hi so i’m sorry if this is an obvious question but i keep trying to find answers on it and i just keep finding answers that don’t entirely answer what i wanna know or conflict with what i thought so i’m turning here

my initial thought when i heard of the steam deck was that it was a very costly console but purchasing it gave you a large portion of steam’s library for free, but now i’m not sure and i’m thinking about getting a steam deck for christmas because there are a lot of steam games i’m becoming interested in. so i’d like to finally get an answer to this before i commit. do you download the games for free on steam deck or do you still have to purchase them?? again i’m sorry for the dumb question, but thanks in advance