The Steam Deck gets an award. Valve boss Gabe Newell takes this as an opportunity to explain how great the computer is. Because it was only because of the PC that a device like the Steam Deck could come about.
On November 22nd, the 40th award of the Golden Joystick took place. Games, developers and people are honored here every year. If you will, it is the “Oscar” for video games, along with “The Video Game Awards”.
This year, Valve’s Steam Deck took home the Best Hardware award. Gabe Newell, the head of Valve, accepted the award personally. He took this as an opportunity to explain why he thinks the PC is so good.
MeinMMO editor Benedikt Schlotmann took a look at how MMORPGs play on the Steam Deck for you:
I played 2 MMORPGs on the Steam Deck for you guys and was surprised
The openness of the PC cannot be found on any other platform
What exactly is he saying? In his acceptance speech for the “Golden Joystick,” Newell explained that there was a reason the Steam Deck was awarded. So he said:
On behalf of everyone at Valve, I would like to thank Steam Deck for winning the Golden Joystick for Best Gaming Hardware. In my PC I have an AMD CPU, an Nvidia GPU, the PC itself is from Falcon Northwest, I have a Corsair mouse, a Logitech keyboard, a Samsung monitor. (…)
And it’s this interoperability, this compatibility, this openness that makes products like the Steam Deck possible.
What does that mean? According to the Steam boss, the advantage of the gaming PC is that you can connect everything to your device: It doesn’t matter what hardware it is or what manufacturer it is made by.
As a PC player, you are completely free as to which hardware you want to use. And this openness is the advantage of the gaming PC. If you play on a console like the PS5, the Xbox or on a switch, you know that the restrictions are much greater here.
But openness can also cause problems. Because this freedom also causes fear of cheaters among console players, so that they often switch off crossplay to have peace from the PC players.
Without the gaming community, gaming would not develop
What else does he say? In his acceptance speech, Newell also explained that the gaming community in particular played a large part in the development.
Here he referred to Final Fantasy XIV director Naoki Yoshida, who accepted the Golden Joystick for his game in 2021. So he said:
But most of all, I was impressed listening to Yoshi P. give his acceptance speech last year where he put the focus on the community and I really want to repeat that. If it weren’t possible, if we didn’t have the gaming community behind us that drives the entire industry, products like Steam Deck wouldn’t be possible. Therefore, I would like to accept this award on behalf of the gaming community.
Gabe Newell accepts the prize.
By the way, a new video full of insider gags shows Gabe Newell going about his daily work. The video is humorous and definitely worth a look, even if you’re not interested in the game DOTA 2:
Steam: New video shows the most powerful man in gaming in all his tyrannical glory