The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

Sounds like the Switch 2 might be a bit more powerful and similarly priced to the 3-year-old Deck. But even if Switch’s hardware feature set was substantially better, Steam’s much cheaper (and more expansive) library is still the killer feature. I don’t think the Switch 1’s Zelda launch title has ever been discounted lower than $40 despite being 8 years old. On Steam, virtually every top title will be 50% within 2 years, if not 1.

I wonder whether this kind of discounting is healthy.

It's surely healthy for Valve's bottom line, but it introduces an element of unpredictability into pricing, creating an inconsistent reinforcement regimen, which is the kind that most effectively reinforces a behavior (namely the purchase of games).

Discounting also debases the perceived value of something, which, in addition, I suspect, to reducing the joy of ownership and use, should further encourage consumption.

I find myself more and more bored of video games, and I wonder whether this is partly because Steam and Humble Bundle's discounting practices have ruined the experience of acquisition and ownership, reducing it to a kind of gluttony and buffer-style gorging.

I also wonder whether Nintendo's pricing does a better job of maintaining the integrity of the experiences they want to offer players.

It's a trickle down effect for sure. Where indies suffer the most. You have games getting away with $70 price tags, but your indie game you spent 2+ years on better no cost more than 15-20 a pop and better have a 50% launch discount. You really can't sustain yourself even as a true solo dev in western countries (let alone if you need to commission/hire an artist/composer).

And when I say "sustain in western countries" I'm talking the bog bottom line of "us federal minimum wage", coming down to approx. $15k/year. That's 1000 copies of a $15 game that is probably upped to 1800 copies after valve and other's cuts. Even that paltry marker is hard just becsuse the market is so saturated (and not in a good way).

It's only gonna get worse as a generation that is raised on mobile games and game pass settle in. The idea of spending money upfront from a game may be lost entirely.

>I also wonder whether Nintendo's pricing does a better job of maintaining the integrity of the experiences they want to offer players.

That was indeed an explicit strategy of Nintendo. Keep a premium brand and a price thst reflects that. Sales are rare to maintain this idea of an evergreen title that is always selling.