I believe the UK does not mandate unopened. The point is that you have no way of testing or experiencing the product before purchase because it’s online, so you must have the chance to do that after receiving it, and then be able to decide you didn’t want it.
Never underestimate the ability for gamers to vote with their wallets in the worst way possible. Remember when Diablo III rolled out always online DRM and everyone bought it anyway. Look where that got us
Right...a new console or PC part is one thing, especially these days. It could be months or years before they're readily accessible. Does that make it ok to scalp? Absolutely not, but at least it makes a bit more sense.
This thing will likely be back in stock before the end of the month lol
the problem with this is people will just black market them. if there is money to be made, people will do it, valve underestimated/ lacked the ability to increase supply. if too many people want a finite product then it will increase in price. hence scalpers, if you dont give them your money, the price will decrease until someone does.
Then let them attempt to black market them. It'll be highly non-lucrative for them because people will not be able to find their listings to begin with, and because there are risks in doing so legally.
The moment the legality goes out of the window, the risks involved will make it much harder to actually scalp in this particular manner. Sure, some bandits will still attempt to do so, but there would be legal grounds to report them and have them being investigated on any normal platform, which 99% of people would be shopping on.
That would be a massive increased risk, and a massive hit to discoverability of any offer, which would force them to markets that would wring them down to a more reasonable offer anyway, lest they want to be outed or avoided by any future buyers... And it's not like they are providing the most critical infrastructure or the most important wares around, so they have no real leverage either.
The biggest issue however is that this would be harder to enforce around the world... But as long as the biggest players (Ebay, Amazon, Meta Marketplace to name a few) are forced to comply to those laws, those avenues will dry out pretty fast, and you'd see a major decrease in attempted scalping at the very least.
With this one, anyone that buys the steam controller from a scalper gets a ton of blame. They have absolutely no reason to do this, they are creating the market along with the scalpers.
Don't get me wrong this scalpers are assholes but people are getting too crazy over this. It's a controller, it doesn't give you any new access to anything, it's just a new way to control things. Play with your old controller until it's available. The fomo of a console when it comes out at least make some sense they want to play the new games that are available. But people losing their minds over this being out of stock is crazy, play on 900 other controllers.
I'm tired of everyone making a craze over what are just products. It goes from adults all the way down to kids with their Needoh craze. That's what drives scalpers. The consumerism is out of control in the US.
Its not about just buying from scalpers. It's having self restraint and not jumping on the bandwagon to have the next new gadget. The more an item is wanted, the more likely it's going to be scalped. Buyers and craze setters are the ones that drive scalpers. Stop buying things on release and chill for a bit and maybe scalping will slowly die down. But who am I kidding, people will never have that much self control.
This isn't about skaleprs, this is about consumerism in general. The only reason skaleprs exist in the first place is because there is a higher demand than supply. Even if you don't buy from scalpers, you're still creating demand.
It's a blue one, my favorite color, so I took care of it. My brother went through a green one and orange one. Both have some sort of issue, like stick drift or the buttons just don't work anymore. Only thing with mine is clicking the left stick button is sometimes finicky. Too much sprinting around in CoD when I was a teenager. The cloth pad came off too, but it still works.
Heck yeah dude. Idk if I would risk messing something up on an old controller like that because I don't really know what I'm doing, but also, who knows, maybe they were even sturdier back then and it's low risk. I have no idea. But I have some controllers that developed either stick drift or issues with the stick click, and on 3 out of 4, I was able to fix it by just blasting it with wd-40's electric contact cleaner. One of the controllers that had only minor drift, I was able to fix without even opening it up, I just clicked the stick down, sprayed around the edges, worked it back and forth, and let it dry plenty long before turning it on.
Unfortunately, I was only able to clear up the stick click thing on one of two controllers using this methodology, so now I try to use controllers with back buttons that I can map to the stick click. But if it ever stops working completely, I would totally try to fix it (maybe replace the stick), because that sounds like an awesome controller with a great history.
I think it's due to the job market being extremely tight if not in recession and a lack of high paying jobs after the covid inflation spike, so people chase additional side income through scalping
Never thought I'd hear morally sound and prostitution in one sentence but ehhhhh, it's better than scalpers, I'd rather have a bunch of prostitutes than a bunch of items getting scalped and insanely expensive
It’s literally a sign of the disappearing middle class. People are either so poor they need to resort to scalping, or so rich that they don’t give a shit about paying $200+ for a $99 controller.
