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Comment by UI_at_80x24 | Hacker News Reader

I want to buy a SteamDeck. But I don't think I have the spare hours. After work, taking care of the kids, and housework I _might_ have 1 spare hour a day to sit down with the wife. I'd rather watch something on TV with her. To have any kind of free time I have to stay up till 1am!

I could bring the SteamDeck when I bring the kids to the park, but that just feels like I'm cheating the kids.

I work from home.

8am-9am get ready for work/get kids ready for the day

9am-5pm work

5pm-8pm doing stuff with the kids

8pm-9pm eat, get kids ready for bed

9pm-11pm housework/watch TV

11pm-midnight miscellaneous stuff to prepare for the next day.

I almost wish I had a commute by train or something. Or a housekeeper, or an Au Pair/nanny.

How the fuck do other grownups do it? (I'm 49, and exhausted all the time)

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You have decided to be an engaged parent! That's awesome. The world needs more of that.

The SteamDeck is, as a wise sibling said, not for playing more games, but for playing games more. It's really excellent for gaming in very small doses as opportunities arise. Find yourself waiting for 5 minutes for someone to do something? Hit the button, pick up the game right where you left off. When you get interrupted, hit the button, it goes right to sleep. Perfect for a busy life.

This exactly, I can confirm the Steam Deck is perfect for 5-30 minute gaming jaunts. It's similar to the Nintendo Switch, but the Deck actually has a huge number of varied, high quality games- frequently at bargain prices.

Idling on the couch with my wife while the baby naps for an hour is the sweet spot, where pre-Deck I was struggling to find decent mobile game (having exhausted all the decent games on Nintendo Switch).

I'll add that finding the right game is important! One that doesn't require a lot of cognition. Personally, FTL is my go-to. I can pick it up, do a few encounters, and drop it again without losing any progress.

Agreed, Trials Evolution[0] is my go-to. Ubisoft's launcher is a hassle and it gets a little weird after a suspend (it thinks it's lost the internet connection, so it saves your medals earned but your track times are saved in an off-line profile), but it's terrific for time-constrained play. And it's currently 75% off...

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/220160/Trials_Evolution_G...

> How the fuck do other grownups do it? (I'm 49, and exhausted all the time)

I suppose the answer is "they don't". I've found that I can't really commit to any side project any more because my time off is not consistent.

Also:

> 5pm-8pm doing stuff with the kids

You're a better parent than me. I have such days, but I can't say I spend this much quality time with my child every day.

In any case I have a friend from two previous projects whose child is just two weeks older than my toddler, so we compared notes regarding this and many other topics.

Summary of what's definitely possible with one child:

-Inviting grandma/pa over - provided they live close enough.

-Scheduled leave from parenting - like one evening a week. The other parent takes over.

-Cleaning person. Personally I just get up every hour from my office and do some chores. It's not enough, but it helps.

-Nanny.

-One parent as the homemaker.

-Natural tendency to sleep less. I have maybe 7h of sleep ahead of me right now but somehow this is fine. Perhaps I'll pay the price for this later in life, who knows.

“One parent as the homemaker” — this looks very unfair in 2022.

Unfair to who?

how so?

IIRC this appears to still be the standard in e.g. Switzerland. Expensive (2-3k CHF per month) daycare only incentives this further.

I live in Switzerland. It is “standard” in some of the conservative German-speaking cantons (though things are changing even there), but not here in Geneva.

Domestic labor is hard and thankless. It is very unfair to pile it up on a single person (in nearly every case a woman). Both spouses need to do their fair share.

If only one of them earns a salary, and it is agreed upon by both, why is it unfair? That’s a perfectly valid choice - not everyone is a careerist and if one salary is enough for the family it is a really healthy choice. This “life is about work mentality” is honestly, harmful.

Doing chores at home is no less hard than working at office, and much more thankless activity. Both me and my wife much prefer to do anything else than domestic labor, including actual work. So, it is quite unfair to ask only one of us to do all this.

The primary thing is who is at home with the kids, chores can be split in a more balanced way.

Kids are at school on weekdays. And I work from home particularly because I don’t want to have less time with kids.

My wife loves the Steam Deck, mainly because I've been playing more games in the living room at night, instead of playing games in my office. Being in the same room as one another, even if we're doing different things, works pretty good for us.

It's also gotten them back into PC games, as they have more access to games through family sharing and the Deck does a great job of taking care of most of the fiddly bits of playing on PC.

I fully expected the deck to be the typical valve hardware experience for me. Something that was well built, and very neat, but would be gathering dust in a month or two. However, I think we've got more usage out of my Deck in 6 months then we've gotten out of my Index, Vive, Steam Controller, and Steam Link combined.

