Steam Deck user stung by second-hand market after Valve refuses help (www.pcgamesn.com)

submitted 10 months ago by nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works to c/games@sh.itjust.works

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[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 34 points 10 months ago

Not getting OEM repairs on used products period isn't mind blowing, ignoring that it's stolen.

[-] Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone 40 points 10 months ago

I disagree, used products should get the OEM warranty just the same. The unit is the same age regardless.

Theft is the big issue here. Steam should have the ability to blacklist units just the same as cellphones, but at the same time, buyers need to have the ability to check for theft at the time of purchase via serial number.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 15 points 10 months ago

Why? But regardless, the product was beyond warranty, and not getting warranty service on a stolen device is normal.

Steam having the ability to blacklist devices massively compromises their value. The completely open nature of the device is a big part of what they advertised and how they sold it.

[-] Deceptichum@kbin.social 24 points 10 months ago

You poor Americans. Product isn’t even 2 years out of release and you accept that as a decent lifespan for an electronic device like this.

Likewise warranties exist to guarantee the quality of product, there’s no reason the company should be absolved from that simply because the user has changed.

[+] conciselyverbose@kbin.social -11 points 10 months ago

This is idiotic.

The life span of the device is perfectly fine. There is no reason for or benefit to sending the device back to whatever random third party Valve wants to hire for service.

It's fucking stolen. There is no warranty.

[-] Deceptichum@kbin.social 23 points 10 months ago

Being stolen is a seperate beast.

You said “ But regardless, the product was beyond warranty” it wouldn’t be if you had proper consumer protections.

[+] conciselyverbose@kbin.social -20 points 10 months ago

Our consumer protections are perfectly fine.

The idea that buying a product obligates the company to service it until the end of time is deranged. The life span of any product is heavily dependent on how a user cares for it. Cars with a 5-10 year warranty will easily last 25 years if used reasonably, and easily die in less than their warranty length if you abuse them. If you required a 25 year warranty on cars because that's how long they should last, the only outcome is that people who take care of their cars would have to pay more to subsidize idiots who break them.

Every other product is identical. It's not a coincidence that consumer electronics cost more in every country with "better consumer protection laws", even accounting for your ridiculous tax rates. It's because everyone is forced to pay extra, up front, to offset the costs of the people who aren't willing to take proper care of their devices. That's not better or better "value" to anyone.

[-] Deceptichum@kbin.social 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It's completely ranged mate and it's how the system operates in Australia. Would not be surprised to hear of similar from the kiwis, cannucks, or euro's.

We require products to meet up with certain expectations, such as lasting a reasonable lifespan. No one in their right mind would buy a laptop or a console if they expected it to stop working after just one year.

And quickly comparing 2 tax calculators, I would be taking home less money in the US after taxes. I'm not sure how accurate the US one is, because their government doesn't offer any such service themselves it seems so I had to trust a 3rd party site but I guess those taxes are going towards good things like the military and not useless things like improving citizens lives so that's a small price to pay.

[-] LwL@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

EU is a general 2-year minimum warranty. Not sure if there are any product specific rules for longer warranty, but yea the US situation is insane.

[+] conciselyverbose@kbin.social -14 points 10 months ago

Your entirely unhinged laws are why everything costs twice as much there.

If the steam deck dies after a year, 99.9999999% of the time, it's because of you. The lifespan of a mobile electronic device is almost entirely a product of how it is treated. The Deck is built like a tank and can take heavy abuse. Warranty service is not life span, and longer default warranties on consumer electronics literally always mean that responsible customers are charged extra, up front, to subsidize idiots.

[-] Deceptichum@kbin.social 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Not at all to do with us being a small population island nation in the arse end of the world. And electronics prices are almost at parity these days between the two countries (6.52% cheaper in US).

You've got weak rights and protections as a consumer, and you don't even have cheap prices like they do in China to justify it. That's gotta be embarrassing.

[-] LwL@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

...warranty generally doesn't apply when a device is grossly mishandled. Surely that's obvious.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social -5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The difference in longevity isn't running it over with a car. It's the day to day handling of the device.

It is impossible for an obligatory long term warranty on a device a meaningful portion of customers abuse to not result in responsible owners paying more to subsidize bad ones. The number of devices between 1 to 5 years that fail due to manufacturer defects compared to abuse is far, far less than negligible.

[-] wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 9 points 10 months ago

Our consumer protections are fetid rotting meat, my guy, what the fuck are you smoking

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago

IDK, I can't remember the last time I actually used a warranty, and I know I have consciously decided not to on multiple occasions. It's generally easier for me to repair something myself than to go through the warranty process, even if that process is smooth.

So I kind of get where the OP is coming from. At least in my perspective, the warranty needs to be just good enough that enough people exercise it so making good products is cheaper for the company than trying to scam people out of the warranty. Consumers pay for warranties through increased purchase prices, so the better and longer the warranty is, the more the product costs.

In general, I much prefer an easily repairable product to one with a comprehensive warranty, so I'd rather push for Right to Repair than better warranty coverage.

[-] wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 3 points 10 months ago

Wow, you mean you never used the infamously bad service because it wasnt a good service?

