How to combat scalpers

[ZyroXZ2]

DonFerrari said:

ZyroXZ2 said:

It is, it's constantly sold out and WAYYY behind on meeting demand, but this thread was about combatting scalpers, and the Steam Deck CLEARLY has enough demand to have a scalping problem... except it doesn't.

I mean, look at limited editions for popular franchises, those also face major bot scalping problems.  Valve handled the Steam Deck fairly, even if, again, massively being undersold because of it.

Shatts said:

That's what I said for my first option (using accounts to order one). But like some people say, Steam Deck only works because the demand is significantly less and the targeted audience are niche. Do people really want to wait those long queues. That's why I said prioritize the people in their subscription service or any method that can determine that person really wants it for their own good. Retailers are still important imo so fully online is not really the first choice.

That's the thing, it's a long queue, but there's virtually no "omg bots scalpers bought them all we can't get one!" thing happening because they have stipulations in place.  Valve is properly getting Steam Decks into buyer's hands because they've set up restrictions in place, and though once again the lack of distribution and production struggles to meet demand, the reality is that the demand is high enough that there SHOULD be a scalping problem.  Except there (mostly) isn't...

PS5 have sold more than 20M units and I could bet there was not more than 1M scalped units, so it isn't as big problem as we may think. If there was so much issue with scalpers as we are led to believe the sales of SW would have been much lower than it is. I haven't seem any sign of lowered SW sales due to HW being hoarded.

But please explain to me how the system Valve is doing makes it undersold if there are lines to buy it and sold out problems? You can't sell what you don't have, so even if Valve changed the system with no more system available no more sales would be made, also Valve haven't said how much they sold.

Oh I'm not disagreeing that scalping is a smaller portion, but it's still significant enough to become a publicly acknowledged issue.  The issue there is that we have have no way of tracking actual scalp sales versus legitimate sales.  Example: 20 million sold, we can't tell if 5 million of those were purchased through scalpers or just 1 million.  So it looks like less of a problem than it really is.  "According to" Sony are the key words, and I recall them saying less than 20% were not turned on despite being sold, so it COULD be more like 1/5th which is... well, still pretty bad tbh

As for undersold, perhaps my definition is wrong or we just see it differently:

- You see undersold as "made 100 units, only able to sell 50, product is undersold".  That makes sense, so I'm not going to argue that.

- I'm seeing undersold as "made 100 reservsations, only able to complete the transaction on 50".  Not only are there stipulations on purchase, but there's also a $5 deposit required.  Remember when companies used to announce pre-order "sales" numbers?  Most companies consider deposits a "sale" because a transaction has occurred which indicates a far more reliable and higher intention to purchase.  In fact, in most cases, it's considered a near-100% intention to purchase.  So to me, reservations are "sold", but they're not actually able to meet this, so I'm calling it undersold.

Given I haven't had time to look closer, but I could very well be wrong in my definition, but I hope clarifying how I see it still helps even if I used the wrong word.

Also, I have the same thing about sales numbers that they have yet to release, and also a video where I outright say there's no way it can outsell the Switch, but it may not need to sell the millions to prove they have a working system in place for "how to combat scalpers" on a product with enough demand where it SHOULD be an issue.

Jules98 said:

The Steam Deck might not have a scalper problem, but it clearly has a supply problem and the end result for the consumer remains the same: They can't buy the product they want.

I mean, I'm not arguing that, I'm just replying to the topic of how to combat scalpers and how Valve's method has for the most part reduced their presence to the point where THE concern is actually getting to your reservation, not trying to beat bots on a website because it says, "sold out" within 30 seconds of going "add to cart" lmfao

I mean, my point stands in that you can go to Steam right now and plop down a reservation on it (if you meet the stipulations).  Their method has so far proven that if you get your reservation in, you WILL get a Steam Deck.  You can't say the same for a PS5 or XSX.  You have to, *dun dun dun* combat scalper bots that are going to snag that shit fast af so you have to be all ready with your credit cards and shit at some random time of the day... Like, I understand the struggle because I've gotten an XSX, PS5, and RTX3080 all at launch by... having all payment methods ready and a non-broken F5 key at some random time of the day for a "drop".

So I don't know how this is turning into a sales discussion about the Steam Deck