As they write in the article: "we wanted to shoot it practically (with actual cameras) to show off the new screen"

Because VFX can show anything, a synthetic video tells you nothing about the actual brightness of the screen. Which was their whole point: "Then, as we began to the see the new screens around the office, we were shocked. We knew we'd spec'd bright, OLED screens, but these things were EXCEPTIONALLY BRIGHT. Startlingly bright."

> Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to do this with VFX?

Yes but this seems much more fun

The fun is the sense of accomplishment for doing something difficult or extraordinary. Humans have been doing not-fun things forever for that reason alone sometimes.

> The fun is the sense of accomplishment for doing something difficult or extraordinary.

I think that was the issue--the write up did not go into the details, which makes it seem like what they did was neither difficult nor extraordinary, especially if you factor in that Valve has practically unlimited amount of money to spend, a deep pool of talented employees with nothing better to do, and no deadlines.

Yea the details were lacking but this is a cool project which took someone’s time and creativity. Whether or not it was an accomplishment for them or valve on a grand scale doesn’t matter, you folks don’t have to shit on it because it wasn’t mind blowing. I swear, nothing impresses hacker news commenters, Dropbox included.

Something hackers repudely excel at, taking on difficult feats for the heck of it & because we humanity are great & we can.

It's possible that if you don't find it fun, it's not for you.

I had fun reading about it; would probably have had fun doing it. No worries if that doesn't match up!

The writeup explicitly states it was fun:

> This seems fun enough — and dumb enough — to try, so we got to work.

They then put it in their lobby because they thought it was cool.

people are paid assembling cars all the time

unlikely. They'd already created the prototype decks. They had the fabrication know-how in house. Sure they have in house VFX experience, but rigging the scene and trying to match lighting to reality and ultimately disappointing customers? It's a no brainer to use the real deal when you can.

Many would hire an agency to create an ad for you but that would 10x the cost, not to mention dealing with the opinions of an outsourced creative director...