Can’t valve just not allow any steam account to register on a steam machine other than the one that preordered it (for a period of time)? I’m guessing that would nip all this in the bud post haste ?
Report them. ebay does not allow selling reservations.
Scalpers take hold
Valve did the best they could given the demand, this is pure cope from the author for not getting on the reservation queue
I understood the PoV of the scalpers. They grab something rare to resell. I disagree but I understand.
What I don’t understand is, who the fuck actually pays money for those reservations?
who the fuck actually pays money for those reservations?
Dumbasses with more money than sense
The scalper a protection is also quite bad. Valve only requires a purchase before a certain date. That means scalpers can easily reuse accounts from the Deck and Controller sales…
I said this before but (roughly) sorting the queue by money spend on the platform would make it insanely expensive to scalp, therefore eradicating the practice. Of course that would mean people (like myself) who don‘t spend a lot of money on Steam will need to wait longer, but in the fight against scalpers I think it is worth it. I hate scalpers so much.
Don’t they also require a unique shipping address? I have doubts that the eBay scalpers are anything more than one-off people selling their 1 unit because they know they can get another one later.
Good point. The only scalper I have ever met did it as a lucrative hobby always buying as many PS5 as possible.
Nothing makes sense anymore. People will buy anything if it’s just hyped up and rare enough, without any regard to it’s utility or intrinsic value. Everything has become bored apes.
And I don’t mean to dunk on the steam machine itself, it is a good device for a particular niche. But at twice the price? That’s perfectly ridiculous.
I don’t really see the problem. It’s not worth double the price - anyone can go buy a computer and get the same functionality. If it’s worth so much to you to have the valve logo on the thing, then that’s up to you; the actual value though is in its use as a computer, which you can get by other means.
It’s not like a concert ticket where there’s no equivalent.
I would guess that scalpers will have to reduce their prices to shift what they’ve scrambled for when it comes to people actually buying them.
VALVe knows who is buying a console. Just lock it to this person’s account for 90 days and the problem of the scalpers is gone. Sure enough, some people will be having issues as they have lost access to their account. Realistically, this will be a small number which can be addressed by VALVe support
This would require selling a locked down device. i.e. one where you couldn’t install your own OS. The fact that they don’t do this is one of the big selling points (for me anyway)
My idea clearly had a logical flaw. You are very right.
Just VAC ban them instead
How do you know the machine has been scalped? You could gift it to someone and never use your own account on it
They could preload the purchasers account then to resell it they have to open the product and remove the account and then it’s an open box product and can’t be sold as new or they don’t open it and scalpers accounts exposed.
Yeah but how hard is it to spin up a burner steam account?
Valve requires a purchase to reserve. So each burner costs them money. It’d be more work for valve though.
How is it that eBay doesn’t have any resposibility for helping to crack down on these?
This is mostly what it’s designed for, peak capitalism. If it weren’t for the scam concerns presented by the fact that this is a spot in line and not actually a real product sale, eBay would want to have more of this.
Because it’s not illegal, just immoral.
Probably because there is not a firm law on scalping, on top of being international site which makes applying laws even more difficult.
Yea… but also, they’re a private business, they don’t have to accept it. It’s called having integrity.
It’s pretty slimey to be like “welp, we know it’s immoral, but it’s not illegal, so we’ll profit off of it”.
It’s a business and an American one at that. Of course they’re going to put profit over morality.
And stop it how exactly?
Company policy to delist scalped products. It’s quite simple. It’s not like these listings are hard to find.
There’s so many it’s impossible to get them all
It’s a corporation. They only care about money. Integrity is only important to them if it leads to more money.
If fleaBay stopped them, they’d just do it somewhere else and then they would lose profits and solve nothing. It’s really not their responsibility.
When Ford and Tesla tried to stop stuff like this they were lambasted for infringing on customer freedoms.
https://carbuzz.com/news/ford-sues-john-cena-for-flipping-his-gt-supercar-and-making-a-profit/
I don’t see how this can work out for the scalpers. If the prices are higher than retail then people would just buy a computer and play the same steam games on it
There are rich people who would buy a steam machine at any price just to own one.
If it’s successful, it won’t be rare.
Absolute scumbags
I put in for all 4 variants, got the 512 w/ controller.
I still haven’t seen the ordering email yet. I’m bummed because I really wanted the wood faceplate, but I’ll settle for the companion cube.
At least you got it. I asked for most expensive one, have over 15 years of steam stuff, probably quite high account value (in number of games and theor value). Zero results. None of my buddies have also gotten any email on topic.
Well, Valve did a randomization of the order queue. So your account value really shouldn’t matter
I started with that and then clicked the other 3 when I found out it was a “best of” option.
The lottery system did not work.
Lottery system did work. It does not prevent scalpers from buying, but it gives humans, bots and scalpers the same chance to buy. They will end up selling a few units to the scalpers, just by chance, but at least they cannot buy everything; the chance of winning all lottery is effectively 0.
I propose that weighting results by factors like account activity, age, “level,” and whether someone is ordering from an official Steam client instead of the website would help. Nothing stops “normal” gamers from being scalpers, but ensuring your actual, loyal customers get preference is a good way to start.
Yes, that adds to the system. But we know scalpers had accounts back when the Steam Deck released and they probably prepared their accounts in case this happened again. Valve really need to make sure the accounts is an actual scalper and not a regular user / player (similar to making sure its an actual cheater compared to a player that looked like a cheater). And they can always purchase hacked or even pumped accounts for sale too. What I mean is, no matter what Valve does, there will always be scalpers.
And the reason why people buy from scalpers in ebay for these horrendous prices could be, because new users want to get into Steam and PC Gaming but don’t want to have a typical PC in their living room. Because of account age and level and activity rating, they are not eligible to buy one from Valve. So in a sense, these scalpers are their only hope getting one, because without a PC they cannot play games and build their activity.
It was better than clicking “Next” every second for 45 minutes trying to check out, and then failing to get one. Nothing can truly stop scalpers except the original seller doing the scalping themselves with a silent auction.
What I mean
I’m not suggesting this is a good system. Hence I’m hiding it in a spoiler.
Imagine if Valve launched the sale, and everyone names their own price (with a minimum price). Everyone bids their maximum amount, and Valve just picks the top N people to get one. The rich idiots who just have to have one buy it for whatever price, and more normal people buy it for less, but probably more than the minimum.
Would you have bid $50 more than the min to get one right away? I might have. I dunno. Do people with more money deserve a machine more? Well, no, but that’s the world we live in. The lottery is the best alternative we have.
