It’s been a big year. Much bigger than I ever expected to be honest. I started this website back in January 2025 with essentially no plan and continued that way through the year. There’s no roadmap, content calendar and no real goals about building a brand or finding my niche. It’s legitimately just me, another Dad with a Steam Deck who wanted a creative outlet to dump his thoughts, ramble about video games and maybe help people avoid the same stupid mistakes I’d already made trying to get things working on the Steam Deck. I’m looking at you, Battle.Net. I didn’t really have any expectations and didn’t overly pressure myself to produce content, but every time I did I’ve enjoyed myself.
When I started, I didn’t even know if anyone would be reading. I assumed it would be me, maybe a couple of my mates and the odd person Googling “why does this game run like dogshit on Steam Deck” at 2am. I guess that’s kind of how it started. A handful of readers drifting in and out, adding a comment or like here and there. Kinda made me wonder if I was just shouting into the void. Or just talking to myself, which Edmund Blackadder assures me is the only way I can be sure of intelligent conversation. I kept writing anyway, because if nothing else I was enjoying myself and I needed an outlet of creativity. Turns out, I have a lot to say about old games, new games, handhelds and the strange joy of playing Quake on the couch while everyone else is asleep.
Along the way, something seemed to change. The numbers slowly ticked up and then they ticked up a bit more. Suddenly it wasn’t just a handful of people checking in, but a few hundred… then a few thousand. The consistency of views was continuing every single week. People all over the world reading my rubbish opinions, guides, nostalgic ramblings and the occasional profanity-laden rant about launchers, DRM or why some games refuse to work on the Steam Deck no matter how politely you ask. I’m looking at you in particular, Microsoft Golf 2.0 and SimGolf. It honestly still blows my mind a little bit.
Hey, get to the point. To everyone who has subscribed, donated to my coffee fund, tuned in every week, briefly passed through, skimmed posts or even made it a paragraph in and thought ‘man, this bloke is totally full of shit.’ Thank you. Genuinely. Whether you’ve read one post or every single one, whether you agree with me or think I’m full of shit, you’ve still taken the time to be here and that actually matters a lot more than you probably realise. Seeing the reader numbers steadily climb from that tiny handful at the start to what it is now has been one of the most unexpectedly rewarding things I’ve experienced in a long time.
I’ve never been about chasing clicks or pretending that I’m some sort of authority. I’m no journalist or famous YouTuber with a studio. I’m just some regular bloke who loves video games. Clearly, I have an appetite for older games. For the most part I don’t even mind if they’re weird or super janky, I’ll give them a crack. I also find that I’m pretty ok at making the Steam Deck do what I want it to do. Everything I post comes from a lived experience. Games I’ve actually played and most times finished, hardware I’ve used and continue to use, guides I’ve written because I personally got sick of Googling the same things over and over again. If something worked for me, I figured it might help someone else too. If something didn’t work? Well, at least we can laugh about it together.
2025 was packed with things I never really expected to write about. Some recent deep-dives into boomer shooters. Revisiting childhood favourites that just don’t hold up the way I remember. Discovering games that have aged like a fine wine, while others are like milk that’s been left out in the sun. Writing guides that accidentally turned into some of my most read posts of the year. It’s just amazing to find a small but passionate group of people who care about this stuff as much as I do. It feels like I’ve carved out a little corner of the internet for myself and hopefully it feels like a little place you can kick your shoes off and stay for a while. Looking ahead to 2026, I still don’t have some huge master plan. There’s a lot more I want to write, that’s a given. I have more games to revisit or experience for the first time, more guides to write and refine and more weird experiments to have a crack at on the Steam Deck and whatever handheld ends up next to it in the future. Fingers crossed for Steam Deck 2. The core of Dad with a Deck will continue as it has from the start, cramming in gaming wherever and whenever possible in my family’s busy lives.
So again, thank you. Thank you for reading and sticking around. Thank you for proving that there’s still room on the internet for long paragraphs, niche interests and somewhat unhinged enthusiasm about playing old games on new tech. I’m super glad you’re here and I hope you’ll stick around for whatever comes next.
Cheers,
Dad with a Deck
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