opening stuff up, rather than locking it down.

zem 1y ago
I had barely played games for years, and got a steam deck just because it seemed like a cool linux device I could use both for gaming and tinkering. it has definitely gotten me back into gaming in a big way, the experience really is very nice.
- stavros 1y ago
  Yes! The Deck is the closest I've gotten to getting into gaming. I especially loved the "press the power button and your game is immediately right there" aspect of it. I ended up selling it to a friend because I enjoy making things much more, but the Deck is such a fantastic device.
- pipes 1y ago
  It's a great device, I mainly use it for emulation. The fact that it's properly an open platform is amazing.
- palata 1y ago
  Same here! I actually stopped playing when I moved entirely to Linux, and have been running on laptops without a good GPU solution since then. I bought the SteamDeck because it looked like a cool product and I liked the openness ("it's just running Linux"), and I love it. And it got me back into gaming :-).
- doublerabbit 1y ago
  I just wish my hands wouldn't cramp on hand-held devices. I've never been able to use handhelds for longer than thirty minutes. Goes for console controllers too.
  - Melatonic 1y ago
    Maybe you need larger controllers ? Also possible the touchpads are better for fatigue than joysticks
  - soiltype 1y ago
    Apologies if you've already ruled this out, but hand pain is very often caused by strain/injury from further up the arms, the shoulders, or even the neck. You may find that pulling your shoulders back or relaxing them, or adjusting your arm posture, or straightening/relaxingyour neck gives you less pain while playing.
- joshstrange 1y ago
  This is my experience. I played some Xbox here and there and every once in a while fell down the Factorio hole but I wasn’t gaming a ton. I got the steam deck somewhat cause it was cool, and somewhat as retail therapy but now I play it almost every night. I love playing smaller indie games on it, it’s a great device. Compare that to my Switch 2 and I’ve played it about 1/100th of the time I’ve played on the Deck. The Switch 2 is nice and all, just the Deck is way more flexible. Replaying my favorite GBA/DS/etc games again on the Deck was so much fun. Huge screen for my (older) eyes, ability to speed up/rewind/save slots, and other tweaks if I wanted were all a blast. I played back through some of my favorites as a kid and enjoyment and nostalgia were both off the charts.
huseyinkeles 1y ago
That’s what happens when you don’t need to please the shareholders.
- stavros 1y ago
  That's very true, and I didn't realize it until you just said it.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  Google has contributed more to open source than Valve while being a public company. It's not just Valve who sponsor open source work.
  - sabellito 1y ago
    I'd like to see that comparison tracking the number of devs and how much open source software each company uses.
  - _aavaa_ 1y ago
    They seem to be skimping out on their contributions to FFmpeg.
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      Google has contributed many patches to ffmpeg. Valve has contributed 0 as far as I am aware.
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      They aren't. Sometimes headlines are misleading.
  - ozarkerD 1y ago
    Valve employs like <400 people
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
layer8 1y ago
There’s probably a better way to sponsor Valve than to buy physical products you won’t use. That has pretty low monetary efficiency for the purpose.
- stavros 1y ago
  But maybe I'll use them!
  - layer8 1y ago
    Well, you did state “just to support their OSS efforts”. ;)
    - stavros 1y ago
      The pleasurable after the useful!
- downrightmike 1y ago
  Steam gift cards
righthand 1y ago
I’d wait to see if they open source the Machine, Controller, and Frame before assuming buying their products supports open source that matters for everyone. Right now the Steam Deck is the only product that open source and supports that vision. Even this article it is not clear how beneficial some of their open source work is for everyone except Valve.
- TingPing 1y ago
  What do you mean by "open source the Machine"? Valve has stated its a regular open PC. The whole driver stack is open.
  - righthand 1y ago
    The hardware, like they did with the Steam Deck.
    - TingPing 1y ago
      I guess you mean the CAD files for the shell? I'm not sure that is the most important part but it would be nice.
      - righthand 1y ago
        Sorry my point is that the Steam Deck is the only product of theirs that really supports beneficial open source in software and hardware. If you don’t think fossing the case is enough then you’re making my point for me that buying the machine, frame, or controller doesn’t do anything for foss. It’d be like donating to Mozilla and expecting the money to go to Firefox development.
        8676456497096 1y ago
        Valve paying for the development of KDE, Wine and adjacent projects is beneficial for FOSS.
bryanlarsen 1y ago
The steam deck, especially the low-spec variant, was sold at very low, likely negative margins. They make huge profit on their games, but if you don't buy the games... They've implied that they're not going to sell the Steam Machine at a low margin because they're worried about people buying the Steam Machine for general purpose computer use without buying games. I'm not sure that's a rational fear. If you subtract the GPU, you can get an comparable Beelink for ~$350. ~$500 would be the zero-margin price for a Steam Machine. It seems to me that the only people willing to pay an extra $150 for a mid-range GPU that's not good for AI would be gamers. Not to mention that the Beelink comes with a Windows license, and the Steam Machine doesn't.
- stavros 1y ago
  I do buy quite a few games, which usually end up unplayed. A few times I do binge one, so it's generally worth it for me. I'd like the Steam Machine for playing games in my living room with friends etc, even though it might end up unused, but the OSS support really swings the scale towards "take my money".
- AdmiralAsshat 1y ago
  > They've implied that they're not going to sell the Steam Machine at a low margin because they're worried about people buying the Steam Machine for general purpose computer use without buying games. I'm not sure that's a rational fear. I can understand that, OTOH I have a $1500 gaming PC (probably worth far less now--I built it over a year ago) for explicitly that purpose. What I don't have is a modern, low-power living room HTPC with native/first-class Linux support on which to run Kodi (I have a custom one that's quite long in the tooth). If I could dock a steam deck in my living room and use it for Kodi 80% of the time with games for the remaining 20%, why should Valve care? I have already given Valve hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in game sales.
  - crooked-v 1y ago
    Anybody who has a gaming PC isn't the target market for the Steam Machine. They're going after the console market with the value add of "also it's a real computer that can do real computer stuff".
bauble 1y ago
I'm staring at the EOL of Windows 10, which I use on my game machine. I'll happily get one of the cubes for my next box. I'd like this to be the end of my Windows usage.
- stavros 1y ago
  I game exclusively on my Linux desktop (for the few games I play). Everything works flawlessly with Proton.
- technofiend 1y ago
  You did say "I'd like this to be the end of my Windows usage." Even so, if you're not ready to move tomorrow, you can give up some privacy for the next year and continue to get patches by logging in to Microsoft. Windows 10 LTSC is a possibility if you somehow qualify for a license, although there's no guarantee the latest Nvidia drivers will work on it, some version of them will, or you can punt and run Linux on your current PC until the steam cube comes out. Pick a Linux distribution you like and run Steam, or go down the rabbit hole of running native Steam OS. I personally preferred Fedora for this but mostly because my employer is a redhat shop. It's not otherwise (as far as I know) any better or worse than any other distro for gaming.

