[Discussion] Should this community also cover the Steam Machine and/or Steam Frame?

dude...

And hammock film watching ... I wanna try

I'm also cautiously enthusiastic. I'm curious about the gaming experience, but i'm especially interested in a desktop experience, having as many virtual screens as i like. I'd be very curious to see how that works in day to day.

Excuse me, did you just blatantly ignore the possibility of 'Steamware'??

I think that there is a somewhat decent chance that there will be an ARM Steam Deck Mini at some point.

Damn. I hope so. I play many indie retro style games, and my favorites are all on my Steam account. I would get so much use out of a truly pocket device with good retro controls and my Steam account signed in.

Edit: Alternately, somebody needs to release a dedicated pocket device with "Donut Dodo" pre-installed, and we can call it good enough for an few months.

But the Gabe Companion Cube..

All hail the Gabecube.

gabeware

FTFY

Yeah, community being split up might just lead to inactivity for certain hardware if it isn't popular enough. There's enough overlap with SteamOS that I think being all in one is the best route. Maybe if lemmy gets way more users in the future then splitting up discussion to dedicated hardware communities might be an option, but for now better to be one.

Instead

I did not use this word

You've convinced me! Instead of a general gaming community where people post about games on more then one platform we should have separate communities for the Sega Saturn, Playstation, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, Nintendo, SuperNintendo, GameBoy, GameboyColor, NintendoDS...

Or maybe the name not being perfect is ok since it was started before other stem devices existed? Pretty sure the display name can be changed even if the community address doesn't.

No, it makes sense if the content of the community doesn't fit the **name** of the community. There should be places where people can go to learn more about a specific product without having to sift through a waterfall of irrelevant information.

Spreading converstion to many different communities only makes sense if one community is oversaturated with content.

I meant as a new complimentary community not a replacement!

As a replacement for this community or the proposed expansion, I am against. Either the Steam hardware side would be eclipsed, or the other devices would. Also, I interpret that such a Linux handhelds community could include Linux phones, which would stray even further from the original Steam Deck proposal from here.

Now, as a new community, I wouldn't be against.

This is where my opinion currently lies. On one hand, the fediverse (and this community) is so small that having discussion for the whole Steam hardware ecosystem in one place makes sense. On the other hand, the name of this community is "Steam Deck". The point of this community should be discussion about the Steam Deck. I wouldn't want people posting unrelated news and help requests here.

I _think_ the only way to change the name of the community is by setting a display name, but I do not think that would be sufficient for this purpose. I think the best route of action would be to create a new community called /c/SteamHardware or something. Or just use one of the multiple existing /c/Steam communities.

User numbers are still far too low for this to be a practical positive imo.

The problem can also be a positive, so that communities for more specific niches can be created, or to have alternatives for already existing ones with different management philosophies.

Agreed, the fediverse is small enough now that living aggregate communities are preferable to dead specific ones. Especially because everyone hates posting something, getting their post removed and being told to go post in another very similar community they didn't know existed. As you said, if it becomes a problem you can just spin off

Fragmented communities is such an annoying problem in the fediverse.

I can definitely get that for Steam Frame, but I feel like docked Steam Deck and Steam Machine are basically the same experience, just with different performance levels.

I'd say yes. If the volume becomes overwhelming new communities can easily be created.

Personally, I like the idea of becoming more of a "Steam Hardwares" community, as them being all kinda niche but close in scope, they shouldn't conflict with each other nor turn the community into a too generalist one.

I'd love to see them included, honestly. it seems they're all part of the same family.

Absolutely. I would rather have one great community instead of 3 hyper specific communities. It just needs to have flags like [steamdeck] [ steammachine] [steamframe]

Or even shorthand sd, sm, sf.

Yes.

We are the niche of a niche. We need more content, as long as it's relevant.

I am completely fine with having this community for steam hardware. I don't think it would be beneficial to have 10 smaller communities instead of one big. Lemmy is not a huge platform at the moment

Yes. Anything to grow communities. The fediverse is not in the restrictive limiting of communities time in its evolution. The fediverse is in the we need more numbers phase. You need a lot more people to be worried about this kind of thing. Right now you just need more people making more post and making more comments.

Yes. We don't need even more fragmentation on the fediverse.

Yes; it makes no sense to have multiple communities when the Steam Machine and Steam Frame are so similar to the Steam Deck. It may be that in the future it makes sense to split out topics if their isn't overlap, but I'd say the community isn't flooded with content and there is a lot of overlap between these topics that will benefit everyone.

yes

Definitely yes, they all run Steam OS and all 3 device are very interchangeable in what they offer. Plus there's not that much people to properly support 3 different communities.

