• 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.

    • 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!

      • 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.

        • That and Formula 1 sponsors are the most sus companies in the world.

    • 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.

      • 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.

        • 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.

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

            • And yet even DVDs have a bullshit screen about “license to the content blah blah” and bullshit like region codes

            • 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.

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

                • 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.

            • 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.”

              • 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

                • 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

  • I tested this out last night. It took a few tries and my wife thought I was crazy till it screamed out. 11/10 would buy again.

    • Time is more like a cube. You see, in 1884,  meridian time personnel met in Washington to change Earth time. First words said was that only 1 day could be used on Earth to not change the 1 day bible. So they applied the 1 day  and  ignored  the  other  3 days. The bible time was wrong then and it proved wrong today. This a major lie has so much evil feed from it’s wrong. No man on Earth has no belly-button, it proves every believer on Earth a liar.

  • “If we’re not gonna have planned obsolescence, let’s make it so people wanna drop their controllers on purpose!”

    • I mean, the choice to have the controller scream when dropped might have been something Gabe cooked up

        • Propaganda for what though?

          “Hey, look at this guy with the screaming controller, he’s so awesome for that” ?

          More that it’s funny to imagine that this feature was a deliberate pick from the CEO.

  • I want to buy one just so I can do custom sound effects:

    Use the accelerometer to detect when in free fall and play the Goofy falling scream then, on impact, cut it off and play the GTA “Wasted” sound effect.