How the fuck is Steam Deck a monopoly? Literally anyone could have made a great Linux based handheld. Anyone still can do it. Only Valve did.
Yeah, anyone can but no one has yet
Actually, there are a few different ones. If you look for pocket PCs or even specific for gaming. The mainstream just didn’t know about it because they don’t have marketing reach.
It’s a niche market. Niche markets are always under served.
As great as the steam deck may be, it’s only going to appeal to a small percentage of gamers. Generally more tech savvy players who frequently travel some distance with enough down time to justify that purchase. Whether that’s commuters or guys who travel for work. Or guys who just want a really expensive controller so they can play from their favorite chair.
device to play theIt actually very likely brought a lot of women to Steam who predominantly played with handhelds because they were indoctrinated to believe PCs are only for “tech savvy men”.
December 2021 less than 10 % of all Steam users were women. Between 2022, when the Steam Deck was released, and December 2023 the number shot up to 32 %.
Valve is a massive company because they put their customers first, go figure.
It’s not a monopoly, most pc gamers choose to use steam because of the significantly better user experience it offers vs the competition
It’s so funny when you remember what people said (or better: screamed) when Steam first came into existence… It was pretty much the opposite of what you wrote in your post.
Hey if paying for a game isn’t owning it, pirating it isn’t stealing it
Coming up next: Gamers whining that studios don’t put as much effort and time into game development anymore.