Meet the gamers who couldn’t wait for the Steam Deck’s offical Australian launch

And the resulting grey market the device’s hype created.

No Australian launch is complete without at least one picture of the product juxtaposed against our most famous landmarks. Source: Steam Offical Website

Chris Hansford tempted fate buying a second-hand Steam Deck off Facebook marketplace. He wasn't scammed, and his model arrived as advertised. It was instead an unfortunate case of terrible timing.

Hansford purchased the device a few weeks before the company announced they would start selling the Steam Deck in Australia in late November. Had he known, he just would have waited.

"I had just assumed we were missing out on the Steam Deck," he said. "It was released in many countries, then followed up with the OLED model, so honestly I'm surprised they would launch it here so late."

"I figured if I'm getting something without a warranty, I might as well get a cheap one so if it's rubbish or breaks straight away it's no big loss."

Launched in February 2022, the Steam Deck quickly rocketed to become one of the most hyped devices in gaming on the planet. Critics abroad have lauded it as one of the best portable gaming devices on the market, due to its portability and its functionality to play a broad range of games.

The company doubled down on its success, launching an OLED version of the device in November last year. Up until early October, there was no mention from Valve — despite plenty of requests online — that it would launch in Australia, leaving many gamers with a choice: wait, or assume that it would never launch here. While there are no official figures, Hansford is far from the first Australian to assume the latter.

Oliver Jones purchased his OLED Steam Deck last year off Amazon, after it was announced in November 2023. He spent around AUD1,200 on the device, around AUD400 more than what Steam will charge consumers for the device when it launches next month.

But he says the purchase was worth it; it's quickly become his primary gaming device. "It's a gateway drug for console gamers who are interested in PC gaming," Jones says, mirroring the warm reception the device has seen with critics abroad.

This demand — and communication void from Valve — has created an unusual grey market in the country. Well-known online retailers including Big W, Kogan.com, Amazon and Catch.com.au imported overseas models of the Steam Deck and unofficially sold it locally at a significant mark-up. Even now, a month ahead of launch and with the official price undercutting their listings, some of these retailers are still charging north of $1,000 for an imported device.

Valve's history with Australia

While there's no official reason for the significant delay of the Steam Deck's launching and the resulting grey market, it's possible that Australia's consumer laws played a role. Valve has been burnt by them in the past.

In 2014, Valve was sued by Australia's competition tsar, the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC), for refusing to offer refunds to consumers for digital games.

The matter went to court, and four years later in 2018, Valve was found to be in breach of consumer law and was fined $3 million. It went on to lose an appeal on the decision too.

The ruling perhaps played a role in shaping Steam's current global refund policy, in which it allows for a change-of-mind refund for games that are returned within two weeks and have been played for less than two hours. Separate rules apply for downloadable content and other game add-ons.

A separate set of rules govern the return, repair and replacement of whitegoods and electronics in Australia, which Valve's Steam Deck will need to abide by. If under warranty and not at the fault of the consumer, device makers need to wear the full cost of a repair in Australia, a costly proposition if all repair services are based overseas. Also, if the device needs repair more than three times while under warranty, it's up to the manufacturer to replace or refund it, all at no cost to the customer.

Infinite Lives contacted Valve with questions regarding its repair practices for Australia but did not receive a reply ahead of publication.

Jones, however, wasn't as concerned about his device breaking when he purchased the Steam Deck last year. "It's already repairable; you can buy third-party parts," he says. "The teardown info was publicly released, so it's quite mod-able too."

But that warranty and added consumer protection is important for Hansford. "If I could get a new Steam Deck with warranty for only a little more than I spent on a used 64GB base model, I probably would have waited," he says.

"But then again, I recently picked up Hades 2 [a hotly anticipated early-access game only available via the Steam and Epic Games stores] and playing that on the Steam Deck right now has been great."

Do you own a Steam Deck? What do you think? And is news of Australia's grey market for these devices new to you? Would you pay more for access to a Steam Deck if it wasn't sold through proper channels? Let me know in the comments.

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What I'm playing: Metaphor: ReFantazio

After 80 hours, you get used to the weirdness of the “Human” enemies in this game.

Some of the best games I've played are locked into the most unusual circumstances. Take the Persona series. It's renowned for its tight mechanics, catchy pop music, great plot and characters.

Yet, the underlying premise of the series is a hard sell to western players: You play as Japanese high school students that ultimately save the world, usually through defeating some incarnation of god. Harder still, they are very long games. The latest in the series, Persona 5 Royale, takes around 130 hours to complete.

This is all to say that Atlas — the makers of Metaphor: ReFantazio and Persona — obviously has some level of self-awareness.

Instead of rushing straight to the hotly-anticipated Persona 6, they made a detour, launching a newer, more palatable franchise that will not only build fans for the Persona series but will set the tone for all future Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG) releases. It's a strong contender for Game of the Year too. Having fully completed the game in just under 80 hours, it's on my list.

Metaphor ditches Persona's Japanese roots for a steampunk fantasy setting. The king is dead, the kingdom is leaderless. But instead of the usual Game of Thrones power vacuum, Metaphor ponders what would happen if democracy was suddenly forced on a historically monarchical society.

