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[–] 287 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Because Valve is one of the few tech companies that still wants to have fun and be silly like tech used to be. Before we entered the hell scape tech feudalism era.

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  • [–] 143 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    And like many classic bits of nerd silliness, it's also low-key impressive at the technical level.

    The controller doesn't have a speaker in it. They managed to get this clear, recognizable sound from haptic feedback motors!

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  • [–] 48 points 3 months ago* (1 child)

    They did the same on the first model! But only for a few things

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  • [–] 26 points 3 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Haptics motors make sound, you can control the pitch by how fast you make the haptics vibrate. Map the vibrate speed to audio frequencies and you can play sounds

    Like how they can make an F1 engine play happy birthday https://youtu.be/Tr4zb-HHZs4

    Or floppy drives play music
    https://youtu.be/yHJOz_y9rZE

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  • [–] 90 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    There seems to be a significant quality gap between publicly traded and private gaming companies.

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  • [–] 68 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah because public companies are just investment scams now. The product they make is not their primary revenue. Once CEOs figured out you can just say shit on social media and juice the stock. Its market manipulation all the way down. At least with private companies its still about making a product or service and serving your customers and no private equity doesn't count that is a different scam. Where you offload debit.

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  • [–] 38 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    They can also choose to intentionally make slightly less money if there's something they want to do first, or spend resources/time on stuff that doesn't bring in revenue. In a publicly traded company, the investors can sue for mishandling their investment.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Not just gaming companies. I watch every prodct from a listed compny with suspicion by now.

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  • [–] 21 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    tech feudalism

    I use Steam but Gabe was one of the original tech feudalists.

    Valve ignores the First Sale Doctrine, a law for over a hundred years. So now instead of being able to resell your games for whatever amount you want, your games are forever under the control of Valve.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah I agree but that maybe more to the publishers not allowing that that to me would be achieved through regulation just like with the refunds. First sale was not something publishers wanted just a feature of having physical media. Also there is a myth that all steam games are DRMed. There are may games that run without steam being open but that is up to the publisher. Stuff like family sharing they added is them bring value to customers while walking a fine line with the publishers.

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  • [–] 15 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    maybe more to the publishers not allowing that

    It's not up to publishers. Publishers tried to put a disclaimer on books preventing cheap resale. The Supreme Court struck it down and it was written into law over 100 years ago.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    The problem is first sale doctrine applies to the physical media which carries the license of its own content.

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  • [–] 18 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    No, the problem is that people believe "[concept] on a computer" is somehow magically different from "[concept] IRL" when it's not.

    When you buy a game from Steam, you buy a game, not a license, and the First Sale Doctrine applies just as much as it does if you buy a board game from Walmart. Any claims to the contrary are simply lies, and any government support for such lies is simply tyranny.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    That's a matter of law, and you have to convince the government to update the law accordingly

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    It doesn't need an update, it needs enforcement. The law is about copyright holders losing rights at time of sale, not the specific media that the copyrighted material exists on.

    The EU enforced their first sale doctrine on Valve.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    The physical media is whatever is playing the content. The law doesn't specify the media.

    1909, one year after the Supreme Court ruling: "Your honor, I know that the Supreme Court ruled that publishers can't add a shrink wrap license that prohibits cheap resale of copyrighted work but you see, I delivered the content on llamas where it was printed onto scrolls at the customer's home so the law doesn't apply. You wrote the laws thinking about trains and ships transporting books and I use neither."

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Yes that's why you can buy software and sell the computer with the licenses following along it, assuming you don't keep copies separately

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah... virtually every software license disagrees with you. You can't transfer a steam account, you (according to Microsoft) can't even transfer the OS license.
    Personally I agree that we should be able to do so, but that exactly what is being argued - publishers are ignoring first sale doctrine

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