Good to know. Thanks. It's crazy they didn't do this from the beginning.
this post was submitted on 07 May 2026
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There was a full news cycle of tech folks talking about how "they are so in demand, they sold out instantly." Build the hype with free press.
Valve has enough experience with this to know exactly what they were doing.
They have like 150 people working there. I'm not sure that's more likely than they just flubbed something.
I think they wanted to leave a bunch of scalpers as bag holders. It's kinda genius. Let the scalpers go crazy buying a shitload of controllers, then later let actual consumers buy and reserve. So actual players have a reason NOT to buy from the inflated scalpers, and the scalpers are left with a bunch of controllers they can't sell because everyone is buying them at fair price.
And the scalpers will have a hard time buying up the second stock, because many of them likely already blew a lot of money the first time, and the second time will require a lot of bottery that will be even more expensive to try and pull off.
There is no way that this is why.
Sure, but a decent side effect.
If I remember correctly they did setup a similar reservation system for the Steamdeck when it came out?
They set it up for the Index before then
We got the steam social credit score before GTA VI.
Whooo!!! That’s really good news for me, I was bummed to miss out on the first drop
Mine has been dispatched today from wave 1.
It's crazy that they ran out so fast! I managed to get two controllers in my basket 30 seconds after release but I wasn't able to pay until more than an hour later because Steam was getting hammered. It seems like I kept my place in line tho because my controllers have left the distribution center.
I hope everyone that wants a controller can get one! I am so excited to finally get my hands on it. I have been waiting for dual sticks with touch pads since 2015 when they released the first one.
Finally some requirements before scalpers do their work.
Valve already had requirements with the first batch. They just didn't have stock
Bah, finally. Still mad they didn't do this from the start, but relieved to be in the queue. Damn scalpers ruining everything these days.
April 27th 2026 seems like a wrong choice. I'd go for something like 2023 and work up to 2026. A minimum account value should also be a factor.
Could they not just lock the controller to the purchased account for the first 1 or 2 months? If you want to buy it for someone else you can use the gift option. Of course people could still resell it, but the people who buy the scalped controllers wouldn't be able to use it for two months, and the original account gets flagged as a scalper, and maybe banned if it's against ToS? And if you don't like your controller you can either just return it or wait out the lock-out period. But there are probably issues I'm missing.
Hardware DRM, basically. Hell no.
I would rather they do what they are doing, limit to 1 unit, and have some history prior.
I would even be OK with some level of priority by age or played hours, but I understand this is not something people would agree
Yep definitely would not have bought if they pulled something like that, as effective as it may have been to prevent scalping
That would require implementing a level of drm that requires on online activation, first thats not cheap and second it would loose them a lot of good will