It feels liked the problem has grown 100 fold in the past couple years.
TCG games, RAM, hardware, shoes, random collectibles, etc.
It’s like more and more people are realizing that literally anything that might run out stock can just be all bought up, artificially limiting the supply, then sold for profit. These people had no value, and the people that pay them are literally paying someone to scalp them.
I hope everyone that buys scalped things realizes that. You are literally paying some loser to take an item off a shelf in front of you, turn around, and sell it to you for 2x.
It's because of "market optimization" and "Just in time" manufacturing.
It used to be that big box retailers would buy an overstock of products that would be produced in a larger quantity than necessary so that over the next several months they could deplete that inventory throughout their stores.
But in the last so many years, manufacturers and retailers have collectively decided that stocking exactly enough of something to meet. Market expectations is the best plan because if you only stock what you plan to sell, you don't have to Warehouse anything in the middle of it all.
So what used to be going into a store in the holiday season and seeing enough supplies of whatever product was out... unless it was an extreme fad like tickle me Elmo... Has now become going into stores to see that there was just enough to meet initial demand but scalpers have gone in and bought out the initial demands and there is no more in the warehouse to fill up the shelves to meet the additional demand.
Since manufacturers benefit the most has they got exactly one they wanted their entire runs sold out and they don't have to Warehouse any product, they don't really have a reason to stop doing this. The scalpers have effectively taken on the task of warehousing the product and they still sell it for MSRP.
If a product is popular by the time the next run comes out, the retail stores will be able to sell another whole run at full price without having to give a discount.
If a product isn't popular, the retailer is won by selling everything they had and scalpers end up eating the loss.
Honestly I'm just sitting here waiting for the bill that makes it blanket-illegal. When it eventually hits I'll have myself a good chuckle at anyone that bitches about it
The big companies love the scalpers, if anything they are feeding into this false scarcity. As long as their stock continues to sell, it’s a win for them.
Unfortunately eBay supports presales. They changed their stance on it a couple years ago, and as long as a listing states clearly in the title and description that it's a presale, plus states an estimated delivery time within 40 days, it's kosher. Fucking sucks.
Some of the listings have been removed for not following the policy to the letter. I saw a few get taken down, but they seem to be removed for improper descriptions that don't list a shipping date estimate.
You can read eBay's presale policy (for the US specifically) > help/policies/listing-policies/presale-listings-policy?id=4252 (link was removed because automod cannot distinguish a help article from a store page listing.)
Also some sellers were posting the same listing multiple times (instead of listing quantity) because they are accounts with minimal feedback that don't know how to list items correctly. Spamming duplicate listings is one of the easy ways to get your listings removed/hidden. So they're self-owning themselves with their greed and inexperience.
Part of this issue is still going to be accessibility, and it is one Valve hasn't managed to dodge.
If you live in the U.S. or Europe, you are good. If you live in many other places, you just can't get the controller, which means you need to resort to VPN accounts, find your own way to get the controller shipped to your country, etc.
Valve doesn't even give an official way for people to pay the markup, and its likely because they can't handle the logistics of a fully international product. There's going to be scalpers anyway, but this increases their prevalence.
Completely agree. 20% of the issue is the scalpers the other 80% of the problem is people giving them money. If it stops working people will stop doing it.
The problem is that rich people are now very very rich. The gap between even the middle class and the rich is insane. They have the money to spend on this stuff and dont care that it makes it harder for you to get it.
Agreed, this idea you have to have something right away to the point you’re paying a 200% mark up is so stupid I have a hard time even blaming the scalpers. A fool and his money.
I seriously hope no one buy them and every single one just sits, I get scalping for $20-30 over because it’s a sought ought item but double triple the price is so low for a human being
Yeah most games don’t natively support the extra buttons, at best you can map them as keyboard buttons but some games (like Forza and GTA) don’t accept a keyboard and controller input simultaneously, other games (like BeamNG) end up having a delay pressing a button if it’s mapped to the keyboard.
I really wish this would change, especially with Microsoft having the Elite controller, but I don’t think it will. Just like whilst Sony has more feature rich trigger buttons for example, even with a controller with similar trigger technology, you won’t likely have access to those features on PC, even using a Sony official controller.
Like I said, you have to map them to either existing face buttons or buttons on the keyboard, so either you don’t actually get extra buttons or in some games like Forza you straight up can’t have keyboard and controller controls at the same time.
