Valve Stands Firm on No Deck-Exclusive Titles

The debut of the Steam Deck in February 2022 is highly anticipated since it is poised to rival the most recent piece of portable gaming hardware, the Nintendo Switch. However, while a whole library of exclusive games props up the Switch, Valve has said that there will not be no Steam Deck specific exclusives available on their platform.

This may sound like bad news, but it isn’t. Quite the contrary, this shows that Valve is treating the Steam Deck like the portable gaming PC it was designed to be, which should be a solid comfort to many.

Steam Deck Is A Portable Gaming PC

This seems to be the fact that is lost on many detractors who are up in arms about the lack, or maybe prohibition, of Steam Deck-exclusive games. However, many people picking up the Steam Deck are already Valve customers and simply want a portable way to enjoy the library of games they’ve already paid for and installed on their favorite Steam Deck SD Card. Valve seems to be making a concerted effort to ensure that that will be possible.

You see, while other gaming platforms like Nintendo, Xbox, and Playstation often rely on exclusive titles to attract new customers or keep existing customers interested and devoted, for the most part, there is no “home and away” option for them. With the Switch, you take it everywhere, and it’s your portable and your home system, so you get what you paid for.

Playstation has struggled for years to make its mobile hardware viable and trendy, and while Microsoft does offer some interoperability between their PCs and consoles, the feature still leaves much to be desired.

Compatibility Is Key

Valve knows that compatibility is the key to maintaining their user base and winning over more gamers to the “PC master race.” Even if you are one of the gamers who will grab a Steam Deck without already having an established Valve game library, they are making sure that no matter what, the games you buy are the games you can take anywhere. Whether you are at home, in your dorm, or on the road, the games you love are the games you’ll be able to play without worrying about your Steam Deck being incompatible with them.

A Possible Workaround

Even though Valve has said that there will not be any games made for the Steam Deck that will not be made available to the PC gaming community at large, there does seem to be a developer that is going against the grain. Rather than making the game for PC and ensuring that it is a Deck Verified title, the developers of Citadel, an upcoming co-op RPG, are designing the game specifically to be the best it can be on the Deck and will let the PC compatibility fall where it may.