My initial thought is definitely yes for the Steam Machine, and maybe yes for the Steam Frame.
All devices are Valve made hardware running steamOS, so I would think a lot of the discussions/content would apply to Steam Deck. This also isn’t a super busy community, so I wouldn’t be that worried about Steam Deck specific content getting buried.
The Steam Frame is a bit more iffy than the Steam Machine though, there’s a lot of experience differences between the Deck/Machine and a VR device, so there will be larger differences. Also the Frame has ARM hardware and has to use an additional x86 to ARM compatibility layer for games running on it, so we’ll probably see some unique compatibility bugs for it.
Overall though I just want to hear everyone else’s opinions on it.
I am completely fine with having this community for steam hardware. I don’t think it would be beneficial to have 10 smaller communities instead of one big. Lemmy is not a huge platform at the moment
Yes, it makes sense to expand the community to be steam devices as a whole.
Community displayed name should probably change to Steam Devices or something like that.
Is… is it even possible to rename a community?
Valve Ecosystem Nerds?
Or do you just have to make a new one, and tell everyone to migrate?
Anyway, yes, I think that untill or unless it becomes truly problematic in some way, yeah, this basically already is a comm of general Valve/Steam related both hardware and software nerd#, why be too picky?
If a flood or trickle of noobies ever show up, easier for them to ask questions and get news in one place.
But I also do see a potential problem of people having no idea this comm would cover more than just the Deck, not finding it in searches.
… Not sure what to do about that?
EDIT
Aha!
New comm name: Steam Dorks.
Yep.
Nailed it.
Steam Frame is optionally just a Steam Deck with ‘up to’ a 4k screen that you don’t have to look down at or hold up to your face. It can also be used for VR stuff, but otherwise it’s just a better Steam Deck.
It’s how I use my Quest 3 already 75% of the time, so it’ll be nice to have a headset that had that use case in mind during It’s design. And also one where I don’t have to give meta money anymore.
I’d say yes. If the volume becomes overwhelming new communities can easily be created.
Agreed, the fediverse is small enough now that living aggregate communities are preferable to dead specific ones. Especially because everyone hates posting something, getting their post removed and being told to go post in another very similar community they didn’t know existed. As you said, if it becomes a problem you can just spin off
Fragmented communities is such an annoying problem in the fediverse.
The problem can also be a positive, so that communities for more specific niches can be created, or to have alternatives for already existing ones with different management philosophies.
User numbers are still far too low for this to be a practical positive imo.
Personally, I like the idea of becoming more of a “Steam Hardwares” community, as them being all kinda niche but close in scope, they shouldn’t conflict with each other nor turn the community into a too generalist one.
gabeware
FTFY
All hail the Gabecube.
But the Gabe Companion Cube…
Yeah, community being split up might just lead to inactivity for certain hardware if it isn’t popular enough. There’s enough overlap with SteamOS that I think being all in one is the best route. Maybe if lemmy gets way more users in the future then splitting up discussion to dedicated hardware communities might be an option, but for now better to be one.
I’d love to see them included, honestly. it seems they’re all part of the same family.
Absolutely. I would rather have one great community instead of 3 hyper specific communities. It just needs to have flags like [steamdeck] [ steammachine] [steamframe] Or even shorthand sd, sm, sf.
Yes.
We are the niche of a niche. We need more content, as long as it’s relevant.
Yes. Anything to grow communities. The fediverse is not in the restrictive limiting of communities time in its evolution. The fediverse is in the we need more numbers phase. You need a lot more people to be worried about this kind of thing. Right now you just need more people making more post and making more comments.
Yes. We don’t need even more fragmentation on the fediverse.
Yes; it makes no sense to have multiple communities when the Steam Machine and Steam Frame are so similar to the Steam Deck. It may be that in the future it makes sense to split out topics if their isn’t overlap, but I’d say the community isn’t flooded with content and there is a lot of overlap between these topics that will benefit everyone.
yes
Definitely yes, they all run Steam OS and all 3 device are very interchangeable in what they offer. Plus there’s not that much people to properly support 3 different communities.
Yes, Assuming that renaming a community without creating a new one isn’t possible.
The best way would be to just rename to “steamhardware”, but losing everyone in the process is certainly not worth the rename for clarity.
Excuse me, did you just blatantly ignore the possibility of ‘Steamware’??