Yes, Assuming that renaming a community without creating a new one isn't possible.

The best way would be to just rename to "steamhardware", but losing everyone in the process is certainly not worth the rename for clarity.

I like the idea of having a single place where Valve's hardware can be discussed, but the current name will make discoverability of such a community difficult. If the name cannot be changed, then I'd rec just leaving this one for only steam decks.

I think a name change would have to match. Steam hardware seems pretty straight forward to me.

I wouldn't be opposed. New community name could be SteamHardware. They share an OS and ecosystem and people interested in one would likely be interested in the others.

I think that there is a somewhat decent chance that there will be an ARM Steam Deck Mini at some point. The Steam Client will probably be released for ARM distributions. I think for the foreseeable future there will be a considerable overlap of topics between thee devices.

I think should there be a flood of posts regarding hardware tinkering of the other devices (people sharing faceplate STLs for Machine or addons for the Frame's expansion port), they could be directed to dedicated communities but for now IMO it's fine to be inclusive.

Yes.

Machine and Deck run on the same OS anyway. they are the same minus the hardware differences.

Feels like the more accurate name moving forward would be "SteamOS Hardware".

I vote yes, and change the name so it isn't just deck

Yes, it makes sense to expand the community to be steam devices as a whole.

Community displayed name should probably change to Steam Devices or something like that.

Yes, altho I wouldve liked the name of this community to then changed to steam hardware (I dont know if thats even possible) but it works like this too...

Since they're all designed to work together as a trio, surely it makes sense to include them all? And it's not a forever decision, they can always branch off later if it becomes clear enough people are interested in one or the other to support their own communities.

Yes. If this were a more heavily trafficked sub I'd consider separating out the Frame and GabeCube. But it's not.

i feel like most steam deck and steam machines discussions will have so much overlap, that it won't matter.

Steam Frame might be more specialised and a dedicated community could be helpful, but i doubt it will produce thaaat much noise and a seperate community might be pretty barren, just because VR is afterall still very niche.

tl;dr: dont see why we should split communities, if something is specific to frame/machine/deck we can specify that in a posts title.

I'd appreciate one place to discuss the whole steam hardware ecosystem, so yes.

I don't think so. Because they are different systems with different goals and different needs. If the community was named "Steam OS", then it would make sense. But this community is not about the operating system, but the device itself.

I can't wait for the steam frame. I own a second hand meta quest 2 but never installed the software on PC and I never bought a gape on it since it is facebook.

But a Linux VR headset, that amazing !

Is... is it even possible to rename a community?

Valve Ecosystem Nerds?

Or do you just have to make a new one, and tell everyone to migrate?

Anyway, yes, I think that untill or unless it becomes truly problematic in some way, yeah, this basically already is a comm of general Valve/Steam related both hardware and software nerd#, why be too picky?

If a flood or trickle of noobies ever show up, easier for them to ask questions and get news in one place.

But I also do see a potential problem of people having no idea this comm would cover more than just the Deck, not finding it in searches.

... Not sure what to do about that?

EDIT

Aha!

New comm name: Steam Dorks.

Yep.

Nailed it.

I think yes since biggest steam deck discord has channels for other steam hardware

No, I think they should have their own communities, and someone should add a **steam hardware** community, for those interested in all of it, as well as the _general_ trajectory of Steam hardware and ecosystem (if you can call it that).

Yes I think so, though I think a seperate **Linux Handhelds** community would be cool to provide an encompassing place for devices like the Steam Deck/other types of linux handhelds.

I’d suggest a separate community for each hardware variant and a Steam OS community acting as a broader hardware indifferent Steam gaming community (which I believe exists already)

this is just a forwardlooking estimation that it will be easier for moderation.

I don't know why you would, except in relation to how they work with the steam deck.

Steam Frame is optionally just a Steam Deck with 'up to' a 4k screen that you don't have to look down at or hold up to your face. It can also be used for VR stuff, but otherwise it's just a better Steam Deck.

It's how I use my Quest 3 already 75% of the time, so it'll be nice to have a headset that had that use case in mind during It's design. And also one where I don't have to give meta money anymore.

Sure! The only thing I'm worried about taking over the community is the Steam Frame. There's a chance it becomes super popular. But if that happens, we can just make a new community for it. No biggie.

Of course. Valve hardware is awesome and we need a place to talk about it.

One more yes from me. All hail Gaben

Maybe make another community so that people who don’t own the other devices can just subscribe to this one and not be bothered by desktop linux gaming and VR ?