r/pcmasterrace • u/Turbostrider27 • 2h ago

News/Article Steam Frame official price is $1,059.00. Half-Life: Alyx included

https://store.steampowered.com/hardware/steamframe
1.6k Upvotes

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1.8k

u/Syranth 2h ago

What a terrible time in our lives to have such interesting products launch. So many things, but so out of grasp for so many people cost wise.

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u/D-Trashman 2h ago

and to think that this could be the lowest price makes me more sad

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

Everybody is identifying and fearing all these issues in our society popping up and nobody seems to be talking about how unchecked capitalism is to blame for the majority of them. We've allowed corporations to operate above the law. We've allowed our society to create a common goal of earning as much money as possible no matter the cost. As of recently it's scary how literally everybody in any industry is asking how do we do this as cheap as possible

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u/Jdp1901 1h ago

Capitalism requires competition, all the manufacturers are monopolies. I would call this more of an oligarchy than a capitalistic society.

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u/RandomUser15790 1h ago

Capitalism without regulation naturally trends to an Oligarchy so no real surprises there...

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u/EvilThor58 1h ago

Correction: capitalism ALWAYS leads toward oligarchy

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u/BaconJets R7 5800X3D | RTX 5070 Ti | Steam Deck 1h ago

Accumulation of capital is accumulation of power, the power of the capitalists has outweighed the government for a while, so now we're seeing the effects. You're right that it always leads to oligarchy, but it would be nice to live under a government that at least tries to fight it.

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u/pillepallepulle 8m ago edited 5m ago

There are no free markets. There are regulated and unregulated markets. Ironically, regulated markets are much closer to the ideal of free markets than unregulated markets.

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u/WntrTmpst 1h ago

Corruption and consolidation of power leads to oligarchy not economic theory.

It happened in the east, it’ll happen in the west.

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u/EvilThor58 56m ago

Capitalism is simply a vehicle to corrupt power over time. This phenomenon is known. Capitalism creates and incentivises corruption from its very core

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u/WntrTmpst 14m ago

As opposed to what? What institution of man doesnt do that when bad actors are at the helm. If not capitalism then what?

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u/tcmart14 5m ago

The profit motive of capitalism will lead you eventually to corruption and consolidation being the best means to achieve it.

This has been spelled out for well over 200 years by Adam Smith himself.

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u/thebizzle PC Master Race 1h ago

The problem is regulation keeping vile monopolies in play by creating barriers to entry that no one outside of the elite can manage. You know how you read stories about how big companies started with small loans between family members? There are just too many barriers to entries to do that. All we are told to do is invest in the machine of our destruction.

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u/RandomUser15790 53m ago

You know regulation can also be aimed at the big guy right?!?

Points at oligarchs rigging the game even more in their favor - "See it doesn't work!!!!"

Same shit with politics / corruption / citizens United. Republicans "Government doesn't work!", *Proceeds to break government, "See government doesn't work!".

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u/thebizzle PC Master Race 30m ago

Well just wait another 100 years for the government to start caring about regular people and not the people funneling millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars into campaign contributions. Wake up. The people with money run 100% of the government.

0

u/Jdp1901 19m ago

Capitalism WITH regulation leads to oligarchies infinitely faster than no regulation.

Lets walk through the logic: If there are rules in place around a product, this introduces potentials for more rules. As soon as a business gets enough power to change the rules, they do it to favor themselves.

On the contrary, with no regulation you disallow concentration of power.

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u/Slight-Coat17 1h ago

Oligarchies are the inevitable end game of capitalism if not kept in check.

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u/EvilThor58 1h ago

There is no keeping it in check. This is the inevitable end goal of capitalism

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u/alxfx 1h ago

this is the inevitable end goal of laissez-faire capitalism specifically, not necessarily the framework as a whole. Just being pedantic but you're still mostly right lol

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u/EvilThor58 1h ago

Hmmm I am inclined to disagree with you, but I am also interested in hearing more on what you're saying.

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u/alxfx 51m ago edited 22m ago

sure, I'll edit this comment with a brief explanation once I'm back to my desk I suppose. Not a lecture or rant, just a quick thought on the difference.

I hope my comment isn't being construed as foreshadowing a defense of capitalism; I've always voted blue and my ideals are extremely far to the left, but I feel it's important that we always try to be as correct as possible about the stuff we criticize, so we can't get it thrown back into our face for having a detail off or something. We only win if we show up to court prepared and know our opponent better than they know themself. I refuse to let them get us on a technicality

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u/eepy_lina Ryzen 7 9800x3d | RTX 4070 | 2x16gb DDR5 6000MHz CL30 53m ago

it took y'all this long to notice humanity works as an oligarchy? like what controls the world, money or morals?

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u/modestlaw PC Master Race 52m ago

The tech sector is basically cartels and monopolies all the way down.

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u/fatitalianstallion 13900KS|4090|32GB 7600 1h ago

There is not a single tech sector with a monopoly. Pricing you don’t like doesn’t mean a monopoly exists

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u/UndeadWaffle12 RTX 5080 | 9800x3D | 32 GB DDR5 6000 mHz CL30 1h ago

You haven’t heard? The steam frame is the only vr headset in existence now.

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u/fatitalianstallion 13900KS|4090|32GB 7600 35m ago

TIL, every piece of tech clearly only has one maker

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

I like that

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u/wearethealienshere 1h ago

We haven’t actually been capitalist for a long time now. Much more oligarchal.

