its a market problem. companies need to have tiered products so the people willing to pay $200 can give that money to steam directly instead of just scalpers.
The sad part is that they also don't sell the Controller in many parts of the world as well, forcing people to buy from scalpers even if they did not wanted to.
eBay’s TOS: Presale listings must clearly state that they are "presale" in the title and description, and guarantee shipment within 40 business days of purchase. I’ve reported almost a dozen without Presale in the title or do not mention the 40 day guarantee. Let’s see what happens. I’ve only gotten the confirmation that they received the report.
It is actually allowed to relay preorders? That's fucked up. I thought it's for the actual direct sale preorders, as in if steam themselves would take preorders vis eBay.
That's not what that says.
a "presale" arrangement isn't the same as 'relaying preorders'.
The former is selling something NOW, with the express intent to deliver later. The other would be to specifically sell the ability to receive delivery by a third party.
They are entirely different things.
"This listing appears to violate eBay’s presale and item availability policies. The product was just released today, and the seller does not appear to have the item in hand. There are no original photos of the actual item, only stock images, and no clear evidence that the seller can fulfill the order within eBay’s required 30-day timeframe.
The listing suggests the item will be shipped once the seller receives it, which indicates it is not currently available for sale. This may fall under “No item for sale” or improper presale listing.
Please review for compliance with eBay’s policies regarding presale items and item availability."
Same, id rather these scalpers get stuck holding the bag, sucks that it all becomes ewaste because these guys usually have other more successful scalps going on
Anyone know if these were locked behind needing a valid steam account per order? I hope so, even if it is somewhat easy to bypass.
Edit* looks like it was something like needing to have an existing $5 purchase on the account plus limited to 2 per account and scalpers were still all over it. Fuckin degens man
Lost Ark put that restriction on Steam Accounts to trade to stop bots and there were still hundreds of thousands of bots online at any time.
Botters are more than happy to create hundreds of thousands of Steam accounts ahead of time to give them an age and spend $5+ each, they'll make more off each one, and they can be used across multiple games.
I want bad things to happen to scalpers while they are still on this plane of existence. They offer absolutely nothing of value to society and actively make things worse. I want them to live miserable lives
I tried to get it right at launch time. It said 3-5 days delivery, couldn't proceed to payment even if I filled the info in the first 5 minutes. Refreshed then it updated to 6-10 days delivery and the note said that there is a high number of purchases so it might take a while. Stayed in the cart page for about 50 minutes trying on and off and it worked. No idea how but I hope that everybody will be able to get theirs as soon as possible.
My brother did that when the PS5 launched. Refreshed until he managed to get an order through on Amazon
Then he realized he didnt want to wait like 1 of 2 days for it to ship out, spammed refresh on Best Buy and got a second order and picked it up the same day
He asked me if I wanted to buy the first one off him. I wasnt even planning on getting a PS5 but said fuck it, sure. Everyone was talking about how they were sold out everywhere and impossible to find. I think it took him maybe like 2 hours of spamming refresh in total
I think he played Astrobot or w.e for like an hour and decided to just let me have that one and wait for the Amazon order to come in. I played Demons Souls for like 8 hours straight that day
I did mine at 12:58 and mine did the same thing when I hit purchase but then I check my purchase history on steam and there it was, good thing I did because I almost bought 2 if didn't.
Can confirm got 2 on my account after clicking about 500x.
I’m not a piece of shit scalper I just wanted one for the tv and one for the computer so I didn’t have to constantly re-pair between the two places I play
limit was a max of two. but those limits are more drive away the basic public from ordering 4 or 6. they don't stop the real scalpers. You can bet your ass scalpers deliberately prepping in advance easily got whatever amount they wanted. Mostly likely with bots and fake accounts.
These days some credit card services allow you to make virtual cards to use with the same account. Potentially, you could create multiple and use them with different accounts.
How about first batches only to steam accounts with X+ years active ,with game purchases and play time in the games? Not to say that legit gamers can't be scalpers but at least it might eliminate some bots...
I wonder if they could do something like link preorders to their purchasing account in advance for a couple months. I legit wouldn't mind that for the frame.
I guess maybe it's more likely to screw someone who buys from a scalper than a scalper? I dunno. Some kind of temporary non-transference seems like a pretty strong way to fight this kind of stuff.
With the controller because they don’t actually have the product themselves yet in person it’s against eBay’s TOS, but not scalping itself from what I understand. By immediately reporting these listings eBay hopefully bans the seller for this preventing them from doing it later without making a fake account.
It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. As someone else noted, ebay DOES allow pre-sales, just as long as the listing is clearly stated to be one, and as long as it is shipped within 40 days.
A big problem people forget with Valve hardware is there are a ton of regions they don't sell to directly. So if you want to buy them, you have to buy thru 3td party apps and pay a markup anyways. So I bet there's a lot of people buying at $200+ because they know even if they wait weeks or months, they'll probably still have to pay like $150+ for one anyways.
