Hey Australian Steam Deck *Owners, You're Welcome

*Or soon-to-be owners, because you know, the mail and whatnot can mean you won't actually have it when you read this. But, again, you're welcome!

The Steam Deck, the portable gaming handheld from Valve, is finally arriving in Australian hands in an official capacity this month. Two and a half years after it launched, the playing-Hollow-Knight-on-the-dunny-machine is officially available for purchase on Steam for Aussie gamers.

And you all have me to thank for it. So you're welcome. I didn't do it for you, but I'm glad it happened anyway.

I know what you're thinking. You're wondering how I could make such a bold claim. How could the man with the lowest score in the world for Half-Life: Alyx have influenced Valve into selling the Steam Deck in Australia?

If you'd just let me finish, I could explain.

*Or soon-to-be owners, because you know, the mail and whatnot can mean you won't actually have it when you read this. But, again, you're welcome!

Author: Joab "Joaby" Gilroy
Date: November 18, 2024

Let Him Finish

Two years ago, on a Friday night like any other, I got wasted on whisky highballs. It was subpar whisky, but that's the stuff that makes the best highballs. Alcohol is the great inhibition remover, and so I did what many of us do when uninhibited. I jumped online and bought something I didn't really need.

In my case, it was really just speculative punting. I got on eBay and put a bid on a halfway reasonably priced Steam Deck. I then continued my revelry, no longer burdened with the desire for yet another device on which to play Dead Cells.

"I leapt to social media and I bragged about my new purchase, despite the fact that the transaction filled me with a great deal of anxiety..."

Two days later I got an email telling me I'd won the bid. It came as a complete shock to me. I have memory issues, you see, like a Nintendo Switch or a budget Samsung Tablet, two of the devices I already owned and could play Vampire Survivors on when away from my PC.

Naturally I leapt to social media and I bragged about my new purchase, despite the fact that the transaction filled me with a great deal of anxiety. Because that's what social media is for: lying to people to make our lives seem better than it is.

Maybe It Wasn't All Me

The illustrious and wise creator of this website, Stephen Farrelly, saw my boasting and hit me up to ask me how I did it. I told him I did it in the dumbest way possible, because I don't lie to my editors. I told him I'd looked into it, and there was a far smarter and slightly cheaper way to do it, but it was quite complex. And that's when he hit me with a genius pitch: what if I wrote a guide on how I would have imported a Steam Deck to Australia if I hadn't done it the dumb, drunk way. 

So I did. I wrote what some would call the definitive guide on how to buy a Steam Deck in Australia. It was comprehensive, it advised against lying to Australian Border Patrol and it featured a picture of me on the toilet. It was everything anyone could want.

"Normally when I get messages from people on the internet about things I've written, they're not great..."

And I got loads of messages thanking me for it! People who found the story, followed the steps and managed to get a Steam Deck, just like I said they would! This was revelatory for me, mind you. Normally when I get messages from people on the internet about things I've written, they're not great. Half-Life: Alyx is far from the only thing I've reviewed negatively, after all.

But this story was different. People were stoked with my advice, and they told me all the time. Some of them told me how they had to tweak the process, and a few people pointed out that my advice about the 512GB unit was flawed as Gerry Harvey had successfully lobbied the government to expand the import excise to basically everything. But even those people were still spectacularly happy with what I had given them.

Hardly Normal

And Gerry Harvey, that snake in the grass, must have been paying attention too.

Because by January of 2023, a couple of months after I gave Australia hope and a bulletproof method for playing modded Slay the Spire on the toilet, Harvey Norman, Catch of the Day, JB Hi-Fi and a dozen other online retailers all started selling grey imported Steam Decks.

"Until enough brave souls had successfully purchased grey imported Steam Decks to allay the fears of others..."

It was surely easier than the multi-step process outlined in my article, but it wasn't very official. It was surrounded by worry and concern from people who didn't want others to get ripped off. Or FUD, depending on how you looked at it, because all of their concerns were dismissed in my original article. So people were still doing it the hard way (my way) for a little while — at least until enough brave souls had successfully purchased grey imported Steam Decks to allay the fears of others.

