this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
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I am not convinced bots would fill the list with hypothetical purchases, I don’t think scalpers are interested in waiting or having money tied up in backorders.
The point is to eliminate the scalper advantage by ensuring one can buy the product « at some point ». If you need it by Christmas or whatever then you are kind of screwed.
I remember for the SteamDeck OLED, stock was enabled in waves over at least a month, so even though the first batch was sold out in minutes, there was no rush to refresh the store page to try and finish the transaction before it ran out. This is in direct contrast to (say) the PS5 which sold out in minutes then still wasn’t available anywhere over a year after it launched.
I don’t really understand how Valve solved the problem, it should have followed the same pattern of being sold out in minutes then scalpers would be the only option for months, but interestingly that’s not what happened.
Valve is an odd duck because they aren’t a publicly traded company and thus not driven by the ‘line must always go up’ nonsense. They would be a company that absolutely would purge bot accounts from their queue. Steam account that’s only hours/days old? No games in the account? No wishlist either. No browse history of any game ever? Yeah, that’s a bot.