On the topic of verified games that do not work, why is there not a system to where I can submit some kind of report with logs or anything at all to tell someone to go back and reexamine the game because it doesn't work? And also the inverse, if I find an unsupported game but the native port works or any version works, I want to submit some kind of report so that someone can look into that and get the rating updated. Of course one user saying "it just werks" isn't going to get the rating to change but with a few or more reports should help get games that need their compatibility rating changed and give them some data to go off of, and hopefully do their tests faster because they already did a test before and they now have extra user submitted data.

If a game is only unsupported because of codecs, for example, that is useful information for everyone!

The importance of this cannot be stressed enough. So many games in the unsupported category say "Valve is still working on adding support for this game on Steam Deck". This is useless to someone buying this game because this tells me that maybe kinda sorta in the future this game maybe kinda sorta might work, we think. It also, to me, exudes "this doesn't work and we don't know why, but when we get around to it we'll fix it". The codec issue is getting a lot more attention so that might get fixed and if proton gets an update with support for certain codecs I can try those games and see if they now work or if they still have problems. Then if those now work, using what I mentioned earlier, I could file some sort of report to say "this game now works on the latest version of proton" and include some extra information if allowed.

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Quoting: GuestAnd why on earth are Valve marking games as "playable" that still have issues?

I've been reading why they put some games as playable especially when there is a Switch port. The issues that put it in playable are things such as wrong controller icons, text that is small, requires the user to manual open the on-screen keyboard, the launcher requires the use of the touchscreen as a mouse and the controller cannot be used with it. The main thing that keeps it from being unsupported is "This game's default graphics configuration performs well on Steam Deck". As long as the default graphics settings run well its playable but not perfect. I would assume that games with massive graphical issues would then be unsupported since graphical errors that detract from the experience would mean that it does not perform well.

The thing with comparing the "playable" games to Switch ports is that issues with the text are a problem in some of those ports. The Witcher 3 steamdb page lists the reason for it being playable is "Some in-game text is small and may be difficult to read", which is a complaint that I've heard about the Switch version. The thing that I think is better here is that they at the very least warn you that the text is hard to read which is huge for me since I struggle to see normal sized text. Some switch games are unplayable for me because of problems with text size.

I think the main reason why games being listed as playable is being used as a selling point for the deck is because the people that are most likely going to get a deck already have some amount of games on steam and this is an easy way to find out which ones work well, which ones are good but have some problems and what those problems are and the ones that won't work at all.

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Quoting: pleasereadthemanualI still don't really get what the audience for the Steam Deck is. I kind of want to buy one, but then I remember I have no use for it. I can play games in bed with my laptop. I have 4 GNU/Linux computers already. If I'm outside, I don't want to play games, otherwise I wouldn't have gone outside.

I guess I don't really understand the portable gaming idea to begin with. I did play Pokemon a lot as a kid, but those days are long gone. I played a lot of mobile games when I was younger, too, but that was mostly the novelty of it rather than them being any good. I don't think that phase lasted very long.

I guess it doesn't help that a lot of the games I play involve using Textractor, copying text to the clipboard, looking it up in a J-J dictionary, and creating an Anki card. Not really the type of gaming suited for a small, portable device without a keyboard.

I just have no idea what to think, because I am clearly not the target audience for this.

I get this whenever I explain that I have a preference for handhelds. I totally get using a program that hooks text and 1) that not existing on any handheld like a 3DS or Vita, and 2) that being cumbersome on anything without a proper mouse and keyboard. I used to use something like that and I know that it wouldn't work well on a handheld unless you had some system that would let you highlight text and ask for a definition, kind of like an overlay or what some e-readers do. I prefer handhelds because uhhh I don't really know. I like the form factor and for someone with extremely awful vision I can use the decent near-sided vision to my advantage. I use a kobo e-reader for this reason since looking at a monitor for too long can easily cause a migraine and its easier for me to see it if I can move it closer to me.

I was a launch adopter of both the 3DS and the Vita and of course I pre-ordered a Deck. The switch made me realize that UMPC type things were kind of missing with many of them either under performing and/or being very expensive among other things. With the switch, handheld users got the same games as regular console users which is a huge advantage to me. I got an Nvidia Shield Portable because of the switch and it sort of gets close to what I was thinking of but the idea of running anything on it is what I really wanted. It would be a tablet that runs a full OS but instead of being centered around touch controls or connecting peripherals to fill in the gaps, it would have those controls and "just work".

It is one of those things that I find really difficult to explain why I use something like the Vita still and I struggle to turn on the PS4 even when there is something I am more interested in on the PS4. To be fair, I never got a laptop. I really never needed one and either made a tablet work or was able to have my desktop do it. Using a laptop that got close to the same level of performance of my desktop made me just want to use my desktop. To me, a laptop would ultimately do the same thing that my desktop does. While the Deck would play the same games that my desktop can, it can't deliver it in the same form factor.

Sorry if this comes off as rambley and very long winded. I think it really depends on what you want out of a gaming device versus something sold as a computer, and the Deck seems like its doing both which seems like it muddies the water a bit.

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