In my own experience, most of the time when I find a "Verified" game to be less than playable is when the testers apply a very loose definition of "legible text".

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I belong to the 58% who still plays mostly on the desktop, but I am not parting with my Deck. It has become the device for gaming on the sofa or in bed and filled a gap for me there (I don't own a "proper" console and don't want one). I am still surprised how many recent games it can run just fine (including Hogwarts Legacies). Yes, that's probably going to change in the next few years when newer GPU generations become more widespread, but I expect the Deck to run most if not all the games I am playing for years to come.

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Quoting: Newton

Quoting: sjrObviously Cities:Skylines 2 is a mandatory purchase. :)

Not with the Paradox launcher.

I hate launchers too, but if you're boycotting every game having one, there is not a lot of choice left.

Personally, I am totally thrilled about both Skylines 2 and the Sims-alike. The Sims 4 is one of the last EA games I am playing, and I can't say I would be sad about that company being gone from my life. I also have zero faith in The Sims 5 becoming a good game.
Skylines is one of my favorite games overall, and the only bigger complaint I am having about it is engine performance. The successor will probably solve that, so that alone is enough reason for me to buy it.

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To be honest, I am not even sure what kind of changes to the game would warrant a new game at this time. Civ VI isn't perfect, and a handful of things were done better by previous editions, but other than that, I'd have considered Civ VI the "finished" Civ. With the only exception that I am not a fan of Civ VI overly cartoonish looks. Maybe they will change that, there is always hope.

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I use the Deck mainly for smaller Indie games, plus one larger AAA type game at a time. I got the big Deck version so I am not too concerned about drive space yet. I guess it's like back in the olden days when people had to actively decide what games to keep installed. :D

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Quoting: mr-victoryBut did they remove the necessity of the workaround for the Linux desktop? If they didn't but instead added fixes for Steam Deck, that's hilarious😂

I would not surprised seeing devs supporting Deck in the future, and still not caring about Linux, even when it's almost the same thing. Deck is "dev-friendly", because it's a defined system with known hardware and a known OS and it made mainsteam media, so it exists in their world.

Linux is still that "nerd operating system" that's hard to support because no two systems are the same, and people using don't want to spend money on software, anyway. Or so...

But hey, I expect issues like this one to be the exception rather than the norm, so it's all good.

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Quoting: mr-victory

Quoting: enigmaxg2but I hope Valve eventually makes native Vulkan mandatory for games to become Deck-verified.

Not verified but if Valve introduced another compatibility level like "optimized" which guarantees the developer is well aware of Steam Deck and QAs updates for it before releasing, mandatory Vulkan would be a good requirement.

I would love to see them introducing another compatibility tier for games that run -really- well on Deck and have the devs actively supporting Deck (e.g. by using Vulcan instead of DX12 and testing their game on Deck), too. Even in the current Verified tier, you still find games that while run smoothly, still don't feel as if they were "made" for Deck. My most common complaint with some Verified games is that Valve seems to have a fairly loose definition of "legible" fonts...

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Seems like the total sales are reaching numbers where studios can't ignore the Deck (and thus Linux) anymore. That's great!

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how much of a ridiculous nuisance third-party launchers on Steam can be

They are a ridiculous nuisance, period. Not just on Steam. :D

Glad to see that their stuff is (halfway) working now, though. Particularly considering that many of these games are meant to be played with a controller.

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This game seems to be a mixed bag overall. Shame really, the basic idea is actually something I'd normally like.

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