this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 94 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

Every outlet that you are seeing run a headline about the Steam Controller being in someway 'controversial' or 'has a problem' or 'may be divisive' ...

I contend that this is an anti-marketing campaign, being run by basically, potentially, the entire AAA gaming industry that isn't Valve.

Nearly every major AAA game company is currently imploding right now.

Except Valve.

Because Valve is privately held and owned, it doesn't have a board of investors to answer to, to constantly juice next quarter profits for.

It doesn't have a gaggle of people who sit on multiple corporate boards simultaneously, who sit on the boards of industry lobbying groups, who sit on the boards of astroturfed 'consumer rights' groups.

These people all know each other, or in some cases literally are the same people.

I of course cannot prove this conclusively, but just... look around.

This is nuts, the number of media outlets going with a non positive angle, in the headline... of a product launch.

Also consider that many of Valve's direct competition has extensive, direct ties to the AI bubble insano-mania, both hardware and software companies.

... Its not normal to have so many different outlets have such a standardized general framing of ... a video game controller launch.

This is what a retired ex corpo ex MSFT employee such as myself would describe as sus.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You know, I don‘t think negative reception with the press means there is a smear campaign going on by default. Maybe they simply chose that headline because drama sells.

But it is interesting if you compare it to their headlines about the Switch 2 a year ago. A lot of sugar coating like „feature packed“ with a vague „but…“ at the end to address Nintendo‘s widely unpopular price policy. That‘s the narrative many tech journalists chose to go with prior to the launch at the time.

For one reason or another a lot of them seem biased to me.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 days ago

Yeah, but summarizing my reasoning as to why I think it is a smear campaign down to 'by default'... is to completely ignore all of my reasoning, which is frankly rude, and you strawmanning me.

... and then you point out that a comparable recent story/event... actually did have a substantial, already existing controvery... and was generally covered with more 'positive sentiment' words in the headlines, but yes did acknowledge the controversy.

... As opposed to essentially inventing it, as they've done with the Deck.

Yes, drama sells, if it bleeds it leads, but for some reason, the degree to which headline sentiment matches vs doesn't match the actual story and pre-existing actual buzz around it, well that varies.

[–] cenariodantesco@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)