I dropped my launch edition steam deck last night on carpet and while all the buttons still worked- something was rattling inside of it. After I opened it up I discovered a missing chunk of plastic from the R2 trigger, that piece presses against another to keep the button from over articulating. I suspect this trigger absorbed most of the impact, there was no other visible damage.
Of course I was upset that I broke it, but so very pleasantly surprised to find ifixit had the trigger in stock and reasonably priced. This availability made me love the deck even more, and really the fact valve made these parts available places the deck above any other competition in my mind.
This machine is built to last, I am so excited to get it fixed and get back to gaming.
Gotta appreciate Valve continuing to be a master class in how a successful company should behave
It should be theoretically in a company’s long term financial interest to keep customers at least reasonably happy, but the infinite growth mindset is such a cancer that you can see it tearing apart any number of old established brands these days (cough Boeing, eg).
Looks like GabeN decided that going to sleep each night on piles of billions of dollars was enough and he didn’t need to supplement his pillows with the customers’ nickels and dimes as well. Feels like that shouldn’t be such a strange mindset, but apparently it’s rare enough to stand out.
It doesn’t even just have to be about money, Valve is one of the only major tech companies I can think of that seems to actually care about customer feedback. They don’t acquiesce to every request and complaint, it’s unrealistic to expect any company to do that, but just in general, Valve genuinely seems to listen more on the whole.
Too many tech companies have convinced themselves that the silent majority’s silence equals approval, and therefore the “vocal minority” of complaints need never be taken seriously. But what they don’t appreciate is the most vocal criticisms tend to come from enthusiasts, and when you cater to the average users only, you are slowly making your product less remarkable.
Steamdeck feels like a product made for that “vocal minority”. It addresses so many concerns that other tech companies would hand wave away because “most people aren’t complaining”.
i am convinced the vast majority of decision-makers these days are just actually incompetent:
Large corporations repeatedly amputate themselves to save weight only to go surprised pikachu when that causes them to fall flat on their face, small business owners will vehemently oppose building bike paths outside their stores because that would remove 2 parking spaces (yeah sure dude 2 parking spaces is totally enough to sustain your business, that has no relation to why it’s currently careening toward bancrupcy), and governments will unironically use the logic of “well we can’t build a bridge here, not enough people are swimming across the river to justify it!”.
Just to add to this, Valve is a company with a very peculiar organization, in which the structure is very horizontal and that does its own thing (the structure is not without problems, but it’s still very interesting). They also have a surprisingly little amount of employees for such a company! Numbers vary between 350 and 1000!
It’s cos they’re privately owned and so don’t necessarily have to be shit, where publicly owned companies are legally required to maximize profits for shareholders.
are legally required to maximize profits for shareholders.
Not exactly
I got the iFixit pro tool kit a few years ago and I use it all the time even for stuff that’s not electronic lol
I won’t lie I was super tempted to add a pro toolkit with the part order, but talked myself out of it and ended up with just a spludger and moray driver kit lol.
I have to second the other person said, if you have the money I’d get the the kit. It’s proved useful for all sorts of things. I’ve used mine for electronics, knife repair/maintenance, home repairs, basically anything you’ve ever needed to work on that required some kind of weird screwdriver that you definitely don’t have in the drawer lol
It’s great for electronics, but be careful with the bits on non-electronic stuff, they are quite soft and wear easily against stronger screws.
You make me want to buy a Steam Deck, even though I don’t play games much.
as has been repeated into oblivion, it’s just a PC, so it’s perfectly usable for non-gaming stuff!
If you want something more portable than a laptop and are alright with the slightly strange input method for a computer, there isn’t really anything better.
Yes. Let’s all go buy steam decks! Yay, capitalism!!1!
Nah let’s all shit on things in ways that make zero sense instead!!1!
Read the room bro.
Capitalism is when people have hobbies?
Yes, if you intend to buy some, let’s buy from the companies which have some values and respect their customers so they are successful and more companies may get inspired, instead of from the other ones. See also Patagonia and Fairphone for other rare examples.
Never heard of Patagonia. What do they do?
Outdoors equipment most famously winter coats. They are famous for environmental policy and treating their employees very well. https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougsundheim/2023/12/12/how-patagonia-became-the-most-reputable-brand-in-the-united-states/?sh=7f50e1ef1473
Thanks for the link. That makes me regain some faith in humanity.
I did the same thing and they fixed it for free. Gotta love Valve
Sony did something similar for me for my PS3. It was out of warranty and the drive stopped reading Blu-ray discs. CDs worked fine. I couldn’t find the receipt to see how old it was but contacted them anyway. They said can I find an old bank statement or something to see if it is still in warranty. The only thing I found was it showed up in the loyalty points of the game shop I got it from. They accepted this as enough proof however the unit was out of the standard warranty. They said they will still accept it. They sent out a postal guy with a thick plastic box with foam insulation with a replacement PS3 in it. He took away my broken PS3. Great! All free of charge. I was well happy. Then a week later a letter arrived and contained the SD card that I accidentally left in my old PS3.
Sony went the extra mile here. Very happy with the outcome.
That’s awesome way to go Sony. Rather having us play :)
Imagine an alternative reality where a company can create a mobile phone with swappable components and high repairability index.
I will immediately buy their product, because I am sick of being forced to switch my phone every couple of years due to planned obsolescence adopted by so many companies.
I believe Motorola tried something like this in the past for a short while.
Project Ara, the future that never happened
This was very promising because it’s backed by a big company, but unfortunately it’s Google
That’s good news! How much was the trigger incl shipping?
$20 part + $3 shipping. It includes the mount, spring and trigger as one piece
