Pressured by the lack of memory and other PC parts because AI is the worst thing to happen to humanity, Valve set the price of its Steam Machine at $1049 for the 512GB version, causing many excited fans to throw a fit on social media. However, it would appear that this price seems fine to a large number of customers, given that the device has sold out in many places around the world.
But further proof of the Steam Machine’s popularity is scalpers, who’ve been raiding eBay and other markets with the device, selling it for two or three times over its original price. As VideoCardz spotted, there are Steam Machines being sold for $2,899 on eBay, with the seller probably thinking they were justified since they offered a controller to boot.
Without controllers, offers of up to $1,950 appeared for the 512GB version, i.e., precisely 900 bucks above the original price. And all of this scalping is happening despite Valve’s attempt to curb it by requiring your Steam account to meet its backend behavior requirements, to have purchases prior to this April, and to only be able to purchase one system per household.
Scalpers always find ways, though, and as we’ve seen in the case of Pokémon cards, some are even willing to kill to get their hands on whatever tradable item that they can then sell for a marginal or significant profit. It doesn’t make a difference to them. However, any meaningful ways to stop them, i.e., via government regulations, would directly infringe on people’s freedom of trade, meaning we’re stuck with them for the foreseeable future.
