But do offer them a carrot they can never quite reach but seems worth going out of their way for.

It wouldn’t have cost them anything to say “we’re opening up orders to users who have had a Steam account for at least 2 years, limit 2 per account. After 30 days we’ll open it up to everyone. “

That alone would have stopped so much scalping, and garnered goodwill with the players.

You can report scalpers and get their listings taken down on ebay.

A) You'll have people selling their place in line, which means that those who can afford to take a large quantity of orders in advance can profit from the difference

B) It's not exactly good PR to order something and having to wait a variable window of time for it to finally arive at your door (see almost all Bethesda merch incidents post Fallout NV)

C) Valve doesn't operate like a dropshipper. There is no "white label" steam controller being made in china that they can slap their logo on and sell as soon as people order for it. They have to contract volume in advance, since it's a bespoke product.

Because market conditions are fucking insane right now. If they allow backorder and their production price doubles they would have to either honor the orders and take a huge loss, or refuse to honor the price and take a reputational hit.

One thing that comes to mind is that even if they get hit by a space rock tomorrow, your order is on it's way. There's guarantee it exists and is already destined for you. Seems fair and safe.

Why wouldn't the scalpers just fill up the queue?

They don't even know how to price it they have to reorder everything and cost it out, prices are fluctuating a lot right now throughout the supply chain.

There's one listed for $500 on Ebay

Yeah, I mean, at this point valve has proved to be trustworthy. I wouldn't mind placing a pre-order or backorder with them.

As someone who waited 6 months for their Framework 13 pre-order batch to ship, let me tell you, there are drawbacks to that system as well!

And at the very least, they shouldn't be paying the fascists running it $2,000 a year to be there.

Kinda reminds me of a poster I saw today advertising a communist group and an anti-billionaire rally. Had a QR code to follow them on Instagram and X. 🙄

They should diversify where they post and help guide people to those other platforms, but just leaving X altogether wouldn't accomplish anything. They need to talk to the people where they are

Convince the user base to switch platforms first, and the companies will follow.

When Valve does that it will bring many people with them

Should report them on eBay too. Force eBay to stop allowing this behavior!

It was limited to two per purchase, but I could still add (and maybe buy) more after I bought my 2

If only there were two other console SKUs they sold in the past that would've better prepared them for this.

They did it with the Deck, but apparently didn't think the controller would garner the same reaction, somehow.

I still haven't bought a PS5 because of this lol. At first it was too expensive and scalpers bought them all, so I thought "no worries, I'll wait a year or two and get one on the cheap when it's older." And then the price kept going up over time so I just never bothered.

Yeah, agreed. eBay is notorious for being brutal on sellers, taking them down rather easily.

Scam listings are still everywhere though.

Any listing that went up before the official release date should automatically be flagged and removed

Indefinitely.

Thanks!

My eyes lit up when you mentioned the Vader Pro, but I was left with disappointment due to the lack of dual trackpads.

I have a steam deck, and love using the device in handheld mode due to the trackpads. But I also like a bigger screen and prefer to play it docked to my TV.

When doing that, I miss the track pads and their value as a precise input or macro pad. There are some games that I have to play handheld because a controller doesn't give me enough options.

I didn't buy a steam controller yet, but it's absolutely on my wishlist for when I can justify it. Waiting on my old PS4 controller to bite the dust. Its trackpad is close, but not as good.

I think in a decade, we will see the Steam Controller trackpads redefining the default controller the way joysticks and bumpers/triggers did.

Nobody cares