Valve's popular Linux-powered gaming handheld the Steam Deck has hit a new milestone, with 15,000 games now rated either Playable or Verified. And it continues to sell well. Valve only hit 14,000 back in early March and 13,000 back in January.
For lots more Steam Deck news be sure to follow our dedicated Steam Deck tag, it even has its own RSS feed.
The important thing to remember is that Deck Verified only includes what Valve have put through testing. Games not yet tested can still be played, you can try to play anything. Additionally, there are times the rating is wrong, like Unsupported games actually being fine or Verified games having poor performance (but we're talking a tiny percentage wrong here).
Here's the current numbers of games rated by Valve
- Verified: 4,898
- Playable: 10,102
- Unsupported: 4,033
Some recently Steam Deck Verified games that look great include:
- ANIMAL WELL
- Nocturnal: Enhanced Edition
- Planetiles
- Saviorless
- The Witch's Cauldron
- Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader
- Wizard with a Gun
Pictured - Saviorless, Credit: Empty Head Games
Random shout-out to Forest Fortress (NSFW) as becoming number 15,000 in the list. Bet Valve love testing all those games huh?
There's certainly no shortage of truly excellent games for the Steam Deck. There's more supported games than any one person can play, which is a pretty good place to be for a platform overall. You can see the proper numbers on SteamDB, since that includes delisted games you can still play if you own them (which Valve still verify).
That leads me to the elephant in the room though: anti-cheat. What a pain in the ass it is. Various developers still have not enabled support via Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye including Rust, PUBG, Rainbow Six: Siege, Destiny 2 and more. And recently we've had EA expand their own EA anticheat breaking multiple games which is not looking good for their future titles on Steam Deck and Linux desktop. Hopefully Valve will eventually be in a position to do something about all that.
Additionally, while we don't get sales numbers from Valve on anything, we can see overall the Steam Deck has been selling well. Especially since the release of the Steam Deck OLED. Looking at the global top sellers, the Steam Deck constantly ranks quite high. While the Steam Deck is much more costly compared to regular games, remember those top games sell often tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and more constantly. So it's clear Valve are shifting plenty of units.
Here's how it's doing on sales position over time:
The data, click to expand
| Week Beginning | Global Position |
| May 14, 2024 | 3 |
| May 7, 2024 | 4 |
| April 30, 2024 | 5 |
| April 23, 2024 | 3 |
| April 16, 2024 | 3 |
| April 9, 2024 | 4 |
| April 2, 2024 | 3 |
| March 26. 2024 | 5 |
| March 19, 2024 | 4 |
| March 12, 2024 | 4 |
| March 5, 2024 | 3 |
| February 27, 2024 | 3 |
| February 20, 2024 | 6 |
| February 13, 2024 | 5 |
| February 6, 2024 | 8 |
| January 30, 2024 | 6 |
| January 23, 2024 | 5 |
| January 16, 2024 | 2 |
| January 9, 2024 | 2 |
| January 2, 2024 | 1 |
| December 26, 2023 | 2 |
| December 19, 2023 | 2 |
| December 12, 2023 | 1 |
| December 5, 2023 | 1 |
| November 28, 2023 | 1 |
| November 21, 2023 | 1 |
| November 14, 2023 | 1 |
| November 7, 2023 | 4 |
| October 31, 2023 | 9 |
| October 24, 2023 | 11 |
| October 17, 2023 | 11 |
| October 10, 2023 | 13 |
| October 3, 2023 | 14 |
| September 26, 2023 | 11 |
| September 19, 2023 | 5 |
| September 12, 2023 | 2 |
| September 5, 2023 | 8 |
| August 29, 2023 | 6 |
| August 22, 2023 | 7 |
| August 15, 2023 | 8 |
| August 8, 2023 | 6 |
| August 1, 2023 | 6 |
| July 25, 2023 | 5 |
| July 18, 2023 | 8 |
What have you been playing recently that you think is worth mentioning? Do you have any issues with the Steam Deck Verified rating on something? Let me know in the comments.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
QuoteDo you have any issues with the Steam Deck Verified rating on something? Let me know in the comments.
I platinumed Horizon Zero Dawn on the Deck, and it played well and looked amazing on the OLED, but it hung on exit every single time. It definitely detracted from it being a "seamless, comfortable experience." Valve have provided a force-close function, but it would be better if games with the green tick didn't need to use it.
QuoteWhat have you been playing recently that you think is worth mentioning?A handful of classics via RetroDECK, for my next grab-bag for the "Emulation Recommendations!" thread. Most notably, the always-catchy Bust-A-Groove (PSX), the criminally-unknown Chippoke Ralph no Daibouken: The Adventure of Little Ralph (PSX), and the alien-rescuing Cosmic Ark (Atari 2600).
I've also been playing Saturn Bomberman (Saturn, obviously
) and Super Bomberman R 2 (Proton), and have been continuing to enjoy Stumble Guys (Proton), which I play a little bit of every day. Can't wait to see what next month's crossover event will be! 
QuoteDo you have any issues with the Steam Deck Verified rating on something?I've only encountered wonky ratings a few times. Most memorably;
- Hotshot Racing was (and still is) marked as Unsupported but works completely perfectly out-of-the-box.
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is Verified and immediately gave me all manner of game-breaking issues, ranging from showing question-marks instead of any kind of controller-glyphs, to random crashing, to the game handing over control before the intro had fully finished which caused the level to only partially load its geometry and not load its collision data at all which left Ratchet falling for eternity. It took way too much tweaking of settings to get it running acceptably and stably, and I cannot understand how it was given a Verified rating.
The latter left me finding Super Bomberman R 2's Playable rating to be a little bit galling, since it's perfect out-of-the-box in spite of the default resolution being 1920x1080 and the game not having Steam Deck controller-glyphs.
Quoting: DrakkerAnimal Well is absolutely fantastic, its a lot of fun. Provided you like puzzles and are a completionist at heart... If so, grab it, it's worth it.
I was thinking about picking it up but will wait for better sales on the game.
And the achievements in Kona don't work on the Deck despite the green tick, so that's not "all game functionality."
Quoting: jams3223EA broke support for Apex Legends on the Steam Deck.That was fixed only a day later, and then also in Proton Experimental.
Mountain Man May 26
The only thing that bothers me is that Linux gaming is essentially synonymous with Steam. I was really hoping that other developers would be inspired by Valve to support Linux directly, but it has been left to Valve to do all the heavy lifting, and as much as I appreciate what they have done for Linux gaming, it makes me nervous having all the eggs in one basket, as the saying goes.
Quoting: Mountain ManI can remember the early days when there was only a handful of native Linux games in Steam. How far we've come.Especially because the big motivation for Valve to put resources into Linux - Microsoft has the power to lock games distribution into their own store - affects all the others just as much as it does Valve. Sony, EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar, Epic all want to avoid being beholden to Valve, but they won't avoid being under Microsoft's thumb.
The only thing that bothers me is that Linux gaming is essentially synonymous with Steam. I was really hoping that other developers would be inspired by Valve to support Linux directly, but it has been left to Valve to do all the heavy lifting, and as much as I appreciate what they have done for Linux gaming, it makes me nervous having all the eggs in one basket, as the saying goes.
Sony PS5 660 + 3350(PS4)
Microsoft Xbox Series X/S 424 + 2781(Xbox One)
For reference.
edit: I forgot to mention. The games I have been playing are, HellDeivers2, DiabloIV (through battle.net launcher), and Deep Rock Galactic.
Last edited by Highball on 27 May 2024 at 5:18 am UTC
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