It’s that time of year again. The baubles are on the tree. The stockings are above the fireplace (or, if you don’t have a fireplace, hanging on a door handle). Every company you’ve ever bought something from is sending you your annual ‘wrapped’ list.
Spotify told me I listened to over 80,000 minutes of music, and I was in the top 0.1 percent of Bill Ryder-Jones fans. Sainsbury’s supermarket told me I bought a lot of houmous. My bank even did one, suggesting I cut down on the eye-watering expenditure known as ‘rent’. Thanks, I’ll see what my landlord reckons.
Steam has also jumped in on the act, and mostly told me what I already knew. Steam Replay told me I played a lot of Apex Legends. Too much, some might say. I played a bunch of games for review. I played 43 demos, a number I think I can pump up to one a week next year. But the most surprising factoid Steam beamed into my eyeballs was how little I played my Steam Deck.
My Complicated Past With The Steam Deck
It took me a long time to warm up to the Steam Deck. To put it simply, I just didn’t have the time to tinker with it in order to unleash its full potential. Once I’d sorted those initial issues, connected up my Game Pass subscription and Epic Games Store account, I was free. The Steam Deck changed from an awkward brick to a fantastic machine. It just shows that this is a console that you need to pour time and effort into in order to make the most of.
However, after my usage skyrocketed post-initial disappointment, it has fallen again this year. Steam Replay showed that I played just 15 percent of games on my Steam Deck, which seems bafflingly low.
There are some good reasons for this, though. I played most of my games on my Xbox this year, as I am wanton to do with expansive RPGs. What I did play on Steam was a lot of Apex Legends. Respawn’s battle royale is not a Steam Deck game. Even if the game’s anticheat was compatible with the handheld, I wouldn’t touch the game on this system. I need all my frames, all my peripheral vision, and my trusty keyboard and mouse. I use my Steam Deck like a Switch – I rarely connect a keyboard, mouse, or monitor and instead opt for the joysticks.
With Apex taking up 63 percent of my playtime, it’s no surprise that my desktop playtime is so high. However, there are more reasons than just that.
Reviews, Previews, And Demos
I work at my desk. Obviously. I also play games at my desk. Also obviously. If I’m playing Apex, it’ll be in an evening or a quick match on my lunch break. But if I’m reviewing a game or checking out some Steam Next Fest demos, I sometimes play during work hours in addition to my personal time.
Why would I use my Steam Deck for this if I’m already at my desk? The Steam Deck is for sitting on the sofa, it’s for sitting on the train, it’s for sitting on the loo. It’s also far easier to grab screenshots on my desktop, with them automatically saved to my hard drive rather than having to upload them to the cloud via the Steam Deck. When reviewing games, that’s vitally important to managing my time effectively.
It’s not like I played much of my Switch, either. I reviewed Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, played through The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and that’s about it.
Still, neither of these are excuses for why I didn’t play my Steam Deck much this year. I could have taken it on holiday, I could have chilled with it on the sofa. I had plenty of opportunity to use it.
New Year, New Me
Next year, I am going to focus on playing my Steam Deck more. I’ve got some travel booked, so it’s already packed in my bags. It’s an indie game machine, which fits me perfectly. So, in 2025, I pledge to bring that percentage up. 15 percent can easily become 25 or, if I try hard enough, as much as 50. I’m not going to set a numerical target of anything more than 16 percent, but I just want to play my Deck more often.
As I write this, though, I am compelled to do something. Something I’ve done countless times this year. I want to play another round of Balatro. I want to unlock another jonkler. I want to see the numbers go up. But I instinctively reach for my phone instead of my Steam Deck. Balatro feels so much better on my phone, and I think I’d have doubled my Steam Deck hours if it had never been ported to mobile.
Maybe the answer to playing my Steam Deck more is deleting Balatro from my phone. But I could never do that. I can’t push the button. Jimbo has a hold over me. I cannot escape. He’s the reason I didn’t play my Steam Deck so much this year. It’s not my fault after all.
5:06
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