That's an absurd argument. AAA games are 70 bucks on steam and on switch, and indies are generally the same price. Steam might have better sales and a wider selection of indies, but outside of sales the games are priced the same.
That new Tony Hawk game is the same price on Switch, Xbox, Playstation and Steam. The Steam deck also can't play pirated games without some insane fenagling if at all so the "free" aspect of PC gaming isn't really there.
For programs that work, adding them to the steam library is just the easiest way to get them running. You can always install Proton/Wine the old fashion way if you really want.
I have one. Any windows exe can be added to your library, then Steam automatically uses Proton to run it. I use this for all my non-steam games that aren't native linux.
I find SteamOS to be a far superior platform than Windows.
I was shocked at how intuitive, fast, and easy it is to use (especially in Desktop Mode).
I WISH Windows was that simple to use. Any device driver, program, or utility I need, you just type it in the search bar and it pulls up all the available apps. You don't need a ridiculous Windows account, or a Windows Store account, or an Xbox Live account, or any of that other annoying stuff that you need to hop through to get apps to work right on Windows 10/11.
I wish Valve made a desktop version of the SteamOS because for my next gaming rig I would have that in place over Windows. Plus, I love how easy it is to navigate the SteamOS for games/apps using a controller for the tabs.
That's an absurd argument. AAA games are 70 bucks on steam and on switch, and indies are generally the same price. Steam might have better sales and a wider selection of indies, but outside of sales the games are priced the same.
That new Tony Hawk game is the same price on Switch, Xbox, Playstation and Steam. The Steam deck also can't play pirated games without some insane fenagling if at all so the "free" aspect of PC gaming isn't really there.
Insane fenagling?
wow that was hard
For programs that work, adding them to the steam library is just the easiest way to get them running. You can always install Proton/Wine the old fashion way if you really want.
For older windows games, a VM should work.
That's not how the steam deck works.
I have one. Any windows exe can be added to your library, then Steam automatically uses Proton to run it. I use this for all my non-steam games that aren't native linux.
Proton. See my other comments
https://www.protondb.com/
Does windows run worth a damn on it? You can always switch over to the Linux distro
I find SteamOS to be a far superior platform than Windows.
I was shocked at how intuitive, fast, and easy it is to use (especially in Desktop Mode).
I WISH Windows was that simple to use. Any device driver, program, or utility I need, you just type it in the search bar and it pulls up all the available apps. You don't need a ridiculous Windows account, or a Windows Store account, or an Xbox Live account, or any of that other annoying stuff that you need to hop through to get apps to work right on Windows 10/11.
I wish Valve made a desktop version of the SteamOS because for my next gaming rig I would have that in place over Windows. Plus, I love how easy it is to navigate the SteamOS for games/apps using a controller for the tabs.