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It seems developers/publishers can prohibit games to run on Steam Deck

Chairmanchuck (另一个我)

Chairmanchuck (另一个我)

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Oct 25, 2017
9,135
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One of the first games that seems to use that toggle is Demons Gaze.

The title is a bit misleading, because obviously you can play it if you copy all the files in there, then add the game as a non-Steam game and play it. It just cant be played via Steam officially, so when you download the game either via Steam Deck and even via Steam on the Proton Desktop, it will have 0 bytes from what I understood.
 
Gavalanche

Gavalanche

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Oct 21, 2021
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Yeah Bungie did as well with Destiny 2 I believe (I am not sure if they have reversed that decision)? They even said if you circumvent it in anyway they will ban you.
 
XaosWolf

XaosWolf

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Oct 27, 2017
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Utter nonsense. The only company that should be against a game coming to Steam Deck are Nintendo.
 
Dyle

Dyle

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The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
30,030
It would be weird if they didn't give them the option to do that since many games will not work properly on it without some substantial extra work.
 
Älg

Älg

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May 13, 2018
3,178
Seems like a nifty feature if the developer knows for a fact that the game won't work on Steam Deck. Although in this case the game does seem to work? In that case I can't see any reason for why you would block it.
 
cyress8

cyress8

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Oct 25, 2017
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being broke, to being semi-broke.
Nope, going to just avoid a dev that do this. Next step is to block it altogether like Bungie.

They already fucked up Geforce Now because of that shit, but now they are messing with my money and how I want to play a game with hardware I bought.
 
ResetEraIsTheBestEra

ResetEraIsTheBestEra

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Oct 28, 2017
4,589
lol

why im not surprised is JPN game doing it, on the same note, are we sure they arent contractually obligated to nintendo for any form of portable version?
 
Seda

Seda

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Oct 25, 2017
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In this case I kinda wonder if Clouded Leopard even realized they did this.
 
AshenOne

AshenOne

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Feb 21, 2018
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Knurek said:
Valve has nothing to do with this, it's all on the devs either incompetence or malice.
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A Dev will take advantage of it if they can. Valve providing such an option that mostly results in the end user not being able to 'download games to their steam deck' is in itself a bad option for the customer.

Why provide it in the first place? Do you really believe certain devs will not negatively take advantage of such an option? This option has more or less no use being there as it is right now. It should be at least given 'per request' from valve to the dev after checking out the circumstances.
 
Sho_Nuff82

Sho_Nuff82

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Nov 14, 2017
18,479
Is there a stated developer/publisher reason why they would want to restrict games being played on a handheld vs desktop? Want to discourage people going offline for even a second?
 
Kain-Nosgoth

Kain-Nosgoth

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Oct 25, 2017
15,660
Switzerland
my guess is some games might not run well on steamdecks so dev would stop people from playing it there to avoid getting bad press about bad performances or bugs?
 
Cien

Cien

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Oct 25, 2017
2,544
Unfortunate. Hopefully this is an edge case and not a trend as developers just don't want to deal with the potential headaches of supporting SteamOS.
 
LewieP

LewieP

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Oct 26, 2017
18,139
Curious to what extent users might be able to configure the (open source) operating system to ignore this setting.
 
Knurek

Knurek

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Oct 26, 2017
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AshenOne said:
A Dev will take advantage of it if they can. Valve providing such an option that mostly results in the end user not being able to 'download games to their steam deck' is in itself a bad option for the customer.

Why provide it in the first place? Do you really believe certain devs will not negatively take advantage of such an option? This option has more or less no use being there as it is right now. It should be at least given 'per request' from valve to the dev after checking out the circumstances.
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It's not an option Valve provides, that's the thing.
It's just a dev misconfiguring things in the backend, either by incompetence or malice.
Same way Square Enix managed to release games without any executables.
I brought it up to Valve's attention because they either need to notify (or teach) the dev how to fix it or add some checks to the backend.
 
AshenOne

AshenOne

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Feb 21, 2018
6,176
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Knurek said:
It's not an option Valve provides, that's the thing.
It's just a dev misconfiguring things in the backend.
Same way Square Enix managed to release games without any executables.
I brought it up to Valve's attention because they either need to notify (or teach) the dev how to fix it or add some checks to the backend.
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Oh.
Alright thats not on Valve then indeed. Hopefully they figure out the issues asap and fix it.
 
