alt Hacker News> As to why they had a HDD optimisation in 2024... Shrugs
Sadly, Valve doesn't include/publish HDD vs SSD in/on their surveys (https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/?platform=combined) but considering the most popular combo seems to be 16GB RAM, 8GB VRAM, 2.3 Ghz to 2.69 Ghz CPU frequency, I'm getting the impression that the average gaming PC machine isn't actually that beefy. If someone told me the most common setup paired with the previous specs was a small SSD drive for the OS and a medium/large-sized HDD for everything else and I would have believed you.
I think us as (software/developer/technology) professionals with disposable income to spend on our hobbies forget how things are for the average person out there in the world.
Steam has so many users I'm not sure the average says a lot? If you are just playing Hentai games like most Steam users (j/k, probably) you can do that on any device from the last 10 years.
More interesting would be to see the specs for users who bought COD (add other popular franchises as you wish) in the last 2 years. That would at least trim the sample set to those who expect to play recent graphics heavy titles.