Steam Startup Movies: Boot-Up in Style

Valve just released new "Startup Movies" for both the Steam Deck and Big Picture Mode in the Points Shop today. I have been dying for them to present new ways to spend my Steam points and this got my very excited. What is a "Startup Movie"? It's the intro sequence when you boot up the Steam Deck or when you switch to the Big Picture Mode on the desktop. The consoles have one too, the two best examples being a cube falling to the middle of the screen, stamping a path that became the letter "G" on the Nintendo GameCube and the orange dot bouncing and spiraling on the Sega Dreamcast.

Valve seems to like the SegaSaturn apparently, since some of these seemingly gave a nod to its logo.

The 21 currently available options are so creative, celebratory, and endearing - I have unlocked 6 of them - and the Deck or the Steam client can randomize the boot sequence to make things fresh and exciting. What an excellent idea, Valve. This is truly amazing. Perhaps they would even allow developers to make these in the future - wouldn't that be incredible? Unfortunately, these "Startup Movies", as the name implies, are just clean, high-resolution videos instead of running on an actual 3D engine. They look stunning on the Steam Deck but on my 4K display for the Big Picture, the videos are not that sharp: they are probably 1080p in resolution. Hopefully, Steam will update these assets in the future. The implementation is also a little buggy for the Steam client, but this shouldn't be a surprise because the Deck is Valve's favorite child. Each of these movies costs 3000 points, which translates to a $30 spending on the Steam store. I have plenty accumulated over the years. I normally spend them on awarding reviews, screenshots, and player profiles, but those are pretty cheap to participate in and deserving recipients are hard to come by. Just like with the whole trading card situation on Steam, in which I would never pay money for them, I would never just buy something on the store just to get the points. There is no need to rush, we all spend on Steam sooner or later so the points will just accumulate naturally. Keep going at it Valve and further expand the Point Shops with unique, rewarding items! I can't wait to see what they will come up with next!