Steam Machine’s game verification process should be easier than the Steam Deck, Valve says
If it works on Deck, it’ll work on the Machine
🤝 Valve is aiming to make life easier for game devs with the certification process for its upcoming Steam Machine
🥳 According to Valve’s designers, if a game is already verified for Steam Deck, it’ll work for Steam Machine
👍 The verified badge for games has become a key marketing tool for lots of devs as they seek to capitalize on the coveted status
✌️ It’s an example of Valve’s “it just works” philosophy that’s also present for its upcoming Steam Controller
Valve is aiming to make the game certification and verification process for its upcoming Steam Machine a little easier for developers.
According to a new interview with Game Developer, Valve designer Lawrence Yang has said that developers hoping for a Steam Machine “verified” badge on their games can expect “fewer constraints” than with the current process for Steam Deck.
They also stated that if a game is certified for Steam Deck, then it should be automatically verified for Steam Machine, making life a lot easier for developers porting existing titles over.
As for VR devs with Steam Frame, it may entail a different process, according to Yang. Here, Valve will be “going through the same rounds of testing and providing developer feedback”, as it does with other verification programs.
The Steam Deck “verified” badge has already become more than a marker of quality for games, as it has turned into a powerful marketing tool for developers.
Moreover, having a “verified” badge means a game is more likely to appear in the “Great on Deck” subsection of the Steam store, potentially driving more traffic to it.
In the Game Developer interview, Valve didn’t provide any other technical details for how games can earn the equivalent “verified” status for Steam Machine, although they did discuss the Steam Controller Puck pairing system.
The Steam Controller Puck is designed to charge and pair a Steam Controller to any PC it’s plugged into, and marks a different method of connectivity to the more traditional Bluetooth or USB-C.
The hardware is designed to effectively deal with the variation in different people’s setups and the potential for a clogged network, interference and unwanted latency, according to Valve’s engineers.
The Steam Controller Puck is also designed with Valve’s philosophy of “it just works”, in the same vein as Steam Deck “verified” games and such. Valve has focused so much on ease of use and plug-and-play reliability with its hardware that is a big appeal for consumers, and it looks as if the Steam Machine and such will be the same.
Up next: Steam Machine price: what can we realistically expect to pay for Valve’s mini PC?
Reece Bithrey is a journalist with bylines for Trusted Reviews, Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED, and graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in International History and Politics in 2023.