It probably comes as no surprise that after Valve opened up pre-registration for the upcoming Steam Deck over the weekend, scalpers were straight onto it. Spotted on eBay, some scalpers are marking the handheld device up to USD$5000. Despite Valve’s admirable efforts to combat scalpers, unfortunately, the USD$5 ‘reserve now’ fee was simply not enough to determine what appears to be hundreds of re-sellers.
Holy shit. Those #SteamDeck scalper prices! pic.twitter.com/gaWdm6S1rc
Hold on to your $2000, sports fans
In inevitable events, online auction house eBay was overrun last week with new listings of Valve’s Steam Deck, mere hours after The manufacturer shut the door on reservations for its new handheld gaming system. Various listings for the portable PC popped up at outrageous prices, pushing well past the four-figure mark in many cases, as industry-standard scalpers immediately got to work on trying to make phat profit on their successful reservations.
Speaking to Eurogamer, eBay has announced its plans to clamp down on any and all scalped Steam Deck listings, no doubt still reeling from the heavy fire it came under following similar events surrounding the launches of PS5 and Xbox Series X /S back in 2020. eBay is taking down the scalped pre-orders by exercising its right to cancel any auction that will not deliver its goods within 30 days of the auction’s end. Of course, the Steam Deck is currently not scheduled to start rolling out customer orders until the end of 2021 at the earliest.
What Do We Think?
With this in mind, the advice is straight forward. DO NOT buy a Steam Deck from an online scalper. Not just from the point of view that you’re perpetuating a business that has practically crippled console and GPU stock for the last 9 months, but also the sheer fact that even if you’re willing to pay over the odds, there is literally NO guarantee that you’ll get anything other than a Steam account and an MSRP balance to pay off there!
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
With the Steam Deck being the first device to play Path of Exile, many wonder if it will be a great experience compared to playing it on PC.
The Steam Deck is officially out – or at least, for a few people that managed to get a hold of them. With the ongoing chip shortages, it’s challenging to get any new tech on your hands these days. GPU prices are through the roof, PlayStation 5 consoles are still being scalped, and the Steam Deck is yet to be on the lap of the masses.