The fact that anyone can insult Dolly Parton immediately shows you their true character.

I mean, I agree that the form factor isn’t what matters, that’s not what I was saying. When you boot the Steam Deck it actively hides that it is a computer. Let’s be real here, all consoles are basically just dumbed down PC’s at this point. They have slightly modified AMD chips with AMD GPUs. The only difference is that you can’t access the file system. You can on the Steam Deck if you want to, but Valve tries to simplify the experience by presenting it as a console. My argument has nothing to do with the form factor and everything to do with the default presentation.

I just want to say I’m right there with you, and I was trying to make that clear while still explaining my thoughts on why the Steam Deck isn’t really a “gaming PC”. It could just be the old man in me, but the Deck PRESENTS itself as a console on startup, and to do anything beyond that you have to restart the device. For the general public restarting the device is a huge barrier. Again though, I’m happy the Steam Deck exists and hope that game companies in general will get their head out of their ass and start making more games run natively on Linux. Even with devices that have better performance and look like an upgrade I immediately discount them as an option the moment I see they are running Windows.

My post was not meant to take away your points, and honestly I tend to forget about the Steam workshop because, as you said, I and many other general PC gamers don’t mod games that much. I’m not trying to be negative about the Deck, just realistic. Unfortunately for me, my general lack of optimism can be seen as inherently negative. The Steam Deck has already succeeded in its goal as evidenced by the, inferior in my opinion, knockoffs from Asus and Lenovo. The main point I was trying to make is the very fact that if or when people try to install a mod they immediately run into the barrier of having to reboot the device. This isn’t a bad thing, but it does tell many people this is not the main way to use the device. Remember that for the general public defaults are the most powerful thing on their device.

For transparency, I have a gaming PC. I have a Steam Deck. I love the Steam Deck to death and would never give it up. For many people, it is the closest thing they will see to PC gaming. I can say without a doubt that the Steam Deck is a PC in the same way a chicken is a wild bird. Can you do 90% of PC related tasks with the Steam Deck? Yes, but with a lot more work, and much more required knowledge. It’s not even because of the OS, which is great because it’s just Linux based. It’s because the Steam Deck does not put necessary parts that average PC users need as forward facing concepts.

The Steam Deck is a console first, and a PC in a pinch and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s the reason I love the device, but also use it less. A good example is modding Elden Ring for Seamless Co-op. You can do it, and it’s not HARD per se, but you may have to find files in the OS to make sure Steam knows to open them, and because of how the file tree works in Linux vs Windows it isn’t really a simple case of “type the file name in search”.

I’m okay with that. I don’t want some program I don’t control having access to the kernel of my system.

Breaking news, people on the Internet have no concept of nuance.

At this point Everything Search is goated.

Kind of. I’ve never bothered with them myself because it requires constant use and is kind of more trouble than it’s worth. It’s the same concept as something like Ginko Biloba in that it does have benefits, but different people will see different results based on their own body chemistry so the results you see will vary from person to person.

The real problem is the lack of official support from companies like Adobe, Nvidia, and others that refuse to support Linux. Sure there are workarounds, but not without getting into the console which is already too much for people who are used to the drivers just downloading. Many Linux users tend to overlook how much Windows just does everything for them, for better or worse.

I wouldn’t quite go so far as to say it’s gone “mainstream” since you still have to be moderately nerdy to know about it. I get your point though. This is one of the reasons I am so happy the Steam Deck exists. Before Valve released the Steam Deck nobody wanted to make games for Linux, so Valve said “fuck it, we’ll do it ourselves” and proved it was not only possible, but a better experience overall. While not all games work, having 78-80% of your game library work on Linux, with no Windows OS performance tax, is a great experience. Even with the Proton compatibility layer games generally run faster than on Windows.

People are still calling it a Pokemon clone even though only like 10% of the gameplay involves catching Pals. It’s closer to being a survival game with a dash of “Pokemon at home” than anything else.

To add to what you are saying, I wish they would make that message clearer. The first time I saw it, I thought they were still going to charge me for the extra copy and just not give it to me. Still not 100% sure about it.

“Screwed them over” may have been a bit strong, but as you mentioned WotC laid off a bunch of devs. The important part is that they were devs who working directly with Larian on BG3. This is more likely than not also the reason Larian halted work on BG3 DLC. The public statement was that they lost their motivation, but it’s no coincidence that the DLC was cancelled very close to the layoff announcement. There are also the backhanded remarks that Swen has made about WotC watching him. It really sounds like Wizards is trying to control the narrative and make it look like the parting was amicable.

It’s just unfortunate that Larian will most likely not be doing BG4 if there is one. Corporate greed ruined it for everyone again. For anyone who isn’t aware Wizards of the Coast basically screwed all of Larian over.

They are on all social media platforms.

Can we stop calling these glorified chat bots “AI” now?

JC, a bomb!

It’s the start of that one TNG episode.

He’s not talking about donations though, he’s talking about paying full price THEN tipping. It’s a blatant excuse to pay developers less while placing financial guilt on the people paying for the product. It’s the same way tipping at a restaurant works.