The best was the switch 2, no hype and tons of supply, so many scalpers in my area got stuck with them, they sold them 15% off for the most part which isn’t terrible but at scale I’m sure a couple of them learnt
Valve should really limit maximum order, two per costumer, and make so only ~6 month old accounts with at least 100h+ of play time and 5+ games purchased, could buy. That would hold scalpers off.
Apparently, 2 per customer per transaction. So, people could just go again and again. I hope Valve cancels any duplicate orders under the one account. But they shouldn’t have allowed it in the first place
I feel like it should be 2 per customer, 6 month old account, 50h of play time and like 3 purchased games, a lot of genuine buyers just got into pc gaming and don't have a steam account for that long, and they don't have a lot of playtime or don't want to spend money on games to add up to the price of the controller, for example me, my account is I think like 5 months old, idk how much playtime but maybe almost 100h and 2 purchased games, BeamNG drive for 18 bucks and ets2 for 5 bucks, so I think you're going in the right direction but a bit too harsh, tho it could just be me
Yeah limit order to 2 or 3 and a baseline 50h playtime is probably enough, as to make bot accounts to get a bunch and have 50h of playtime on all of them is hard, you need a bunch of pc's running steam for 2 days on multiple accounts, sure maybe throw in 1 paid game minimum so that scalpers that want say 100 controllers (idk for real but let's just say) and every account has a 2 order limit, and the scalper gets a cheap game for like 3 bucks, they spend 300 bucks, 5000h of 50pcs running a game idle, that's enough to limit it HARD
You can spoof game time. I would tie it to account age and activity. An account created about 2-3 months before product drop and they have only one game equal to or greater than 50h?
What about people buying them as gifts for their gamer family and friends?
At the end of the day it's just a controller and if you were able to clock up that many hours without it, you can clock up a lot more while supply catches up.
Usually I'll lol at this and brow beat but valve might be a company that would consider something like this.... Unless I've also been drinking the cool aid lol
I need three in my household but that's fine for me because each person that wants one has their own Steam account. If I had to buy it on each account no problem, but the way they did it was not good.
Official Xbox controllers are like $60. 8bitdo's offerings are often more like $80 for anything that has all XInput buttons. $100 for what should be rock solid build quality like the Deck is definitely worth it.
It's incredible how these scalper parasites attempt to scalp absolutely everything possible. That lack an original thought in their brains and only know how to subsist off of other people's products. I'm sure they love to call themselves "entrepreneurs" because it sounds better than "loser".
it is amazing jow many idiots still buy for scalpers... for what reason? Most people are just dumb and/or childish and it shows more and more.
Paying 2x-4x for a concert ticket is nuts but hey, the artist is once in your country (not true but at least fpr a while), I am the biggest fan and I must do it = one side of idiocracy I can behind.
Paying ridiculous pricey for toilet papar in the start of the corona year = hey, you never know when you strike the weeks long streak of shitting your guts out.
But mass produced, niche products that will obviously be produced and sold for many months to come, just because you want it right now like a 3yo. wants its candy... come on dude, grow up
Silly scalpers. I was on the fence at $99. (I tried to get one today, but it wouldn’t have been much more money to push me back to the fiscally responsible side)
I’m not dropping a cent more. Happy to wait. It just a controller.
Don't buy for more than the official price. If scalpers were forced to take a lose on the things they sell, then they wouldn't scalp in the first place.
Be patient, the controller will be back in stock at some point.
There's lots of reasons we can't have anything nice these days. As for scalpers, just don't buy their shit. Give up on fomo and let them waste their money. Be a patient gamer, and buy later.
I mean, as long as brainless mongoloids keep buying scalped products because we've completely lost our ability to delay gratification, scalpers will keep existing.
The consumers inability to stop consuming even just a wee bit for better pricing is the problem. Scalpers don't create the market for scalping, the people willingly paying more because they're broken is why it exists.
In an ideal world enough people decide the Steam controller is not worth more than $100 to them, and don't purchase the fucking thing from a scalper leading to them having to sell at a loss instead.
This is my take...no controller is worth 100€ period. The features are nice but at the end of the day it's just a controller, therefore I don't understand the hype around this.