Wild, its almost like fetid rotting meat

Thats a fascinating dichotomy, but you do not need to pick between two common sense things.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works -1 points 10 months ago

A warranty is merely insurance, so you pay extra to have some assurance of a refund or repair. It only needs to be good enough to keep the company honest. Defects are usually caught at the beginning of a product's lifecycle, so a warranty past the first two-years (again, generally speaking) is generally a repair plan, which is probably more expensive on average than just repairing it yourself.

From my experience, warranties in the US are good enough for that first "product defect" period, we're just missing the parts availability for repairs. The reason people seem to want longer warranties is because manufacturers charge a ridiculous amount for out of service repairs. For example, it's usually cheaper to buy a new phone than get a battery replaced by the manufacturer, despite the battery itself probably costing <$50.

So the problem here is not that warranties suck, but that manufacturers have a monopoly on certain repairs and can therefore push people into buying new instead of getting the repair. That's the problem we should be solving. Improving warranties doesn't really protect consumers, it protects large companies because they can just increase the price of their products because it's just an insurance product.

[-] wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 4 points 10 months ago

You are stuck in the idea that the american warranty is the best version of warranties. It really isnt.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works -3 points 10 months ago

I'm not saying it's the best, I'm saying it's sufficient.

I'd rather have no warranty, bountiful parts availability, and lower prices instead of a great warranty, poor parts availability, and higher prices. I want to own things, not rent them, and an expensive warranty is closer to rental than ownership. However, I also think defects should be covered, so a short initial warranty is good (like 1-2 years for most things). I can get that with my credit card, so I don't need manufacturers to provide it.

In short, I want manufacturers to make things, not service them. I don't want Valve to fix my Steam Deck, I want it to be cheaper and for replacement parts to be cheaply available. Getting both means I'm paying more, since I'm subsidizing the warranty and support systems they need to provide.

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

They're lucky it wasn't just bricked remotely when reported.

It's honestly surprising they don't do that

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 25 points 10 months ago

They could probably blacklist it from getting SteamOS updates through their servers, but actually bricking it would involve taking away from the "it's just a PC" nature of the device.

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

TIL...

I just assumed laptops would get bricked if reported stolen like a phone or console, but apparently they don't?

This actually makes a Steam Deck a huge target for theft

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 29 points 10 months ago

I don't know about you, but I'm really happy that Valve and PC manufacturers can't just decide to lock me out whenever they want. After I buy it, it's mine, not theirs, and I should be the one to decide whether to install a mechanism to brick it if it gets stolen.

People still steal phones despite knowing that they'll get bricked, they're still worth something for parts.

[-] fushuan@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

With android the user can go to their Google account and remotely brick the phone themselves. But it's you, the owner, doing the change, and I agree with it.

[-] wildginger@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 10 months ago

On that grounds, Im sure you could write or find a program to give you the ability to remotely brick your steam deck when it next connects to the internet

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Exactly. There are plenty of rootkits out there that can destroy the BIOS or something, and writing a way to run that remotely that would be pretty easy (just set up a cron job to check an online service periodically to see if it should brick itself).

However, I'd rather the thieves be able to use something they stole from me instead of just creating more ewaste. So I'm against the idea of remotely bricking things, especially for something like a gaming device where there is no personal information. For something like a phone, I just care that my personal data is safe, so I prefer a remote wipe to a remote brick.

I instead protect my stuff with physical measures instead of technical.

[-] ratman150@sh.itjust.works 11 points 10 months ago

Some corporate computers have a way to do this via the bios but it must be preconfigured and can easily be turned off if it hasn't been.

[-] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

The onboard storage is a removable NVMe or eMMC memory module, it could be blanked or replaced.

Amazing how quick people have gotten used to not owning their electronics.

[-] Redfugee@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago

It was a stolen unit. As the article says, best course of action is to go back to eBay and report it.

I only wonder if there is something a potential buyer can do beforehand to check if a unit is in good standing with valve.

[-] ganoo@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago

Would a BIOS password with FDE make a stolen steam deck useless? I haven't gotten my hands on one to test yet.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

The BIOS doesn't usually handle encryption, that's usually the bootloader on the drive itself. They could just reformat the drive with the standard Valve image and they're good to go.

It could protect your Steam account though, so if you're worried about them making illegal purchases or something, it can help somewhat. But most thieves aren't that sophisticated, they just want to resell it for quick cash.

In order for the BIOS to work, you'd need to have some kind of cryptographic link with the boot media, something that the standard Valve image wouldn't satisfy. But let's say you do that for your own device, all that does is annoy the thief, it's not going to prevent the thief from stealing your device. Now if every Steam Deck did that by default, maybe thieves would be less interested in stealing it, IDK (probably not, I doubt Steam Decks are popular enough for thieves to now how stealable they are).

I personally don't see the point. Steam Decks typically don't have sensitive, personal data on them that needs to be wiped, so bricking them doesn't benefit the original purchaser being a small amount of "justice" at knowing the thief just stole ewaste. I'd rather a thief resell it and someone get to use it than it just be tossed in the trash.

[-] ElectroLisa@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 10 months ago

Never buy anything used without first purchase receipt

this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024

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