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%).
Rich people in those countries pay premiums to import whatever they want.
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.
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.
I bought it with mail forward Biggest headache was to pay, but Bitcoins helped
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 commits, 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.
