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this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2026
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Steam Hardware
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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.