Steam Deck is shipped to China and Russia? Since when?
The article is only tracking installs of Aperture Desk Job:
GameDiscoverCo also broke down Aperture Desk Job owners by country, using data from Steam public profiles, to see the regions with the most possible Steam Deck users. The US accounts for 26% of the total, followed by China (6.7%), Russia (5.9%), the UK (5.5%), Germany (4.7%), Canada (4.2%), Brazil (3.1%), Poland (3.0%), Turkey (2.5%), and France (2.4%).
Lol, fools them, I played Aperture Desk Job on my Asus ROG Ally.
Rich people in those countries pay premiums to import whatever they want.
I bought it with mail forward Biggest headache was to pay, but Bitcoins helped
I wonder what proportion of Steam Decks in Russia are being used for controlling combat drones. Apparently, the Ukrainian armed forces have found the Deck to be a very suitable drone controller.
You know there are normal people in Russia too? Besides, this article is tracking aperture desk job installs not actual sales so unless these soldiers are playing steam games on the side I don’t think that’s relevant here
There are, but there are also wartime regulations giving the military priority over resources. If they decide they need the Steam Decks being imported, they won’t make it to the normal people.
OTOH, the military was hollowed out by corruption, so there’s a chance that some of the Decks requisitioned for the military might end up diverted to the black market.
Maybe (if at all) some hundred to thousand devices. But definitely not 100k or more, as the article suggests, assuming these numbers are at least somewhat accurate.
A shame that Valve after all this time has yet to leave the Russian market given how many other companies took their losses and left, albeit most of them only doing so to avoid negative reputational impact.
Edit: I’m not against the wellbeing of peaceful Russian citizens who don’t have a say in the crimes that their government and military commit, but as every product sold in Russia directly supports its government via sales tax revenue, each company that continues to operate there makes it easier for the Russian government to find a surplus in its budget for military spending.
The steam deck isn’t on sale on Russia
Steam games are though, which generates far more revenue than Steam Deck sales alone.
Wouldn’t they just use a VPN, anyhow?
I wasn’t aware Valve still operated in Russia. Shameful.
