Disclaimer: This was mostly for my own curiosity, and the estimates are probably flawed in one way or another.
I was wondering how much of the Steam Controller sales went to scalpers. Lots of websites have reported on scalpers reselling the controller, but most of those articles just focus on how much is being asked for the controller, not how many are actually available/being sold. That doesn't really tell us much by itself.
Looking at ebay's sold items, there's about ~240* listed Steam Controllers that have been sold since the announcement.
There's an additional 20 current listing I see for the new Steam controller, that haven't sold yet (weirdly, almost all the unsold listing are located in Australia, with only a single remaining listing for a US seller).
Next question is how many Steam Controllers were available to buy. Approximate estimate for the US was around 35,000-40,000 controllers*. Europe would have it's own supply.
So while there were scalpers, it doesn't seem like they were responsible for a meaningful percentage of the sales.
Additional notes: Valve limited controller sales to 2 per transaction, but didn't limit it to 2 per account. This is speculated to have been a mistake, but still would have limited how many scalpers could have gotten with how hard it was to complete a transaction.
*Math section:
5 pages of results for steam controllers in the ebay sold section, at 60 items per page, so a max of 300 sold. However, none of those pages are just the 2026 Steam Controller, a lot are actually the classic steam controller, hori steam controller, steam link, or other controllers that advertise that they're for steam. I didn't do an exact count for all 5 pages, but only 48 out of 60 results on page 4 were the steam controller 2026, so around ~240 units.
The number of controllers sold in the US is based on the shipment of controllers Valve received. It was 28,500 lbs/12,970 kg. The controller and puck weigh 308g, which would divide out to something like 42,000 controllers in the shipment. After adding in additional packaging, 35,000-40,000 is a more likely estimate. The shipment officially contained 40 packages, so possibly 1000 controllers per package.
Oh its telling of me, huh?
Tell me you've never worked in an industry that made or moved actual things without telling me you've never worked in an industry that made or moved actual things.
Active number of users on servers you are paying someone else to physically operate and maintain has nothing to do with orchestrating an international manufacturing and shipping program.
Its an entirely different animal.
Yeah because that's totally not something you can outsource just as easily.
You're arguing as if Valve is a logistics company.
I was an executive level data analyst for an international logistics middle man company, based in Seattle.
Yes, correct, you cannot infact outsource that just as easily, it is, as I said, an entirely different animal, with many different kinds of problems and costs, and potential problems and potential costs.
An enormous amount of logistics ultimately comes down to who knows, who, who introduces who to who, and who has what kind of reputation, with who.
You either pay a firm like the one I worked for a considerable premium in order to have them manage every single step of the process, every single link in the chain... or you try to do all that on your own, maybe hire a few new expert people to figure out how to do that.
I am arguing as if Valve is not a logistics company.
You are arguing as if you do not know anything about logistics at all.
Yeah that explains why you think like a manager at a logistics company, not like one at a digital services provider that sells hardware on the side.
Their employees aren't moving boxes around. Their employee count couldn't be any less relevant to their logistical capabilities. If anyone has money to throw at the problem, it's Valve.