1 week from release, Steam Deck hits well over 640 Playable games

And the selection still seems super random. But then I keep seeing people excited to play things on Deck that I have never even heard of. So maybe not so random.

They are still focusing on testing games owned by Deck reservation holders right? So I guess peoples Steam libraries are quite random?

And the selection still seems super random. But then I keep seeing people excited to play things on Deck that I have never even heard of. So maybe not so random.

They are still focusing on testing games owned by Deck reservation holders right? So I guess peoples Steam libraries are quite random?

If you look at the Jackbox games, for some reason 3 and 4 haven't been done for some reason. Even tho the others have. Just odd.

I would guess that the version of Proton they tested them with is way ahead the publicly released versions. That's just an assumption though.

Not way ahead, but ahead. The testing report that they send to devs specifies the Proton version, and one that was made public showed that it was using Proton 7.0-1 before that was released to everyone.

What I suspect they'll do, because it's what I'd do, is only verify against the latest internal non-experimental version (because experimental is a moving target) then set the game to use that verified version of Proton in the game's manifest so that everyone uses that automatically. If the game gets retested (because of an update or whatever) verify against the new latest non-experimental version, and update the manifest to refer to that version if it passes. Games that are in flux get the benefits of Proton improvements over time, and unchanging games get the version of Proton that it's known works. While minimising the combinatorial problem of testing every game against every version of Proton forever.


Last edited by CatKiller on 19 February 2022 at 4:15 am UTC

And why on earth are Valve marking games as "playable" that still have issues?

Because if they didn't have issue, they'd be marked "verified".

"Playable" means just that: it's possible to play this game on the Steam Deck. Doesn't mean it's crash free, or that you'll never encounter bugs in it (that happens in Windows too for many games). Just that you can play it.

They are still focusing on testing games owned by Deck reservation holders right? So I guess peoples Steam libraries are quite random?

Oh, that's an interesting thought. Did Valve say that somewhere? Would make a lot of sense.

They are still focusing on testing games owned by Deck reservation holders right? So I guess peoples Steam libraries are quite random?

Oh, that's an interesting thought. Did Valve say that somewhere? Would make a lot of sense.

I think they mentioned it with the initial Deck Verified announcement, and Lawrence Yang talked about it during the dev conference, (with the implication that it's using playtime, wishlists, and upcoming games where there's lots of playtime for previous games, from people that have or have ordered the Deck) but it's wrapped up in the documentation as games that are "important to Steam Deck customers."

When Valve identifies a game as important to Steam Deck customers, we may sometimes add games to the review queue with no need for you to submit a manual request. You'll receive a notification when this happens.

There's also a more generic "heuristics" route for a game getting on the testing list, and at developer request.

And 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.

And the selection still seems super random. But then I keep seeing people excited to play things on Deck that I have never even heard of. So maybe not so random.

They are still focusing on testing games owned by Deck reservation holders right? So I guess peoples Steam libraries are quite random?

If you look at the Jackbox games, for some reason 3 and 4 haven't been done for some reason. Even tho the others have. Just odd.

Maybe they're still testing them. Need to play just one more round of Trivia Murder Party to be absolutely sure that it works on Steam Deck...

I understand all that, only some of the "playable" games really shouldn't be, as they have issues, like crashing mid-game or corrupting save data.

Issues that are yet to be fixed by devs should mean a game fails the verification completely.

If so, you really should file bugs.

But keep in mind that just because a certain game have problems on your system, it might work fine on the Deck. They are testing against a very specific setup.

Not really on topic, but I wanted to share something...

There's absolutely nothing scientific to my method... It's more of a gut feeling, but being in a Steam Deck Facebook group with 39k members, I have the feeling, judging by the reactions on each posts, that around 3 out of 4 Steam Deck users will keep it on SteamOS and use Windows on their PC for what is not compatible.

As for the other 1/4, most will dualboot and a small minority will replace SteamOS with Windows. I have even witnessed a Windows fanboy starting to change it's point of view and then having doubts about stripping SteamOS.

Like I said, gut feeling from reactions I read/see, but it feels positive.

Valve seem to have really nailed it, this time.

Good job!

As for the other 1/4, most will dualboot and a small minority will replace SteamOS with Windows. I have even witnessed a Windows fanboy starting to change it's point of view and then having doubts about stripping SteamOS.

Like I said, gut feeling from reactions I read/see, but it feels positive.

Valve seem to have really nailed it, this time.

Good job!

Sounds good, thanks for telling.
I'm surprised people are thinking about dual booting though.
Did they tell why they would want to keep a Linux partition when they are doing the work of installing Windows?

As for the other 1/4, most will dualboot and a small minority will replace SteamOS with Windows. I have even witnessed a Windows fanboy starting to change it's point of view and then having doubts about stripping SteamOS.

Like I said, gut feeling from reactions I read/see, but it feels positive.

Valve seem to have really nailed it, this time.

Good job!

Sounds good, thanks for telling.
I'm surprised people are thinking about dual booting though.
Did they tell why they would want to keep a Linux partition when they are doing the work of installing Windows?

Mostly because of the ootb SteamOS experience that looks shiny and custom tailored for a handheld vs Windows' desktop weirdness on a 7" screen (K+M required per some Aya Neo or GPD users comments). AMD FSR integration was named many times, better battery autonomy too, suspend resume feature, SteamOS' smaller footprint.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 19 February 2022 at 7:06 pm UTC

I understand all that, only some of the "playable" games really shouldn't be, as they have issues, like crashing mid-game or corrupting save data.

Issues that are yet to be fixed by devs should mean a game fails the verification completely.

But…it's no worse an experience than you'd get playing on a PC? Because the Deck is a (mobile) PC. People live with crashes and corruptions on the desktop (they're annoying, and we hope and expect they get fixed, but I bet there are zero games on Steam that haven't crashed at least once for someone out there). Why should we suddenly hold the Deck to a much higher standard? "Playable", and even "verified", don't mean "Valve certify that this game is utterly, 100% bug-free and you will never have a problem with it or your money back"; they just mean that that game has passed some or all of Valve's criteria for how good an experience playing it on an 8-inch screen with a controller by default will be.

The lookup page seems to have gotten an upgrade: Date of last change, and last state as tooltip.
And you can lookup your wish list as well. (It might mark unreleased games though. :D )

Where would I look up what's Steam's favorite way to run a game, like Proton (with version?) or native?


Last edited by Eike on 20 February 2022 at 6:01 pm UTC

I guess I can see where you're coming from, but I think that's an overly pessimistic way to see it. I've lots of talk of people buying it as a laptop replacement, so I don't think it's true that everyone buying it is getting for the "console experience" (I'm certainly not). Remember, in order to put in a reservation you have to have a Steam account (and have to have had it for at least a month for the first three days reservations were open), so basically all the people getting a Steam Deck for at least the next several months* are going to be people who are familiar with PC gaming and its quirks (because not even Windows games are 100% bug free), who've likely seen Valve's reminders that it's just a mobile PC, and who aren't going to throw up their hands in despair and swear financial ruin on Valve if they find so much as a single bug. (Who knows, it might even prove to be a less buggy experience than a lot of Windows gamers are expecting!) Game-breaking bugs should be fixed, of course, and I expect they will pretty promptly once the outcry of players reaches a critical mass.

*Based on the fact that I managed to get my reservation in by 1.5 hours after they opened, and I'm still "after Q2 2022".