zem 1y ago

I had barely played games for years, and got a steam deck just because it seemed like a cool linux device I could use both for gaming and tinkering. it has definitely gotten me back into gaming in a big way, the experience really is very nice.

stavros 1y ago
Yes! The Deck is the closest I've gotten to getting into gaming. I especially loved the "press the power button and your game is immediately right there" aspect of it. I ended up selling it to a friend because I enjoy making things much more, but the Deck is such a fantastic device.
pipes 1y ago
It's a great device, I mainly use it for emulation. The fact that it's properly an open platform is amazing.
palata 1y ago
Same here! I actually stopped playing when I moved entirely to Linux, and have been running on laptops without a good GPU solution since then. I bought the SteamDeck because it looked like a cool product and I liked the openness ("it's just running Linux"), and I love it. And it got me back into gaming :-).
doublerabbit 1y ago
I just wish my hands wouldn't cramp on hand-held devices. I've never been able to use handhelds for longer than thirty minutes. Goes for console controllers too.
- Melatonic 1y ago
  Maybe you need larger controllers ? Also possible the touchpads are better for fatigue than joysticks
- soiltype 1y ago
  Apologies if you've already ruled this out, but hand pain is very often caused by strain/injury from further up the arms, the shoulders, or even the neck. You may find that pulling your shoulders back or relaxing them, or adjusting your arm posture, or straightening/relaxingyour neck gives you less pain while playing.
joshstrange 1y ago
This is my experience. I played some Xbox here and there and every once in a while fell down the Factorio hole but I wasn’t gaming a ton. I got the steam deck somewhat cause it was cool, and somewhat as retail therapy but now I play it almost every night. I love playing smaller indie games on it, it’s a great device. Compare that to my Switch 2 and I’ve played it about 1/100th of the time I’ve played on the Deck. The Switch 2 is nice and all, just the Deck is way more flexible. Replaying my favorite GBA/DS/etc games again on the Deck was so much fun. Huge screen for my (older) eyes, ability to speed up/rewind/save slots, and other tweaks if I wanted were all a blast. I played back through some of my favorites as a kid and enjoyment and nostalgia were both off the charts.

huseyinkeles 1y ago

That’s what happens when you don’t need to please the shareholders.