> Being in the same room as one another, even if we're doing different things, works pretty good for us.

My partner feels this way too. I feel the opposite. To me in some way I cannot reason it makes me wish we would a) do anything else as long as we had each other's attention or b) enjoy time to ourselves. Either to me lead to better longer term health.

This is exactly where we are at home. Some nights after all the kids are in bed and the day is over we will watch a movie or TV. Other nights we have the Steam Deck up and running... my wife isn't really a gamer but she likes to watch engaging games - while reading books - so it works out pretty well.

It just comes down to dividing time effectively. I will admit that is always going to be different for everybody, but we have found it works. :-)

The SteamDeck is actually perfect if you only have like one hour here and there, since you can just pick it up and continue playing from where you left off (suspend/resume works flawlessly)...

You get more time as they get older, and in fact it is good for you to not spend as much time with them - they should be doing a lot on their own with other kids. Kicking them out of the house to go play is a wonderful thing to do, assuming you have an neighborhood that supports it. By the time they are 12 or so they start really not wanting to do a lot with their parents, and then by 15 or so it's hard to book any time with them! So just wait, you'll get time back eventually ;)

Trying to figure this out myself. Bought a steam deck and love the idea of it, but haven't had consistent time to play it in between all the family and work obligations. One problem is I like to play games that require quite a bit of focus. RPGs or strategy games that require I have maps/guides up in another monitor, and have a lot of context to page in every time I play. Maybe it's time for me to take up more casual games? Racing, puzzles, platformers, etc. Games that you play for 5 minutes at a time.

Of all this, I have chosen not going to work. I work from home as a consultant. I don’t know how people can possibly live and keep their families while going to their office jobs every day.

Since you already working from home, you might want to look for something more asynchronous than working 9-5 non-interrupted.

> How the fuck do other grownups do it?

Wait until the kids are old enough to take care of themselves at home. Once they're about 12, they should be more than capable of helping with housework a bit, taking care of their own affairs, and even going alone to the park with their friends.

SteamDeck is hit or miss and is really more for tinkerers. Similar to you, I have limited time and have probably gamed on PS5/Nintendo Switch probably 90% of the time. There’s something about playing on a steam deck being unwieldy and having the fans come on obnoxiously every 20 seconds. My arms hurt holding it up and to be able to play portably, you need the foresight to enable offline mode for games. It really feels like using an Android, wherein the “fun” of the steam deck is having to tinker.

I’d rather just play on a Switch where you can hop into a game for just an hour and feel your time is respected. At the end of the day, I’d rather just have something that works reliably for games.

> SteamDeck is hit or miss and is really more for tinkerers

woot. I'm definitely not a tinkerer and I'm having a blast with the steam deck. I haven't configured anything, I just buy and install games that say "plays great on the steam deck". I did try to play games that didn't have that badge a few times and actually didn't have any issues.

> I’d rather just play on a Switch where you can hop into a game for just an hour and feel your time is respected

I have a switch too and 1. the store is so laggy I don't even want to launch it anymore and 2. it's such an outdated piece of hardware that I just don't have the heart to turn it on anymore and wait for loading screens now that I have the steam deck. Honestly the steam deck is just light years away

Hmm no, steam deck works out of the box for the things that they says work out of the box. The only time I had to change something was for getting an alternative control layout but it was for an unrated game and it was 2 clicks

Being much more open than for example the switch, it is a bit more complex to use, but I don't think it's a problem for anyone here, even with a severe lack of time and motivation.

Honestly the steam deck is the only way someone like you could do some gaming. I usually use it right before sleeping and have it on the side of the bed. I do quick games, sometimes play for just like 10 minutes (usually Noita).

Same boat! I picked up a Steam Deck, was desperately looking for a multiplayer game I could play 20-30 minutes in the day, and found Deep Rock Galactic. I only play when my wife watches a TV show or in bed.

I am 32 and don’t have kids, so I have more spare time luckily — but the exhaustion for me was originally low iron (unlikely unless you have a vegan diet too), and low B12 (which is surprisingly common in people on non-vegan diets too!). Supplementing iron and drinking more (fortified, here in Aus) soy milk solved the exhaustion for me: if you haven’t had a blood test in a while to check some levels it might be worth looking into

Sometimes it's fun to cuddle with the kids while you play a game that they enjoy.

My 6 and 4 year old love "Tunic" and "Stray."

The Steamdeck is a lot of fun.

Just sell your children, it will give you time and enough money for 2 steam deck and a lot of games

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