Worth it 100% for me, I love mine. I didn’t think I would use it much, I honestly bought it initially to just support the project and help FOSS friendly hardware and software.

But once I started playing on it, I fell in love. I play lots of indie games and smaller studio games, like Brotato, Hollow Knight, Battle for Wesnoth, Core Keeper. I also installed RetroArch and play all of my favorite Game Boy games. I play Old School Runescape with my friend, some kart racing games, some fighting games.

I also have Jellyfin installed on there, so I use it docked to my TV as a box for streaming from my Jellyfin server to my TV for movie nights. Discord runs pretty well on it in the background, so it works well for group party games like Pummel Party with my friends. Also games like Table Top simulator to play DnD, and virtual board games.

Idk, it’s just a perfect device for me. Super moddable, repair friendly, FOSS friendly, powerful enough to play most games without issue, works with every kind of Bluetooth device I’ve tested it with, controllers, headphones, etc. And now that it’s been out for well over a year, all of the most severe and annoying bugs have been fixed, so the general experience is very smooth and stable.

Deck just went on sale for summer sale great time to get one. I love mine :)

It’s been really great for me with that exact use case. I want to play some more intensive games but would still like to hang around in the living room. My wife and I both have one, we can play games alone or together and also hang out on the couch and watch something.

I’ve barely used my desktop for gaming since I got the Steam Deck last May. It’s been great for playing on the go, or just sitting on the couch and gaming while my partner watches a show. Definitely recommend.

Yes it’s worth it, exactly for the reason you state. You can play it while also being in the same room with other people. Sure, not always being the best companion but when your spouse is watching a series you are still around.

I love my Steam Deck. I do a lot of gaming on my regular PC. But I appreciate my Deck when I’m on the go. It’s a great portable gaming device and all the games I’m interested in have worked fine.

What might be beneficial to know in your face, since you have your family and want to be close is the “suspend” feature. In the middle of a PC game, you can simple click the power button to Suspend the game and when you’re done, just turn it back on and you’ll be right where you left it.

100% yes. Have loved mine, and others I know have had similar experiences.

I can speak to exactly the issue you’re having, you’ve got a family hanging out, you don’t want to be all cooped in the office.

Get a steam deck dude. Do it. I work from home, my wife does too. We have an 8 year old. Not only do I get more gaming time in with my deck than I ever could previously, they’re both happier about it. I can suspend power and do whatever, etc, it isn’t an anchor at a desk.

And it can play the games. Keep in mind that steam themselves is very picky about their “this is great on the deck” blessing. There’s a ton of games they only say will run, and even more they say won’t run at all, that operate perfectly fine. More every month too, as Proton continues development.

You can also load all your GoG and Epic games easily, heroic launcher.

Seriously, get one. The mid or basic version is fine, sd cards are fine.

I love mine. I used it as a remote PC for 2 1.5 years on my skoolie bus conversion. If your work is compatible with linux and don’t need a lot of intense specs (or can cloud all the heavy labor), then you’ll be just fine. edit: sometimes time flies, sometimes it doesn’t lol. Corrected the time I’ve owned this awesome little device.

It’s actually so great. It isn’t the most powerful system but you can play most of the top games from the past decade at 60 fps and the more recent unoptimized games could potentially get a patch via proton to make them enjoyable before official updates (elden ring was an example of this).

The basic user can enjoy most of games that don’t suck on steam without any effort or issues. Couch and bed gaming friendly, fairly easy to pack with included carry case, decent battery life, and will work as a desktop in a pinch with a usbc dock/hub.

With willingness to use the Linux desktop mode you can do a bunch of extra stuff:

protonup via built in app store (discover) to get proton-ge for largely increased game compatibility and performance, ymmv by game. It also has steam tinker launcher which enables much more tweaking to the benefit of modding and cheat/trainers among other things. (As a working adult I totally support cheats in single player games since ain’t nobody got time for grinding)

cryotools for more performance improvements

heroic, lutris, bottles, probably others. stores other than steam, games not from stores, programs that aren’t even games, etc.

emudeck for basically every emulator mostly preconfigured. BYOB, that means bring your own baby bios. Yuzu pineapple etc will require further intervention.

steam deck refresh rate unlock for what it says. under and overclock. mine flickers at 30fps/30hz but my brother’s doesn’t. 70fps/70hz works for me too on games the system has enough power for.

steamos btrfs for more game storage via compression. I recommend only on the microsd. The odd game that has mods that mysteriously bug out usually works by making the correctly located and named folder for it on the ext4 system drive and toggling case folding before installing normally (can only toggle empty folders). I actually just delete and redownload because I have a steam cache server. btrfs doesn’t have case folding.

If you aren’t scared of opening it up, or drive reimaging, and can get an authentic and reasonably priced 2230 nvme, I recommend getting the base model and putting in the larger nvme. Just slide the wrapper off the old one and put it on the new one. Also get the gulikit hall effect sticks off AliExpress. It’s basically necessary for jank ass minigame inputs like FF7R darts… They just released the new version that supports both stick types. My brother has the 512 and the screen difference is negligible, and nonexistent if you put a tempered glass screen protector which I can see no reason not to do.

tl;dr: great as is, so much extra great stuff if you are a Linux nut or willing to follow guides.

Absolutely. That’s the exact reason I got mine. After a couple of days, my wife started wanting to play some. Now, she has her own deck, and we play LAN coop and LAN PvP games as well as remote play together. It’s awesome!

Well you probably won’t interact while gaming anyways. Little billy won’t get attention when you’re on a dark souls boss.

@Johnpwrinkle Well worth it. It can handle quite a bit locally, and can stream from steam on your main pc (or be set up to several cloud services).

Yes. I use mine on my living room couch about 90% of the time it’s ever used. It owns.

My Steam Deck experience has been very positive, it’s a great way to play games away from the desk. For me the controls are great, and game compatibility continues to surprise me.

I would say the only problem with the Deck is the size - it’s big. When I got mine it seemed a lot bigger than I realised, and that was after watching/reading a lot of reviews. Depending on your hands the size might be an issue. If you know anyone else with a Steam Deck I would recommend trying it out for size before buying.