I want you imagine it like this: A game verified for the Nintendo Switch will run the game on the console. It does not mean the game runs optimal, because of performance and bug issues. But it runs native. And Steam Deck verified is like that; the game runs as if it was running native on the system. And its job is not to ensure quality of the game, but to be compatible.

I’m not even arguing that ProtonDB wouldn’t be useful, I think its a good system. Actually its one of the reasons why I mostly use the Firefox web browser with an extension that embeds and shows ProtonDB directly on the game shop page. But on the other side on my Steam Deck I don’t have this and mainly use the Steam Deck verified and playable badges. And it works well, not perfect, but its good enough for me. Calling it useless is just not correct in my opinion. It even lists what the issues are, if its not verified and got a playable badge. Then I can look up and see why and decide if it affects me or not (such as need to change default resolution, so its basically verified in my opinion). The badge by Valve is valuable to me and by extension, for many others too. Therefore its not worthless.