Quoting: Salvatos

Quoting: CatKillerThe platform sales situation is already messy, and Valve have already picked their solution: a sale counts as a particular platform if that platform has the most playtime at the end of the refund period, falling back to the platform the sale was made on, falling back to Windows. Until Linux has more than 50% market share, that last step isn't going to change.

And considering that a lot of customers will be playing mostly games they already own for the near future, which are already written down as Windows sales for the most part, I imagine Valve will want a very clear picture of the Deck’s usage both in terms of play time and what is getting played – both for their own R&D and to incentivize developers to support Linux or Proton compatibility. So I’m curious to see what changes they make to the surveys or other forms of telemetry towards that end.

If they want the Deck to be seen as successful, they can’t miss out on the numbers "wasted" on past sales and stats being skewed in favor of Windows based on where the sale was made or the ratio of Windows/Deck play time in the first two weeks alone.

We know that Valve can track how many sessions are played with a controller (maybe that's synonymous in their stats with people using BPM?) because they've given that information in their annual reviews. I don't know that they pass that information on to developers.

So far, enthusiasm for the Deck (for developers, the media, and customers) seems very high, so I don't think they'll feel the need to do much. If interest from developers slackens off they might start surfacing some of the data about hours played - on Linux, with a controller, on a handheld - in their reports that they send to developers. I expect their 2022 year in review report to have lots of information about the Steam Deck and how they feel it's going, either way.

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I hope the Steam Deck does get included in the Hardware Survey. BPM doesn't, because it was a separate thing and rather unmaintained post-release, but the Steam Deck (as another view of the normal client) should be able to have a confirmation to be included. It's a hardware survey, so if someone has a desktop machine and a Deck they should both be included. If a whole bunch of people are using a low-res display and integrated graphics, that's something that developers will want to know so they can set appropriate performance targets; missing out the Deck would skew that data.

The platform sales situation is already messy, and Valve have already picked their solution: a sale counts as a particular platform if that platform has the most playtime at the end of the refund period, falling back to the platform the sale was made on, falling back to Windows. Until Linux has more than 50% market share, that last step isn't going to change.

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Quoting: CFWhitman*(I know it would apply to anything that ran Steam OS and generally to Linux, but that wouldn't matter to the general public at first.)

They're related but separate things. Obviously if a game can't be made to run on Linux, it won't run on the Deck and so won't get the tick, but there are going to be plenty of games that do run on Linux but are bad without KB/M, or are unreadable on a tiny screen, or whatever, and also won't get the tick. But Valve (and hopefully developers) are going to want games to have the runs on Linux part of the "Playable" popup sorted: on Valve's side because games working on Linux is their strategic goal, and on the developer's side in case a customer docks their Deck.

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Quoting: damarrinFor some reason, Valve decided to take these from Playstation and they’re L1,R2 and so on.

The Xbox names are stupid (WTF is a "bumper?"), but it's mostly because there are five of those buttons on each side. You wouldn't want "right bumper," "right other bumper," "right other other bumper," and so on.

Quoting: 3zekielAnd considering the outcry every time a game dev removes the ps button when they port to PC, I doubt I am the only one who prefers dualshock. I also don't think x360 is all that popular ? Maybe in US, but worldwide I highly doubt it. Maybe it had some extra usage due to being easier to setup at some point, but I don't think it was out of love.

PlayStation controller support on Windows has historically been quite bad, and Microsoft did a big push for the Xbox controller being a "Windows standard," so developers that think PC = Windows also tend to think that PC controller = Xbox.

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Quoting: mphuZ

SteamOS can run this game

What do they mean by this concept? :huh:

Native? Proton? WHAT?:dizzy:

Valve don't particularly care either way. They're taking away the "compatibility tool" popup, at least on the Steam Deck, that we've previously had when first running a game through Proton. As much of the Steam catalogue as at all possible, running well on Linux, by hook or by crook, is the objective from Valve's point of view. There'll probably still be the SteamOS icon (but not Tux) for native games, I expect.

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: BielFPsThe only thing that's not clear is who will evaluate if each game meets the requirements: The consumers, the developers or (most unlikely) Valve itself?

Valve made it pretty clear they are ultimately the ones who make the ratings.

I do really hope that they get buy-in from the game devs. There's a window between failing the tests and the results of the tests being put up where Valve send an email to the developers saying "fix your shit." It would really suck to have a game that has the mark, loses the mark, then a couple of weeks later gets the mark back again. The only way to avoid that situation is for devs to properly test things themselves (which Valve are clear that they should do) before they push any updates. It still remains to be seen whether enough of them actually will.

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Quoting: BielFPsPersonally I think they'll have to, just imagine someone buying a Deck only to discover latter that the game you have doesn't work with it, because not stating that the game won't run on it could open a grey area of lawsuits claiming "false advertising".

I fully expect that after all the UI updates have been rolled out, the Verified mark will be shown on the desktop Store, and will be a filter that customers can apply just like the others. They just haven't said that will definitely be the case, again AFAIK. Good for customers, and of huge strategic importance to Valve.

While I believe this is no problem for Valve itself (putting the mark of shame outside the deck), I expect some publishers to not like this decision and can result in some lawsuit or they leaving steam because of that.

I fully expect that Valve's response would be "good luck with that." Politely, of course.

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Quoting: BielFPsGood point, this could open the possibility of developers requesting to "opt-out" the review process, claiming that this will give "bad PR" to their games, or making Valve to only show this evaluation system for those running the client on deck / linux (and hiding completely from windows users for example).

Valve have already said that developers can't opt out.

I believe my game isn't a good fit for Deck. Can I stop my game from showing up in the Deck store and library?

Removing products available on Steam from the Deck store or library isn't a supported feature. The Deck is an extension of Steam onto a new portable PC form factor, and so customers both expect and have access to the same store and library that they would on any other PC.

While it's possible for players to hook up a keyboard or a monitor, we believe most customers will be treating the Deck like a handheld appliance, most of the time. Because of this, one of the goals of the Verified badge Verified on Deck badge is helping customers easily understand how well any game plays with just the standard Deck hardware configuration and no peripherals.

Though this may be the most common customer use case, it isn't the only one. As with Steam in general, rather than completely restricting access to some products, we want to enable customers to find the right products given their specific goals and desires.

All Steam games are going to be visible from the Deck, and all (once they've been tested) will show how well Valve thinks they'll work on the Deck, with those that work well getting additional visibility.

They haven't said (AFAIK) that the "mark of shame" is coming to the desktop client, but they have said that they want it to all be different views of the same data (rather than BPM which was an entirely different product), and they really want every game that's at all possible to run well on Linux so there's no incentive for them to shy away from chivvying along those devs that are dragging their heels.

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Quoting: SalvatosDue to "appropriate controller input icons" alone, I feel like a lot of games will fall short of Verified. I rarely see the right icons for my DualShock.

"Appropriate" is "appropriate to the Steam Deck," and they accept Xbox prompts as a suitable substitute for those.

However, if developers start using Steam's Input API to pick up glyphs - which they're strongly encouraged to do by Valve - and Valve implement PlayStation prompt glyphs - which they have, as you can see in BPM - then PlayStation prompts will start automagically working in games.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI must be out of the loop. What's an NFT? I'd look it up, but acronyms are notoriously bad for searching.

Non-fungible token [External Link].

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