We've been wondering what Valve had planned to show off Steam Deck compatibility for games and now they've launched Deck Verified as their answer.
Valve say they are reviewing the entire Steam catalogue on the Steam Deck, with each of them gaining a category that it falls under that will show up across Steam from the store to your own Steam Library. The ratings will be split across Verified, Playable, Unsupported and Unknown. This is good because there's a lot of reasons why games will mix between perfect and unplayable on Steam Deck and the Arch Linux-based SteamOS it ships with.
To be actually Verified the games need to hit these four points:
- Input - The title should have full controller support, use appropriate controller input icons, and automatically bring up the on-screen keyboard when needed.
- Display - The game should support the default resolution of Steam Deck (1280x800 or 1280x720), have good default settings, and text should be legible.
- Seamlessness - The title shouldn’t display any compatibility warnings, and if there’s a launcher it should be navigable with a controller.
- System Support - If running through Proton, the game and all its middleware should be supported by Proton. This includes anti-cheat support.
When you're playing on a Steam Deck, the first tab in the Steam store will also only highlight games that are "great" on the Steam Deck too.
Check out their video explainer below:
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Want to see what their plan is? You can check it out on Deck Verified.
Valve also put up a Steam Deck Compatibility Review Process guide, which goes over the steps required for developers to take a look at. It gives an interesting insight into exactly what Valve and developers will be doing. Developers however will not be able to remove their game from being listed as Valve say 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".
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: BielFPsWhile 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.
Well, technically you can sue anybody for anything, but I highly doubt this will be an issue. Giving users informations about supported features on Steam is normal. That's like publisher taking offense that the Steam store page says that the controller isn't supported or that it does not run on Mac or SteamOS+Linux.
How can it be "mark of shame" if the publisher releases the game only for Windows and does not care about some other (new/different) platform? Do you expect that they will lose Windows users because of this new platform that the game isn't even running on?
Publisher might take some flak from users, just like they do if users demand controller support, bugfixes or hell... Linux support. Same is going to be with Deck support. But that's all between users and the dev/publisher.
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rustybroomhandle Oct 19, 2021
Hmmm, optimistically if they have 20 people each checking 20 games a day, that's 400 games per day, more or less 8000 per month. They won't even be halfway through by launch.
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Quoting: BielFPsEven so, there are literally thousands of games on steam, and manually reviewing them will take a lot of time. Remember that this situation is different from something unofficial like Protondb, because this seal is Valve officially stating how well the game runs on deck so they can't mess up with it.
You're putting it mildly. Over 10000 games have been added to Steam in 2020 alone!
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Quoting: GuestSo, this is essentially a Proton whitelist 2.0. The one that Valve have abandoned after a couple of Proton releases.
Yeah, sounds very convincingI would expect that thousands of games will stay with "Unknown" status forever. Maybe Valve will check the compat once in a while for the "hype game of the month" like Doom Eternal or Cyberpunk 2077.
A lot of games remain unrated, but the bottom line is that the developer can say that they want to be evaluated. Personally, I'm guessing that the games Valve chooses will have a lower priority than the games that ask for it.
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Quoting: GuestSo, this is essentially a Proton whitelist 2.0. The one that Valve have abandoned after a couple of Proton releases.
I do hope that native Linux games will get their check and hopefully their badge early.
Last edited by Eike on 19 October 2021 at 9:34 am UTC
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Quoting: rustybroomhandleHmmm, optimistically if they have 20 people each checking 20 games a day, that's 400 games per day, more or less 8000 per month. They won't even be halfway through by launch.And then they shall re-check all those games with every update in case developers break something or introduce unsupported features.
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Arehandoro Oct 19, 2021
For me, the key point is here:
"System Support - If running through Proton, the game and all its middleware should be supported by Proton. This includes anti-cheat support."
Emphasis is mine.
Does that mean a game can be verified for Windows on Steam Deck but not Linux/Proton? If that's the case, I don't see that going down too well...
Last edited by Arehandoro on 19 October 2021 at 10:41 am UTC
"System Support - If running through Proton, the game and all its middleware should be supported by Proton. This includes anti-cheat support."
Emphasis is mine.
Does that mean a game can be verified for Windows on Steam Deck but not Linux/Proton? If that's the case, I don't see that going down too well...
Last edited by Arehandoro on 19 October 2021 at 10:41 am UTC
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Quoting: ArehandoroFor me, the key point is here:
"System Support - If running through Proton, the game and all its middleware should be supported by Proton. This includes anti-cheat support."
Emphasis is mine.
Does that mean a game can be verified for Windows on Steam Deck but not Linux/Proton? If that's the case, I don't see that going down too well...
Verified on Proton, not Windows. What matters is the end result (people can click a button on their deck and start to play) not how a studio achieves that result. Gamers and their gaming experiences are the importat thing here.
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Quoting: GuestSo, this is essentially a Proton whitelist 2.0. The one that Valve have abandoned after a couple of Proton releases.
Yeah, sounds very convincing
You mean, they abandoned publicly. Do you really think Valve has disclosed everything they've been doing behind the scenes during these past couple of years? Of course not. As soon as Proton turned from a mere compatibility tool into a full-blown product which will probably shape the business paradigm of Valve for years to come, any progress has obviously been carefully curated because it's now a trade secret that needs to be kept away from the competition's eyes, at least until it's ready to be properly revealed/launched. That's also why SteamOS 3.0 is also not being publicly developed, even though it's an open source Arch-derived distro.
Same with this curation list; I seriously doubt it's an initiative that will be launching only just now, after this public announcement - I fully expect them to have been at it for at least a few months already, and to be almost at the end of the process. A corporation worth their salt do not announce a new product unless they can be certain that it's capable to do what it will be advertised to do, especially a corp like Valve who have learned this lesson firsthand with the Steam Machines.
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Quoting: ArehandoroFor me, the key point is here:
"System Support - If running through Proton, the game and all its middleware should be supported by Proton. This includes anti-cheat support."
Emphasis is mine.
Does that mean a game can be verified for Windows on Steam Deck but not Linux/Proton? If that's the case, I don't see that going down too well...
No, it means they still can be Linux native.
6 Likes, Who?
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