The ProtonDB Decky plugin is so much more useful than the Steam Verified one.

What if you include the switch games it can play? Hehehe

Nope.

Given that compatibility improvements can essentially only be expected from Ryujinx now though, does Ryujinx run as well as Yuzu on the Deck? Ideally I'd like to switch to it entirely unless a viable Yuzu successor emerges, but I've heard that it's not as resource efficient in comparison.

It has some value as a comparison, some people might be worried about buying a deck because they've heard that some games don't work on it because of linux. But no one would think the Switch is lacking in games.

Given that most game developer don't even target the Steam Deck, it's quite impressive. The Switch and Deck have a lot of junk games too. And both are handhelds, capable of docking to the tv/monitor. While both systems are vastly different, they have lot of in common and people might buy only one of the systems. Therefore comparisons fair or not, are still comparisons people make and decide.

They just talk about Steam games that were verified by Valve's process. So yeah, as you said, it's much larger for people who are willing to do a tiny bit of tinkering 👍

Valve actually does a lot to make discovery easier, compared to Nintendo:

• Personalized recommended system based on played games: Interactive Recommender
• A dedicated explore list you can go through: Discovery Queue
• The numerous festivals: Steam Next Fest
• Listings for genres and other categories, examples: Action, Great on Deck, Local Multiplayer & Party
• A system where you can follow certain curators and games get recommended based on them: Steam Curators

You really can't say Valve wouldn't do a lot to help with discovery.

I'll check those out. I've been doing the "steam discovery queue" for awhile now though, and it feels like if you do it enough you won't ever miss anything of interest. I think it can work pretty well for game discovery, you just need to invest some time in it every day to get through all the more "common" recommendations.

A tremendous amount of bloatware and ports of iOS games.

According to this website, there are about 11k switch games. There are some duplicates on that list though, games which have multiple "editions" will have an entry under each version. For example, Xenoblade Chronicles DE is listed 4 times to cover different regional collectors editions.

Yeah, even the "playable" tag i have to check what they mean by that. Psychonauts 1 and 2 are "playable" but both need you to manually pull up the keyboard and show xbox controls... Like okay? That's all? They play perfectly.

I also downloaded an indie game "tonight we riot" and its not even tested. Want to geuss how well it plays? Spoiler, perfectly fine.

I'm genuinely greatful for steam personally pushing for more games to work well in linux even if the game needs a compatibility layer like Wine or proton.