I honestly hate that. Valve doesn't ship to my country? Well whatever, I'll take care of the shipping but at least sell the fucking hardware to me. By not even allowing us to buy they force us to pay third party sellers and their abusive pricing. I got my Steam Deck at 400 usd I think (a friend living in the US got it for me) while it was selling at 800-1000 usd in my country.
I would love being able to get the Frame but I know that if it's 700 usd or more in the US I'll be paying 2-3 times as much here.
This one kind of annoyed me. Steam is a global platform. And to this day Steam Deck still wasn't available worldwide. I had to bought it off someone else. We Asia have money too ya know :(
I know, but I still want to know what that “fair few” actually means. It’s very ambiguous.
I know what I’m about to say is a completely different ballpark, but bear with me… I’ve never seen the Microsoft Xbox controller or Sony DualSense controller completely sell out, and Steam is by far the most popular platform on PC, so I’d assume many people would have had interest in the Steam Controller. So that just leads me to think the stock probably wasn’t that large.
I believe there was a limit of 2 per Steam account, and accounts had to have been active for at least a year. It's not foolproof, but it's better than a lot of other vendors do.
It was 2 per transaction, not an account limit, as far as I can tell. Which meant scalper bots that were already crashing the server could just spam click it.
And you only needed an account that was eligible to trade on steam, meaning having spent 5 bucks on the account. And trade ready accounts are easily buyable online. Or you can just make them yourself, the return on investment would be high, especially given the fact that Valve didn't sell these in every country, meaning scalpers had an actual market these overpriced resales were good in.
Definitely do this, I didn't have money to buy my steam deck on release day but like 2-3 batches later I had enough and got it without issue. I'm stoked for the new controller and was going to buy one but I'd rather wait a little bit than spend $200 on one. Plus the fact that almost every eBay/3rd party market post doesn't have them yet makes the majority of them a straight up scam
I was there at the exact second it dropped and was completely locked out of completing the purchase because of the store issues and was not able to get one.
There's a specific identity associated with the raffle entry. In most cases, the identity registered prior to the awarding of entries can't be replaced.
It's a good controller, like if I played mostly at a couch I could see the want for a steam controller so I could do mouse things. But I play at a desk so have access to keys/mouse or controller at all times so the 8bitdo is perfect for that.
It’s a mix, unfortunately.
Many nerds. Some scalpers. And Even some nerds who wanted to buy one for themself but also wanted a second one to sell and offset the cost with a quick scalp
I had it in my cart for a good while. Had to spam the continue button to get the purchase confirmed, but it went through in the end and the funds taken from my account. More than expecting a delay from the 7 - 10 days stated though.
So happy I managed to snag one.
Very disappointed in steam for not doing something like
"Only available to accounts over a year old and has x amount of playtime"
Also very disappointed that the store broke while trying to check out.
Valve this is you umpteenth time doing a major hardware release, y'all should be able to take precautions to curb scalping and keep the storefront running during large influxes rather than the 20mins of payment errors I encounted.
The only silver lining is that these things don't have RAM, so it will come back into stock sooner rather than later.
Stop buying from scalpers and they'll have no reason to do it. People who buy this shit instead of waiting a couple of months are dumb as fucking rocks.
The scalpers definitely do have a hand in this but I also blame Steam personally. They should’ve known better. They should’ve made the controllers “pre-order” ready to avoid a situation like this. I pray they don’t do the same for the Steam Machine when that releases. It’s obvious it’s going to be in high demand but limited quantity for now because of RAAM. They have to make it “pre-order” and not “time” released.
People who buy from scalpers are why this is a problem, there is just so much fomo in the entertainment/collection industry that people feel like they HAVE to get the latest cool thing immediately instead of waiting, even if they end up paying well over retail for it. Wish companies would just implement a lottery system, that way it’s completely random and at least bots won’t get the first come first serve at it.
shouldve had a secret limit or some shit, like how when u make a new steam acc u cant add friends and shit till you have $5 on ur acc, u should at least own a single paid game with at least 50 hours on it or some shit. i dont want to call steam out but they enable this shit just like the people who buy it off the scalpers enable it. there are many ways to counteract ts at least to some degree.
If someone is dumb enough to buy it, that's on them. Scalpers literally wouldn't exist if people had a brain and patience. Unfortunately that is rare today.
Scalpers can kiss my ass, got mine after spamming the purchase button for 5 minutes. All the prayers for everyone who wanted one and missed out this go around 🥲
Does nobody remember the original steam controller 10 years ago? That sold out quickly too but was eventually so available it was discounted everywhere. I wouldn’t lose sleep over not getting the earliest model.
As im one of those adults with more responsibilities than disposable income, gonna be a couple to probably many month before i will be getting one of these anyhow, by which time the scalpers will probably have got bored and moved on. patience is a virtue so they say.
I think that, for the steam machine, Valve should put some system in place to prevent this. Idk. limit purchasing to accounts that are older than 12 months and ofc active (idk 10h minimal activity in the last 2 weeks before the sale). Also ffs limit it to one per account. Would be fantastic if they could limit purchasing to one per ip or hardware somehow - not ideal but the more obstacles scalpers have, the greater the change for normal, and sane people, to be able to get one.
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u/[deleted] May 04 '26
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