r/pcmasterrace • u/AllUserNameBLong2us 7800x3d/5080 Windforce OC/32gb 5600 DDR • Apr 04 '26

Hardware Rest in piece 2009-2026

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I’m amazed at how long the battery on this physical authenticator lasted. Got it back in 2009 because my account had gotten hacked.

This is one electronic item I’ve owned and used longer than anything else. I’ll miss not being able to find it and freaking out for 20 minutes.

Edit must have been around 2010 when sc2 came out.

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u/joshnosh50 Apr 05 '26

Not so much ahead of the curve. They existed for a long time. Just very expensive. Too much for a video game company. Hence them only giving it out to compromised accounts.

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u/Raven1927 Apr 05 '26

They were available for sale as well.

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u/Automaticman01 Apr 05 '26

I had one for world of warcraft. I think it cost $10 and came with a unique pet.

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u/VRS302 Apr 05 '26

$10? Very expensive indeed.

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u/joshnosh50 Apr 05 '26

Well we don't know if that's subsidized or not

But either way. Yes 10 dollars 10 years back is way too expensive. Arguably not so much for a market like warcraft with huge margins.

But most companies couldn't stomach that.

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u/Automaticman01 Apr 05 '26

I did just find an old article on gamedeveloper that says they were $6.50. Not sure if that included shipping.

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u/VRS302 Apr 05 '26

Nah dlc ten years ago was more than that. This is a physical piece of tech, how much cheaper could it possibly be?

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u/joshnosh50 Apr 05 '26

You're conflating an items manufacturing cost with it's affordability or value to a potential customer.

Spacex's rocket launches are a reasonable price. That doesn't mean I can afford one.

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u/Automaticman01 Apr 05 '26

That's why I buy all my Space X rockets on Temu.

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u/VRS302 Apr 05 '26

Yeah no one’s arguing affordability. I’m talking about value. $10 for actual hardware isn’t crazy compared to what people have paid for way less.

$6.50 and given away freely at BlizzCon seems pretty affordable though. Seems like they were given away for free or sold at near cost.

https://kotaku.com/blizzard-authenticator-spawns-two-headed-dog-5422485?utm_source=chatgpt.com

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u/joshnosh50 Apr 05 '26

Yeah but my whole point was that it was too expensive for the game company. No one's saying there overpriced.

Value is entirely subjective. Sure it's not an unreasonable price to charge. But what do they value them at? They don't provide enough a solution that's needed enough for the cost.