Hmm, so worthless for GOG?

Yeah, but because the price in the US is pre-tax the real price is around $108 which is still less than €99 but not by that much. Also, yeah USD is weakened but that also means people there are making less money so they have less purchasing power, it's common for companies to price the same thing lower on low-income countries and higher on high-income ones to compensate.

American prices reflect the lower purchasing power within the US interior because pricing has to be the same across state lines (because otherwise people would take advantage of state discounts, similar to how people take advantage of the no-VAT states). The US even has programs where banks give free money (usually 100-300$) to open accounts in order to incentivize people to spend and churn their financial institutions.

A huge chunk of the American economy is predicated on uneducated people being goaded into overspending by giving them extra money they think they can spend on non-necessities. For example: a bank gives you 100$ for opening an account, so you buy a 150$ sofa using their credit card, predicated on the fact that sofa purchase wouldn’t’ve occurred without the stimulus. Because financial literacy is so low in the US, the bank makes a net profit because a large enough cohort of credit users won’t pay their balances at the end of the month and end up paying 25% interest (which is roughly the interest charged on these credit cards).

I’m lower middle class, and I absolutely take advantage of my vacation times to fly to or near VAT-free states to buy big ticket electronics and similar. If I could stack that and fly to Montana for no VAT and “poor state” pricing, I absolutely would.

For reference, $99 are like 85€ nowadays.

"I don't want a steam account" should be perfectly justifiable reason in itself. There is no technical reason why they can't split up steam input from the steam client for base functionality.

I guarantee you that there’ll be a no-steam driver for this in a matter of months.

Someone will make it work within a few weeks.

linus tech tips did a video on this

I hope that the Frame controllers will be sold separately. Of course they don't have trackpads either.

It's a shame that split controllers haven't caught on. Gaming is so much more relaxed when you aren't forced to have your hands together. I loved that since the Wii. But I haven't seen a split controller that I really like.

I'll be buying it when it goes for sale. Until then, my current peripherals work just fine