Now even more people were playing Dead Cells in Australian shitters. There was a ground swell, and not the sort you get when the septic tank ruptures. The competitors took notice too. The Ayaneos and the Asus Rog Allys and the PlayStation Portals (not really with the last one I just wanted to make you giggle). But picture a Nintendo Switch that was capable of better than 720p and 18~ frames per second —i f you could imagine it, they were selling it in Australia.

Eventually even Valve noticed. Because in between counting endless duckets and not releasing Half-Life 3, they took the time to come on down to Australia. They dropped into PAX Australia and announced to all who would listen that the Steam Deck was finally going to be available on the Australian Steam Store! It wasn't there yet, but come November at some point, Valve would be selling their handheld device directly to Australians

No, It Was All Me

And all thanks to me. Well, maybe a bit thanks to Steve "Sarrelly Garrelly" Farrelly for commissioning me to write up the guide, but in another way, all thanks to me.

Hell, they're even making white Steam Decks now. You can order them directly from Steam, because that's how this works now! Although based on how I've described the machine throughout this piece, perhaps brown might be better…

Anyway, all of this is to say, you're welcome.

*Disclaimer: I don't think I am Māui. I mean no disrespect to Polynesian culture by using his Disney depiction above. I would, however, like to point out that through my limited understanding of Quantum Physics I am aware that the Tides, the Sun and the Sky all only exist because I perceive them to exist so, hey, you're welcome.

About the author

Written By Joab "Joaby" Gilroy
Joab Gilroy is a games critic and author from Sydney, Australia. He has won awards as a games and esports journalist. His new book Till The Heavens Burst is available via joabyjojo.com now.
More from this Author

explore more in pop culture

While Season Two wows viewers on Netflix, relive Season One in a way you currently can't via the streaming platform through Blu-ray. This release takes the series' visuals and audio to new heights replete with Bonus Features!

A new animated series featuring Chinese mythology and folklore as well as the supernatural, with an all-star cast, is coming to Netflix next month. And it looks fire!

Awkward... Well, certainly to a degree. Secret Level gets a new sizzle video, but reminds us, maybe too soon, of the shut down of Concord and its developer, Firewalk Studios.

Marvel Animation has released the first official trailer for Season Three of What If...? for Disney+, which the platform and creators are promising is the final season, at least with this series of stories. And it looks good...

Marvel Studio released two new trailers for upcoming MCU projects dropping in the early part of 2025, and both are very, very different in tone and identity, yet both look as fun and engaging as one another. Plus, Red Hulk... 'nuff said.

If you grew up in the late 80s or early 90s, there's a huge chance you were, in some way shape or form, impacted by a quartet of mutated turtles who loved pizza, haded cheese graters and thoroughly enjoyed bashing in brains... specifically those names Krang. Now a new exhibition celebrating 40 years of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is headed to Melbourne!

We have a fresh update on that original and hopeful idea of when we *might* have been enjoying Deadpool & Wolverine from the comfort of home or on our device of choice, via Disney+...

Check out the official teaser trailer for Squid Game season 2, hot off the Netflix presses. Returning cast and characters, new fodder but the same sense of greed are what's in store for what looks, so far, to be exactly the continuation we've all been hoping for...

Just. One. More. Game.

Fancy a deep-dive into the development journey of one of Australia's most beloved locally-created games? Untitled Goose Game through Boss Fight Books was penned by Aussie games journalist and wordsmith extraordinaire, James O'Connor. We sat down and spoke with him about his own journey writing this love-letter to a fantastic game and team...

Deadlier than a monkey paw, Stephen King's musical toy monkey from his 1980 short story "The Monkey" is a death-dealing wind-up curse just waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting small naighbourhood, as all good King joints are. Check out the new red-band trailer teasing its cinematic debut early 2025...

Comment

Please note, comments need to be approved before they are published.