this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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Steam Hardware
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To what end?
If Valve wanted to be petty they know what Steam account the preorder for each serial number of Steam machine came from(they know family accounts as well, etc). They could stop you from logging into Steam on any account that isn’t that one for some duration of time. It’s not fool proof and likely depends on the OS reporting hardware information correctly but they could make it a big enough annoyance to deter people. Once the supply catches up and scalpers are less interested the whole system could just be dropped. It likely isn’t worth the effort to set it up and manage complaints though.
I believe they could in theory do something like that, with limited success. Nothing is keeping anyone from creating hundreds of new steam accounts just to purchase the hardware. If the scalpers never fire up the steam machines, and sell them, it would be horrible for Valve to start punishing people that Vought those devices if they log in and they can tell the serial number or something.
It would be very complicated for Valve to do something about this, with very little reward for them or the actual final owners.
At the end of the day, they are selling like crazy, way above what I thought they would due to pricing, and scalpers taking them off of their hands is still revenue for them.
I still believe the only thing that can stop scalpers is letting them purchase 1 or 2 whole batches of whatever, and never buy from them, not even if they match the price on Steam. Let them keep all that inventory to rot.
But that's not happening, so.
They have a legal department, money and an interest in people not reselling their stuff when there is still an waiting que.
There is nothing illegal about it
And, they'd look like dicks if they got legal involved with people who legit ordered them
Like any of us here, I also hate scalpers to no end. But let's be realistic here, there's nothing Valve can do about scalpers (at least not legally). That was the reason for my question. Email Valve to let them know about scalpers, online or otherwise, then what?
Now, if everyone chose to never buy from scalpers, if everyone would prefer to miss out before paying horrible people ridiculous prices because of hype, scalpers would eventually disappear.
But just like avoiding mainstream social networks, the convenience of Google, Apple and Microsoft, enjoying same day delivery from Amazon or forking over an extra 40% to get food over Uber Eats instead of getting off of our asses to go get something to eat is unimaginable to most people out there, too many would rather spend a month's worth of rent on things they want, but don't really need due to FOMO.
You are absolutely correct in your statement.
If we want to block scalpers and predatory businesses (not talking about Valve here) we need to start somewhere. Some of us already do self-hosting, moved to Lemmy and Mastodon, and dropped Microslop for some type of Linux distros, but we're a ridiculous minority.
In my case, some of the people in my life even started calling me to ask me for suggestions to start getting away from those companies, same people that told me I was paranoid and "voluntarily suffering for no reason" when i eliminated Facebook and WhatsApp. And, of course, even now that they see that I was right all along, when I say "close all the Meta bullshit" and such, the response is, invariably, but that's how I communicate with everyone.
So, yeah, scalpers will keep scalping, predatory businesses will keep at it too, because they can, and there's nothing any of us can do about it, other than sit back, relax, and watch all the users cry their eyes out when shit hits the fan. I'm pretty sure we're not far from that moment.
Fuck scalpers. Opportunistic pieces of shit, all of them. I hope Valve sues them into homelessness.
🤷
Steam's emailbox I presume.