stavros 1y ago
That's very true, and I didn't realize it until you just said it.
charcircuit 1y ago
Google has contributed more to open source than Valve while being a public company. It's not just Valve who sponsor open source work.
- sabellito 1y ago
  I'd like to see that comparison tracking the number of devs and how much open source software each company uses.
- _aavaa_ 1y ago
  They seem to be skimping out on their contributions to FFmpeg.
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    Google has contributed many patches to ffmpeg. Valve has contributed 0 as far as I am aware.
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    They aren't. Sometimes headlines are misleading.
- ozarkerD 1y ago
  Valve employs like <400 people
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]

layer8 1y ago

There’s probably a better way to sponsor Valve than to buy physical products you won’t use. That has pretty low monetary efficiency for the purpose.

stavros 1y ago
But maybe I'll use them!
- layer8 1y ago
  Well, you did state “just to support their OSS efforts”. ;)
  - stavros 1y ago
    The pleasurable after the useful!
downrightmike 1y ago
Steam gift cards

righthand 1y ago

I’d wait to see if they open source the Machine, Controller, and Frame before assuming buying their products supports open source that matters for everyone. Right now the Steam Deck is the only product that open source and supports that vision. Even this article it is not clear how beneficial some of their open source work is for everyone except Valve.

TingPing 1y ago
What do you mean by "open source the Machine"? Valve has stated its a regular open PC. The whole driver stack is open.
- righthand 1y ago
  The hardware, like they did with the Steam Deck.
  - TingPing 1y ago
    I guess you mean the CAD files for the shell? I'm not sure that is the most important part but it would be nice.
    - righthand 1y ago
      Sorry my point is that the Steam Deck is the only product of theirs that really supports beneficial open source in software and hardware. If you don’t think fossing the case is enough then you’re making my point for me that buying the machine, frame, or controller doesn’t do anything for foss. It’d be like donating to Mozilla and expecting the money to go to Firefox development.
      - 8676456497096 1y ago
        Valve paying for the development of KDE, Wine and adjacent projects is beneficial for FOSS.

bryanlarsen 1y ago

The steam deck, especially the low-spec variant, was sold at very low, likely negative margins. They make huge profit on their games, but if you don't buy the games... They've implied that they're not going to sell the Steam Machine at a low margin because they're worried about people buying the Steam Machine for general purpose computer use without buying games. I'm not sure that's a rational fear. If you subtract the GPU, you can get an comparable Beelink for ~$350. ~$500 would be the zero-margin price for a Steam Machine. It seems to me that the only people willing to pay an extra $150 for a mid-range GPU that's not good for AI would be gamers. Not to mention that the Beelink comes with a Windows license, and the Steam Machine doesn't.

stavros 1y ago
I do buy quite a few games, which usually end up unplayed. A few times I do binge one, so it's generally worth it for me. I'd like the Steam Machine for playing games in my living room with friends etc, even though it might end up unused, but the OSS support really swings the scale towards "take my money".
AdmiralAsshat 1y ago
> They've implied that they're not going to sell the Steam Machine at a low margin because they're worried about people buying the Steam Machine for general purpose computer use without buying games. I'm not sure that's a rational fear. I can understand that, OTOH I have a $1500 gaming PC (probably worth far less now--I built it over a year ago) for explicitly that purpose. What I don't have is a modern, low-power living room HTPC with native/first-class Linux support on which to run Kodi (I have a custom one that's quite long in the tooth). If I could dock a steam deck in my living room and use it for Kodi 80% of the time with games for the remaining 20%, why should Valve care? I have already given Valve hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in game sales.
- crooked-v 1y ago
  Anybody who has a gaming PC isn't the target market for the Steam Machine. They're going after the console market with the value add of "also it's a real computer that can do real computer stuff".

bauble 1y ago

I'm staring at the EOL of Windows 10, which I use on my game machine. I'll happily get one of the cubes for my next box. I'd like this to be the end of my Windows usage.

stavros 1y ago
I game exclusively on my Linux desktop (for the few games I play). Everything works flawlessly with Proton.
technofiend 1y ago
You did say "I'd like this to be the end of my Windows usage." Even so, if you're not ready to move tomorrow, you can give up some privacy for the next year and continue to get patches by logging in to Microsoft. Windows 10 LTSC is a possibility if you somehow qualify for a license, although there's no guarantee the latest Nvidia drivers will work on it, some version of them will, or you can punt and run Linux on your current PC until the steam cube comes out. Pick a Linux distribution you like and run Steam, or go down the rabbit hole of running native Steam OS. I personally preferred Fedora for this but mostly because my employer is a redhat shop. It's not otherwise (as far as I know) any better or worse than any other distro for gaming.