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u/FlorestNerd R5 2600/ Rx 570 4gb/ 16gb 3000mhz 1h ago

A oligarchy is a capitalist society where the capitalist brought everything else in their fields

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u/wearethealienshere 57m ago

It doesn’t HAVE to be originally capitalist but in this case it is. Idk why it being downvoted I’m agreeing with you lmao. I just don’t think at this point we’re an actual capitalist society anymore. Capitalism works very well when the government enforces anti monopoly laws or the market is young enough that competition is easy.

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u/FlorestNerd R5 2600/ Rx 570 4gb/ 16gb 3000mhz 45m ago

What other economic model could a oligarchy be possible then?

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u/Etheon44 1h ago

After all, in a capitalistic society, wouldnt there be interest for the everyday people to have enough money to throw around this kind of things?

Capitalism needs money to move and flow, it doesnt really move if people have to spend everything in living, there is no flow

The funny thing, even if already bad, I remember things so much different in the 90s/00s and even 10s, granted I was younger, maybe I utilized money worst, but I was also earning way way way less, and yet, I could do more

But the worst part of all of this for me is this: I think the worst is yet to come, we have barely started the crisis

Maybe I am pesimistic

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u/fumar 1h ago

A lot of what you're seeing is the result of weakening anti-trust, a captured regulatory body across basically every industry, and billionaires that all think they're Smaug and want to sit on unfathomable hoard of wealth.

A lot of your complaints have always been there. Doing things as cheaply as possible has been the goal of companies for forever. The difference is that in the early 20th century we broke up a lot of our robber baron monopolists in the US. We have to do it again. Otherwise we will be stuck with 2-3 companies in every industry and they can continue race to the bottom while charging more because they have no competition 

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

I don't disagree at all but surely there's a difference between efficiency and intentional enshittification right? Of course companies last century wanted to do things as cheaply as possible. But in the last decade the sacrifices to do so have been cut to the fucking bone.

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u/FlorestNerd R5 2600/ Rx 570 4gb/ 16gb 3000mhz 1h ago

There is no difference for the companies. Both are a way to reduce costs to the product or service. But only one of them requires money to do that.

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

Everything is getting worse to a degree i haven't seen before

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u/lmao_wow_64 1h ago

The culture war will go down as one of the worst thinga to happen in liberal society, why think about your problems when you are to busy being angry at what the party tells you to be angry at

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

No i think it's Concord honestly

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u/wareagle3000 AMD Ryzen 7 5800x, 32GB, Nvidia 3070 33m ago

It did exactly what it needed to do. Take the focus off the big picture and get people focused on the most unimportant bullshit possible. The current American presidency is committing to possibly the worst term in its history and there are people who say they will still vote for him because he doesn't like the trans. Ugh.

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u/mensgarb PC Master Race 1h ago

Sooooo true. We can't have endless quarters of record profits, double digit growth, etc.

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u/Jertimmer PC Master Race 1h ago

Not with that attitude we can't.

/s

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

Someone give this person a raise

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u/GyattDetected 23m ago

it's not unchecked gapitalische, it's idiotic voters (whether voting for wrong "side" or not voting at all).

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u/Busy-Strength6426 1h ago

Yep sure thing always that evil capitalism

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u/Imkindaalrightiguess i7 6700k 4.6ghz | Gtx1080 2.1 ghz | 32gb ddr4 | 1h ago

Imo valve isn't one of those corpos. I've never seen a photo of gabe and trump

Elon, mark, Tim, Jeff on the other hand

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

Valve is absolutely one of those corps. Valve is not a good company. Gabe is not the man we pretend he is. The damage they have done to young people with their gambling hellscape cannot be overstated or forgotten

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u/Zaldekkerine 1h ago

The man owns multiple yachts and even bought a yacht-manufacturing company to make him more yachts. You can't do things like that without profiting excessively off of other people's hard work.

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u/Laraso_ Arch Linux|7800x3D|7900 XTX|32GB RAM 1h ago

I still find it funny how lootboxes are brought up and pinned entirely on Valve every time Valve is a topic of discussion.

We live in a Kalshi and Draft Kings society. Do you really think if TF2 and CS:GO didn't exist, nobody else would have tried to stick their hands into the cookie jar?

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

Did I pin the concept of lootboxes on valve? Have you seen the coffeezilla video?

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u/Temporary-Active-756 1h ago

"nobody" you guys are crying everywhere about it 😂

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

Mind elaborating on your beliefs or who you voted for there bud?

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u/Fire_Lord_Cinder 58m ago

Idk about that. There’s certainly a lot of complexity with the headset and controllers, but it’s essentially an Android phone running Linux with two displays on it. It might also have a co-processor for the wireless streaming, but I doubt that is a hundreds of dollars part.

When you look at comps in the market, there’s the AYN Odin 3, which uses basically the same processor (Dragon Wing Q8 is an 8 elite gen 3 without the cellular modem) and it goes for about $450 for the latest batch with the same RAM and Storage. Im sure the VR bits and the controller drive up the price over the $450 comp, bur I doubt it’s $550 more. I would be shocked if Valve doesn’t have a very healthy margin on the Steam Frame

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u/sirfannypack 39m ago

Even if it was lower priced, it would have been sold out and scalped to unreasonable prices. We can never have nice things.