this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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Steam Hardware
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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.
There was something in place to prevent scalpers from just making hundreds of accounts though. The registration opened on June 22nd for reference.
They also randomized the initial signup and did it over a few days to give themselves time to validate accounts. So if your account was only a few days old prior to April 27th and you bought a $1 game with zero play time you probably still got caught.
Here’s the link for those screenshots. They did more than most to try and limit bots/scalpers. Edit: This was also posted on June 22, so they’d have to have had insider knowledge or already had hundreds of accounts spun up.
Oh, from my perspective, Valve is the one business I don't mind throwing money at today. Every other large corporatiin out there has gone to shit entirely. Even Ubuntu and RedHat have their little things I can't stand.