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I dont do games anymore ( well, other than perhaps opensim ) but i was reading that 'steam deck' is priced over 1k now. Isn't the entire point of steam to be 'cloud gaming'? Did i miss something?
Well, to be fair, I'm a little judgmental of people who weren't around then who want the retro-experience now. I feel like everything we don't gatekeep - younger generations ruin - from AD&D to Anime. If you don't understand why Atari 2600 games play better with a joystick than a D-Pad - I just don't have a lot of patience with you.
Cute of you to think there were arcades around when I grew up.
I suppose there were, just not in the rural ass of the world XD. But no, I don't play retro for nostalgia, I play retro because I like it. I pick lots of retro games I didn't know about back in the day, and play lots of old systems I never tried in my youth.
No more ownership of media for you, serfs! Pay your subscription! Feed the machine!
"Sony has announced that from January 2028 it will entirely stop the production of physical discs for new PlayStation games. From that point onwards, new releases will only be available in digital versions from the PlayStation Store and other retailers."
https://www.theverge.com/games/960160/sony-playstation-disc-production-ending
The younger generation is fucked, for sure. For me - I can ride out the next 15-30 years playing 2600 Adventure and Ultima 3 on an emulated C64 on FPGA.
And most of the stuff I am into, up to Xbox 360 - can be emulated for free forever. There is nothing they can take away from me. At least, I don't see how.
There is only repackaged experiences they can deny me.
Not that its relevant, but i still remember playing defender and battle zone. Both id just play at the arcades until i got bored, never lost. ( or was asked "can we have a turn now?" )
At one point, my father was in the arcade business ( selling, not repairs ). We had a few in the garage, and id help load them in the truck at times. It didn't last long, turns out it was a mafia-style influenced crime-ridden racket and he got out of it really fast.
Aren't controllers more or less standardized at this point? Left pad,Yes, up to a point. Some also add backbuttons in the grip. And then there are the ones with gyro.
right pad, fire buttons, shoulder buttons?
2026-06-22 14:23 from Nurb432You did.
I dont do games anymore ( well, other than perhaps opensim ) but i was
reading that 'steam deck' is priced over 1k now. Isn't the entire
point of steam to be 'cloud gaming'? Did i miss something?
The point of Steam is you buy licenses for games. Then you can download and install any game for which you have an active license. On paper it is like having your CD installers in the cloud rather than on a shelf. You need an actual computer in order to play, just the same way you needed it back in the day.
The Steam Deck is just a regular computer in a console-like form factor. Same as the Steam Machine, really, except the Steam Machine is more powerful and designed as a desktop or living room computer. They are autonomous computers as you would expect a regular one.
Ah ok, i thought it was targeted to 'cloud gaming' not 'cloud distribution'
Fri Jul 03 2026 13:00:49 EDT from darknetuser2026-06-22 14:23 from Nurb432You did.
I dont do games anymore ( well, other than perhaps opensim ) but i was
reading that 'steam deck' is priced over 1k now. Isn't the entire
point of steam to be 'cloud gaming'? Did i miss something?
The point of Steam is you buy licenses for games. Then you can download and install any game for which you have an active license. On paper it is like having your CD installers in the cloud rather than on a shelf. You need an actual computer in order to play, just the same way you needed it back in the day.
The Steam Deck is just a regular computer in a console-like form factor. Same as the Steam Machine, really, except the Steam Machine is more powerful and designed as a desktop or living room computer. They are autonomous computers as you would expect a regular one.
Right. The "cloud gaming" thing was supposed to be where the rendering was all done server-side and the rendered video was sent to your relatively cheap display as video. Predictably, it hasn't caught on because of this little thing called "latency."
It reminds me of the 1980s "laserdisc" games like Dragon's Lair or Space Ace. Same thing. Latency kills playability.
Back then, the bottleneck was the little mechanical servos, you had to wait for the laser to move to the next scene. Cloud gaming has the same problem but you're waiting for a fiber optic connection to some data center somewhere.
Not gonna work now anyway, since all the GPU's are getting sent to the big AI brain factories :)
Steam works pretty well, but mainly because Steam are cool people and not giga-assholes like Sony.
Steam works pretty well, but mainly because Steam are cool people andFun part is that is precisely the problem I have with the Steam business model. The moment you start buying games from them, you marry them. There is people with accounts loaded up with thousands of dollar in games. By the time you are so invested in a platform they own your hobby. Compare that to Gog, Itch.io or Zoom-Platform. There, you buy the game, you download the installer, you keep it. You don't depend on the goodwill of th store for your continuous enjoyment. With Gog you even get cloud installs if you want them. Steam works because goodwill does not seem to be faltering, but do you want to park 2k USD with a party that might change in the future?
not giga-assholes like Sony.
Not directly the same, but it reminds me of what Microsoft did with their mp3 player. "sorry, we killed the product, have a nice day". And what Amazon is now doing to their kindles.. "sorry you cant download anymore and we are killing off all the fully functional older devices that can..." Sure, amazon wont vanish overnight, and i don't see them dropping the product since it feeds ADs now ( part of why the are killing off the other ones, they even outright admitted it ) ..cant stop the flow of ADs! but still, its wrong.
its why i refuse to buy anything that is 100% digital, as in effect its a one time rental payment and you rely on them forever. Now, if i buy it and can get a copy, im ok with it. But, not unless i can hold it in my greedy little hands. ( even if its via 'alternative sources' as i paid for it dammit, i get to keep it )
Tue Jul 07 2026 07:26:46 EDT from darknetuserSteam works pretty well, but mainly because Steam are cool people andFun part is that is precisely the problem I have with the Steam business model. The moment you start buying games from them, you marry them. There is people with accounts loaded up with thousands of dollar in games. By the time you are so invested in a platform they own your hobby. Compare that to Gog, Itch.io or Zoom-Platform. There, you buy the game, you download the installer, you keep it. You don't depend on the goodwill of th store for your continuous enjoyment. With Gog you even get cloud installs if you want them. Steam works because goodwill does not seem to be faltering, but do you want to park 2k USD with a party that might change in the future?
not giga-assholes like Sony.
Steam works pretty well, but mainly because Steam are cool people andFun part is that is precisely the problem I have with the Steam business model. The moment you start buying games from them, you marry them.
not giga-assholes like Sony.
That's exactly what I mean. Steam still follows the undesirable model, but at least they're being decent about it. They don't bait and switch like Sony and Amazon do.
Defender and Battlezone. Heart Emoji.
Seriously. I have arcade machines that can play both. All the buttons. Battlezone is more difficult, because of the dual sticks with fire buttons on the sticks.
But they're classics. I bet you're a little bit older than me. Defender was HARD AF.
Stargate was worse.