If you’ve purchased a brand new Steam Deck, it will have arrived in a box with a cute Portal easter egg printed on the side. Unfortunately, this was identified quite quickly by thieves and reportedly led to consoles being stolen. Well, the packaging is once again a topic of discussion, and people are sharing their horror stories all over again.
As the best handheld gaming PC, the Steam Deck has become very desirable, especially when availability was so poor during its initial release. This led to criticism for its obvious packaging, which was a Bat signal to thieves who knew what to look for.
In a fresh Reddit post on r/SteamDeck, one user highlighted the Portal easter egg found on the box in which the Steam Deck is delivered. The image is of the Portal companion cube with two arrows showing which way the parcel should be handled, replacing the more traditional ‘this way up’ logo.
A great idea in theory, but it was easily identified and used by thieves to steal Steam Decks in transit, or from porches if left by delivery drivers, according to many users in the thread. What was an attempt to highlight an easter egg and ask the community a simple question, quickly turned into a therapy thread of Steam Deck owners recounting their past trauma.
It’s hard to definitively prove in any of the cases mentioned whether the Decks were actually stolen, and even if they were, that the Portal image was to blame. However, it’s easy to see how the connection has been made, and it’s a reckless move to put such iconic imagery in plain sight where everyone can see it.
Worse still, despite some community pushback during the release of the LCD model, when the Steam Deck OLED was released, the packaging remained unchanged, triggering a new wave of missing handhelds and uproar over the lack of attention the issue was getting.
Maybe when the Steam Deck 2 is released we’ll see a change, but until then, you can check out our list of the best Steam Deck games to play on Valve’s handheld.
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