• hayvan@piefed.world
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    4 days ago

    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?

  • cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de
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    4 days ago

    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.

  • waterSticksToMyBalls@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    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

  • FishFace@piefed.social
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    4 days ago

    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.

  • zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 days ago

    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

    • Corngood@lemmy.ml
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      4 days ago

      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)

  • julianwgs@discuss.tchncs.de
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    4 days ago

    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.

    • BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
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      4 days ago

      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.

  • Beacon@fedia.io
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    5 days ago

    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

  • CriticalThought@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    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 ?

  • kewjo@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    couldn’t valve just ban the accounts that are using a serial that doesn’t match any of their purchase order?

      • kewjo@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Steam already stated they’re limiting to 1 per household.

        The longer timeframe also allows us to do some extra validation on the signups to make sure they’re real accounts, with only one per household.

        Limit one signup per household. We will use payment method, shipping address, and other information to eliminate multiple entries

        the only part they can’t tell is gifting. i think they could fix that by requiring the account that would have to claim it during purchase. otherwise SN + account + location would pretty much end scalping. and if they actually enforced the one household rule more children would actually get their games…

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    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.

    • moijjo@europe.pub
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      4 days ago

      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.

  • Lemmchen@feddit.org
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    3 days ago

    Its not even worth the 1000+$ Valve is asking for it. Why are people paying even more?