This doesn’t sound like a whole lot at first, but consider this.
Some games are marked as Steam Deck verified, which means they’re tested to run. But so many games that aren’t verified also run just fine! Don’t let the verification system fool you. Your whole steam library is available to you.
Epic Games gives you free games all the time (I have Death Stranding, The Evil Within, and Elder Scrolls Online just by having an account) and you can emulate the launcher on your Steam Deck to play those games. Same with GOG or EA.
Consider just how many old game consoles there are and how many games there are on them. The Steam Deck is an emulation powerhouse for a vast majority of them. And it’s free!
Games downloaded from windows means you could play web-based MMO’s and download launchers for them in desktop mode. I personally like playing Toontown offline and reliving my childhood every now and again. It costs me nothing.
You could do PC Game Pass in theory, but it’s only through the cloud. But that’s still an option.
Games downloaded from FlashPoint mean I could get all the classic Poptropica islands on my Steam Deck. Poptropica on the Steam store is a shell of its former self.
Combining all this together (especially emulation and depending on how many games you own on Steam), you could be looking at 500-1000 games to play on your Steam Deck. You don’t even need Steam to play most of them!
