I also have a great gaming PC so I do most of my major AAA gaming on that. People will talk about how great games like Elden Ring, RE4, or even Cyberpunk run on the deck but the experience is so degraded on the mobile platform that I’d rather play other games on Deck.

Things like Emulation, JRPGS, Platformers, Indie games fucking excel on the deck. The experience playing them there is so much better when being able to take it and go places.

If you are only interested in playing major AAA games or shooters, probably not worth it

I bought it to play in hotels while travelling for work, but what I most use it for is playing games while sitting on the sofa.

There had always been this separation between PC gaming and handheld/console gaming. With the Deck that separation goes away. The things I would normally go upstairs to play on a PC on my own are now things I can play anywhere.

It works well with almost any game, but it works particularly well with games with control systems designed for gamepads. A great use case are the former Playstation exclusives ported to PC - Spiderman, God of War etc.

I’ve got a big library, and most of it works great on Deck. I can also stream via my desktop (also running Linux) and play without a second install. In fact, I recently discovered this works with my PS4 Pro as well, via RemotePlay.

EmuDeck is the best integrated emulation experience I’ve tried. It’s mostly RetroArch, but with very easy setup.

Trackpads. I can play strategy games with no controller support very comfortably in bed.

The list goes on. It’s a great device.

My elbows and wrists have been savaged by decades of mouse and keyboard use at work. The only way I can play video games now is with a controller. So Steam Deck has given me access back to most of library. It was expensive but so worth it to game again.

I like to play it in bed before sleeping, or lay on the couch and play either on the deck itself, or docked on the TV. The main reason I wasn’t using a lot of consoles was more just having to purchase games twice / lack of cross platform cloud saves. The deck made that way better.

Play it on the couch sitting next to my wife while we watch tv or movies in the evenings.

Spending nights sitting at a desktop (or monopolizing the TV) is frequently impractical and honestly unappealing to me, the SD makes it extremely convenient to play whenever.

The other big appeal is emulation- it wasn’t why I purchased one, but setting up Emudeck and Steam Rom Manager is incredibly convenient and lets you easily run anything up to WiiU/PS3 gen seamlessly from game mode. For that alone I would recommend it, the ease of access and convenience is amazing.

For me, it’s been useful to get in some gaming time while still being around my family/kids. I have a gaming PC too, but it’s in my office which is kind of cut off from the main living areas of our house. The SD allows me to play and still easily pause to do whatever for my kids or talk to my wife, etc. The sleep/wake is *chef’s kiss.

My other use case is emulation. It’s really good at it, and even passable at emulating the Switch. Though the sleep/wake doesn’t work with those, it’s a trade off.

I use mine when I travel for work. Great for being bored in the hotel and procrastinating actual work I should be doing

I’ve been into Linux since 2006 and Linux gaming for almost just as long. When Valve announced a handheld PC with a Linux OS that actually has a ton of game support it was a day one preorder for me. I’m super happy with it. It’s such a polished experience with SteamOS that it’s become the main way I play games anymore. It has the benefits of a handheld console and the openness of a Linux PC. It’s by far the best gaming purchase I’ve ever made. I picked up a ROG Ally as well to attempt to run Linux on it but the out of box experience is garbage compared to the Deck. Windows is a terrible handheld OS and Armoury Crate is a terrible user interface. The performance is better, yet everything else leaves much to be desired while the Deck is an all-around solid and refined experience.

You just have to be willing to say no to games that don’t want to support Linux, but that’s easy having run Linux on my desktop for years.

I have a 1.5 hour commute in total each day to work, so that entire time can be spent gaming. I really like my bed, or the couch, or just in general different settings especially for the cozier games I prefer.

I game a lot so spending dozens of hours a week at the same desk and chair doesn’t work very well for me. The option to play handheld or use my dock to move from my bed to my living room tv seamless is very welcome. Even once at a family gathering I brought it for us all to play Jackbox and it was a blast.

I play a lot of cozy games, ones that deserve to be played huddled up in a blanket on a couch, and I find them all the more enjoyable on Steam Deck than my Desktop.

Couch pc gaming. I also play it while sitting in bed a fair amount.

Sometimes it just works better to be laying on the couch playing as opposed to sitting in a chair

It’s definitely best as a companion to a full gaming pc. You get to play games when you are travelling, staying over somewhere else, or just want to hang out on the couch whith your partner while they watch something on TV. The suspend-resume feature is also amazing.

It can do a lot, I love it for what it is but it also has limitations. Games are just better on a larger, higher refresh screen if you have the option (I’m particularly picky about tight fov settings). Also some games are just easier with keyboard and mouse. Slower, more casual games you can fully enjoy on the steam deck.

So the pc is not going away but the sd is a great accessory in a sense.

I’ve got a powerful desktop computer, but I also have a 6 year old daughter and very little personal time. Grabbing the deck and playing alongside / with (for instance, both of us playing Minecraft, me on the deck, her on the PS5; or her playing on the PS5 while I play separately on the Deck) is a big thing. Also I have been emulating a lot, as she’s stolen my switch so I can play on that. It’s nice to be able to whack headphones in and game for 10 or 20 minutes in bed before sleep… Honestly, it broke and had to be RMA’d, and I missed it so much because the ‘instant on’ play for a few minutes is just so addictive…

I use it for emulation, (up to PS3 / Switch level works perfectly with a beta 3.5 OS with the SMT fixes), AAA gaming (Hogwarts legacy worked perfectly for the screen size at medium), old games, indie games, GamePass streaming, PS5 streaming…

It was a birthday present that I thought I’d use a reasonable amount. However, it’s almost taken over my gaming time because even if I want to run something too powerful for the deck, I often don’t want to sit infront of my home office PC (As I spend all day there working) and I can just stream from the PC using SteamLink / Sunlight:Moonlight… It’s basically only when I want to play at full-screen 4K and have a few hours to myself I bother to game on the PC.

Playing PS2, PS3, Dreamcast, and GameCube games that the Retroids can’t handle. It’s amazing how almost everything runs well. other things I’ve bought things would be hit or miss, but this is the most consistent device I’ve seen so far.