EvilBoris

EvilBoris

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Oct 29, 2017
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2 things I suppose

There is an expectation to support it and there is no resource for it (what if the dev doesn't have a unit?)
Perhaps the game doesn't work?
 
Sho_Nuff82

Sho_Nuff82

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Nov 14, 2017
18,479
If it's an unspoken deal for handheld exclusivity I could see it, though I don't know why Nintendo would be pushing for such deals with no competition until recently.

If the dev did it out of Japanese solidarity (like we see with some of the Xbox exclusion) that's just absurd in 2022.

Kain-Nosgoth said:
my guess is some games might not run well on steamdecks so dev would stop people from playing it there to avoid getting bad press about bad performances or bugs?
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But that doesn't make sense as most PC gamers are playing on mid-range cards from 2016.
 
Knurek

Knurek

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Oct 26, 2017
4,339
EvilBoris said:
2 things I suppose

There is an expectation to support it and there is no resource for it (what if the dev doesn't have a unit?)
Perhaps the game doesn't work?
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Read the tweet, it works fine if you download through desktop and copy files.
The game isn't blocked from running on Deck its just misconfigured so you can't download it there.
 
Afrikan

Afrikan

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Oct 28, 2017
17,046
Maybe they are developing dedicated versions for the system to better represent their game... just so they don't get a bunch of canceled purchases.
 
FinFunnels

FinFunnels

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Oct 27, 2017
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They know you PC gaming degenerates will mod hentai into this game and then play it on the train with your steam decks



Joking... As if Kadokawa would be against that lol
 
freshVeggie

freshVeggie

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Oct 25, 2017
272
Can only think of anti-cheat concerns tbh. Pubs going the safe route of disabling it all together instead of dealing with unforeseen consequences.
 
riotous

riotous

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Oct 25, 2017
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There are reasons a game won't work on Deck (big one being anti-cheat not compatible with proton), and then there would be a good reason for a developer to block there game as they don't want bad user experiences.

But this is also obviously going to be used for some weird reasons that aren't clear.
 
riotous

riotous

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Oct 25, 2017
11,377
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Gavalanche said:
Yeah Bungie did as well with Destiny 2 I believe (I am not sure if they have reversed that decision)? They even said if you circumvent it in anyway they will ban you.
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To be clear that's just because the game thinks you are trying to kill off the anti-cheat, since it doesn't work on Proton.

I doubt it's immediate; it's just not a good idea to push the limits of an anti-cheat system.
 
Tobor

Tobor

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Oct 25, 2017
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Richmond, VA
There are going to be a half million+ Steam Decks out in customers hands by this Summer. If these developers want to fuck around and cut off a potential market, they are fools.
 
LewieP

LewieP

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Oct 26, 2017
18,139
riotous said:
There are reasons a game won't work on Deck (big one being anti-cheat not compatible with proton), and then there would be a good reason for a developer to block there game as they don't want bad user experiences.

But this is also obviously going to be used for some weird reasons that aren't clear.
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Perhaps worth noting that this does not appear to prevent a game being installed on Linux via Proton, just specifically on Deck.
 
riotous

riotous

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Oct 25, 2017
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LewieP said:
Perhaps worth noting that this does not appear to prevent a game being installed on Linux via Proton, just specifically on Deck.
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Sure; that's just Steam's lack of DRM though. Nobody has any way to block a game copied in from launching, so the dev can't stop a user from doing that. Perhaps Valve will "fix" that loophole somehow.

They can block in the UI, which is not a bad thing in all cases.

For Destiny 2 for instance; if someone were to install D2 and the anti-cheat screws up they can be banned. Bungie obviously doesn't want everyone buying a Deck to accidentally do that so they blocked it and released a statement why. They can't stop a user from messing up completely but the lack of direct install option helps stop some unwanted bans.

Then there are games doing it for shittier reasons.

edit: To be clear a game could "detect" it's run on Deck anyways, and just stop itself from running once booted. They just can't stop the files from being copied in.
 
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Fadewise

Fadewise

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Nov 5, 2017
3,210
Knurek said:
It's not an option Valve provides, that's the thing.
It's just a dev misconfiguring things in the backend, either by incompetence or malice.
Same way Square Enix managed to release games without any executables.
I brought it up to Valve's attention because they either need to notify (or teach) the dev how to fix it or add some checks to the backend.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That doesn't make any sense though. if it's even an option in the backend then that's a Valve problem; regardless of whether or not a dev misconfigures it, it raises the question of WHY it's even an option.
 
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