Steam has always had some drawbacks when it came to buying PC games, but the Steam Deck has made Valve’s storefront more attractive than GOG or Epic.
The Steam Deck has given Valve’s storefront a unique edge over its competition, making buying PC games through Steam a more attractive option than using GOG or the Epic store. Prior to the release of the Steam Deck, a subset of PC gaming fans may have seen Steam as a problematic choice for game ownership given that the games sold on GOG are all DRM free, enabling play untethered from a storefront, and the Epic store routinely offers completely free games. Steam's additional features make it the most appealing choice to many more, but a good sale on another platform might still have been reason enough for many to buy a game elsewhere. The Steam Deck has the potential to change that dynamic.
The Steam Deck plays games other than Steam-purchased titles, but Steam games work out of the box with the least hassle required. The Deck Verified list makes finding games that are ideal for the portable a simple matter, and Steam storefront games often come with Deck-optimized control configurations that cut down on setup time. There are Nintendo Switch owners who prioritize purchasing multi-platform games for the Switch instead of more powerful dedicated home consoles or PC due to the portability factor of the Switch, and many Steam Deck owners have made the same adjustment, pivoting to purchasing games through Steam to take full advantage of the Deck.
Some Deck owners have replaced the default Linux-based operating system with Windows, which certainly opens the door to many more gaming options. The onboard OS of the Steam Deck is far leaner than Windows, however, and more optimized for gaming specifically. Replacing the Steam Deck OS with the relatively bloated Windows OS generally leads to worse game performance, and the Windows-based Steam Deck competitors that cost less provide better alternatives for those seeking a Windows portable than overwriting the efficient Steam OS.
The vast majority of quality, current-gen games, are multi-platform titles, and game prices tend to be close to matching regardless of the platform in question. Console gaming fans have realized this, as the Xbox and PlayStation storefronts are largely identical. Retail prices are the same across storefronts, and sale prices tend to align very closely as well. The timing of specific sales might differ, as GOG or Epic might run sales at a different time from Xbox or PlayStation, but broadly speaking, choosing where to buy a game is not about the titles available, or the prices, in today’s gaming landscape.
The Switch is the one outlier to this, as despite it having the weakest specs of any current platform, its hybrid docked and portable options give it a unique novelty, making Switch game prices often higher than alternative storefronts. Steam Deck’s ideal games prove the Switch’s relevance, since many of the games that require minimal tweaks prior to jumping into gameplay are shared between the Steam and Switch libraries. Still, for most who own both a Switch and Steam Deck, the Deck has largely replaced Nintendo’s hybrid, which in turn makes Steam purchases more attractive.
Thanks to Steam’s largely hassle-free cloud saves, Steam games are already functionally hybrid titles for Steam Deck owners. Those who own a Deck and a dedicated gaming PC can switch their gaming from the portable format of the Deck to resuming play on their PC with similar ease to a Switch owner docking their device. The DRM-free games from GOG may still remain a more appealing option for those with unreliable internet access since Steam play relies on validating via an online connection.
The build quality of the Steam Deck, along with the value of its specs relative to its price, make it an attractive product. Steam Deck purchases no longer require a waitlist, but previously consumers waited months to have their pre-orders fulfilled for the much-desired portable. For Valve, the most important thing the Deck has done has nothing to do with selling the hardware itself. Steam Deck adds incentive to make purchases through the Steam storefront instead of its competitors. Those who take issue with the ethics of Valve as a company might still have reason to look elsewhere, but outside those concerns, the Steam Deck has flipped the script, propelling Steam from the worst PC gaming storefront option to the obvious choice.
Derek Garcia is a Game Feature Writer for ScreenRant. He lives with his wife, three dogs, and a likely excessive number of video game consoles. When he is not writing, playing video games, watching movies or television, or reading novels or comic books, he occasionally takes some time to sleep. Derek majored in journalism and worked for a print newspaper before discovering the internet. He is a fan of science fiction and fantasy, video game and tabletop RPGs, classic Hong Kong action movies, and graphic novels. After being immersed in nerd culture for many years, Derek is now happy to write about the media he enjoys instead of just ranting to his friends. A fan of classics as well as the latest and greatest, Derek balances sampling the newest entertainment media with revisiting the well of a (thankfully) never-ending backlog. When trying to meet a specific word count in writing a personal biography, Derek sometimes adds Oscar Wilde quotes, like, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”