From beyond the grave, the King's almighty magic casts a spell that ultimately puts the entire kingdom into a form of pseudo-election. You play as an initially unremarkable protagonist, out for vengeance against one of the key contenders for the crown, suspected of orchestrating the murder of the King's only son a decade earlier. Then, in a bid to further that assassination attempt, the protagonist becomes a candidate in said election. The other wrinkle: The kingdom is mysteriously plagued by beasts known as Humans; monsters inspired by the art of Dutch painter Hieronymous Bosch.

It's as convoluted as Atlas games come. Thankfully, this is all drip-fed to the player with a really snappy script and some masterful voice acting of the main characters.

The main game plays similarly to the Persona series. A calendar system governs your decisions in-game. Each day in-game often boils down to two decisions as to how you spend your time during the day, and then how you spend your time at night. These choices often involve either focusing on character relationships to upgrade your combat capabilities or building your skills to unlock new relationship options. This is usually accompanied by a deadline to complete certain dungeons to advance the game.

Combat is where this game really stands out. It's turn-based but snappy and reactive. It's rare for anything outside of a boss fight to go for longer than a minute. And in what really should become a staple for all JRPGs, you defeat weaker enemies instantly when you attack them. Level up enough, and you can cruise through dungeons with little difficulty.

That's all supported by a fully customisable character levelling system that gives you, the player, full control over the structure of your party. Want a team full of mages? Go for it. Hate magic and only want to level physical attacks? Why not? Each character's unique stats govern what they are best suited towards, but there's nothing to stop you, the player, from getting creative. This again breaks the mould of prior Persona games, where each character has a dedicated role and only your protagonist is flexible.

For an 80-hour title, Metaphor goes out of its way to ensure you aren't wasting any of the time you pour into it. Contrast this to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth earlier this year, which took around the same amount of time to complete, but certain sections of the game felt padded or needlessly long.

While we're comparing JRPGs, it's worth pointing out Metaphor's biggest flaw. Metaphor's cities and towns are for the most part really interesting and unique. Its dungeons, however — while a huge step forward from the procedurally generated ones of Personas past — are still a little dull. Many are labyrinthine messes of corridors that are dimly lit and visually boring. There's one dungeon mid-game that looks as if it will break the mould upon entry, only to then devolve into the same spaghetti of paths seen in earlier areas of the game.

Where Final Fantasy VII Rebirth put a lot of effort into incredible set pieces and beautiful location design, Metaphor focused its energy on gameplay and the feel of the game. And has perhaps come out on top as a result. Final Fantasy ditched turn-based mechanics, deeming them too slow. But Metaphor's combat is so rich and engaging that it makes a case for revisiting this style of combat across the JRPG franchise.

Metaphor won't be a flash in the pan. The game feels like it's set up Atlas to produce a whole new franchise of games, again honing its snappy but sophisticated game mechanics. I have little doubt this game will bring more players to Persona 5 — at this stage, I'd honestly avoid the earlier games as they just haven't aged that well compared to Metaphor.

And if it's anything like the Persona series, we'll see a re-release in a couple of years, likely adding new content, maybe reworking the dungeons. But I'd also expect a sequel and for this series to alternate going forward with the mainline Persona titles. Perhaps falling in line with its self-awareness, Atlas also knows how to turn a winner into a money spinner.

Worth trying if you like: JRPGs!The Final Fantasy series, The Dragon Quest Series, Xenoblade Chronicles series to name a few.

Available on: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X and Series S.

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Infinite Lives hits 100 subscribers

A quick note before I close off this week's newsletter to say thank you to everyone who has signed up to receive Infinite Lives. Hopefully, that’s you!

Never would have dreamed that writing a deep dive on Mario Party would be the article that ticked this number over the edge. Not going to celebrate every milestone, but this is a big one. Some fun facts:

• Roughly 25 of my 100 subscribers are family and friends. The majority are people who discovered this publication on Substack, the internet or via my posts on LinkedIn. So thank you!

• My open rate each week hovers around 50%. According to Campaign Monitor, the industry average for newsletters is 21.5%, so we're doing OK!

• The majority of that 100 signed up in the past three months. This goes to show how publications tend to work; they snowball.

• Here I was thinking that timezones worked against me, but apparently Australian Substacks are a thing. Here's Australia's top 10 Substacks, as curated by the AFR this week. That #1 position is held by a federal politician.

  

A fair chunk of my subscribers have come from those within the community reposting, commenting on and liking my work or recommending my publication. So a huge thank you to:

Alex Stasenko — GameDev Relay
InGameScientist — Just One More Turn
James Francis — Adventures In Indie Gaming
Dylan Cornelius — Sonoran Videogame Society, Nintendo Is Great
Alex Antra — Reconnect Recap
Maurice Klimek  — The Solo Game Dev
Paul Shkreli — Boss Fights
Harry Davis — GeekFit Podcast
Kayla Medica — Mehdeeka
Aidan Barry — who wrote a piece for Infinite Lives months ago.

Some other special thanks: one of my best mate’s Jake Pedley who races you all each week to be the first to like each post — but “only because they are good” he tells me. And Craig Butt, who gives up his lunch hour most weeks to discuss games and next week’s post.

Also a huge thank you to Simon Thomsen, who continues to republish my Substack on StartUp Daily — helping me show that there is a broader general audience for gaming-related insight and content in Australia.

This has gone on a bit longer than I wanted to, but I’m incredibly grateful and wanted to express it.

Thanks again, and catch you next week.

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