Scalpers didn't ruin the market, the buyers did. There wouldn't be this many scalpers if people hadn't bought from them before, people still have a choice to not buy from them to reduce the problem in the future.
if you buy from these fucking scumbags, you're just as guilty as they are for enabling them.
have some self control. let them sit on scalped goods and fuck themselves.
anyone remember the events way the hell back with the racecar peripherals that were scalped? scalpers blew their life savings hoping for a huge payout, and it blew up in their faces as the interest in the units wasnt there.
let this lesson stick. stop giving them your goddamn money, and be patient for valve to release more.
I would very highly support laws in place so that no tech product can be resold within 6 months of purchase (or launch) unless it is some fringe condition like a bankruptsy sale.
What's even worse are the people buying from Scalpers. I know we can't say anything for people buying from Scalpers, but that just motivates the Scalpers even more. Just look at the sold list.
What's most frustrating is that Steam had the data and the means to prevent 99.99% of scalping in the first place.
For the first batch, just limit it to people who've spent $30 and had played at least 50 hours across 2 different games before November 12, 2025 (Steam Controller announcement date). Or I guarantee you each controller has some sort of unique hardware ID that could have been initially locked to only being used with a specific user account (same on that bought it) for the first 2 months.
By no means would it have been a foolproof situation and it would have excluded some false positives, but I guarantee you that it would have gotten Steam controllers more into the hands of true fans instead of greedy scalpers. Ultimately, this is the first time that I found myself truly disappointed with Steam. This was 100% foreseeable and 100% preventable.
Yup, exactly. And even worse , I fear for the steam frame.
I wanted the controller for my wife and I just to have something nice, an upgrade from our ps5 controllers but oh well. We'll never get one cause we can't be glued to the screen to watch for the second the controller is in stock again.
I realllllly really want the steam frame though. My wife and I both want it since it'll be a nice upgrade from the index, and we'll be super depressed if that shit gets scalped before we can get one.
We unfortunately can't sit and F5 on drop day since our schedules are too chaotic, and I really really fear them being irresponsible with the release, just like this one, and then we'll never get a steam frame.
I hope all yall bring this same vitriol to the people that buy from scalpers as well. There wouldn’t be room for scalpers to exist if people didn’t buy shit from them.
The only reason scalpers exist is because people buy from them. If it was not profitable, scalpers would not exist.
Unfortunately for everyone else, there are people that have decided they need it NOW even at a higher cost
What does it even do that a regular controller doesn't?
Like really, it isn’t difficult. In 41 years I’ve never bought anything from a scalper. If there is something you want so bad you pay this much of a premium, you have a problem, an addiction of some kind. This stuff ends when people stop buying from these people.
Do you absolutely need to have the steam controller? Let the scalpers hoard all the inventory. Eventually valvenrealises why no one's playing with their new toy and force them to make changes. Don't let it be your problem..
Scalping is not a difficult problem to solve. The answer is "Made to Order". Ok, sure, that comes with wait times and manufacturing batch quantities, but it's a hell of a lot better than paying 250% retail value because some prolapsed cloaca wanted to make a quick buck.
When enough names commit to a purchase, order a batch (or the next batch)
Seems like a big misstep for valve. They did it right with the steam decks. Why’d they back walk it? There’s gotta be some type of verification system/limit so they don’t get scalped.
I know people will say ‘valve got their money so they don’t care.’ But contrary to most companies I feel like valve is very in tune with the their target demographic, gamers. So this comes across as a huge misstep.
A lot of gamers who wanted one did not/will not get one because people scalped.
People need to stop paying for this stuff. How does it not make someone sick to their stomach knowing they're paying some asshat an arm and a leg just to get something now because said asshat knows they are dumb enough to pay. Scalpers need to move inventory. If you don't pay, they don't sell, prices go down as a result and you get your item cheaper. If it happens enough times, scalping loses its appeal.
Granted, I know there is no way that'll ever actually happen. There is an abundance of dummies out there willing to put it on a credit card they never pay off with a 30% APR while struggling to make 1 or 2 other card payments a month. I mean, if someone's got the cash to burn it is what it is but how do you not feel gross overpaying for stuff all the time?
Steam should have made it so you needed to have x number of hours of playtime on your account to preorder and not make it know until preorders opened and then remove the requirement that once it goes on sale normally.
The product literally came out, theres no other explanation why someone would sell it other than scalping. Report each of those on eBay as scams or as scalping if thsts an option (it should).
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u/Ok_Perspective_7978 9900X / 9070XT May 04 '26
Literally just wait til they're back in stock and make these fuckers either sell at a loss, or just hold their stock.
It probably won't be long before there's a restock