At least he won.

It's because presale isn't actually against their policy. What is against their policy is someone putting an inventory up that they haven't confirmed they are going to have.

So like if they have the email from Valve saying "this is the timeframe you get this" and that timeframe is ~~more~~ less than than 40 days out, as long as they can confirm shipment within 40 days of the item listing it's allowed.

I wonder if you get a new report option if the page has been active for more than 40 days, or if said issue requires a buyer to report them when they don't ship within 40

Being said, I think valve should crack down on the resale of their product on platforms like ebay, if they can find a listing that links to a steam account terminate future sales. With how overarching their system is they could likely cite Policy violation and close the entire account as well.

I assume it would be fairly easy to look for identical card numbers across the platform, or require the primary account on the device to be the account that purchased it for at least X amount of days having the system like how phone carriers do with carrier locking.

You might have to fight them for it.

These people are crazy, I've seen videos where the poor sales clerks have to call the police on them multiple times because that's how aggressive they'll get.

How would you know if the person is a scalper

They don't... If they do, they had many multiple accounts with multiple addresses and payment methods, have actual play time on actual paid (not F2P) games and made a Steam purchase before 2026/04/26. They could be sitting on their accounts for a long while to be ready for this. Don't buy scalper stuff. Only purchase from Valve. Be patient. Used market an old headset if you're new to VR, they're cheap and work today.

Ways to buy in bulk aside, there will be people who just buy their one allowed Frame only to scalp it, just like people did with Steam Decks. Most scalpers are not big operations, just people who bought one in order to resell.

70 ALTERNATIVE ACCOUTNS

OR it's just everyone ordering even if they don't want it and selling it after

Be sure to rub it in with lemon juice

Yeah this makes my blood boil. It's been happening for yearrss, long before the AIpocalypse. So many used/decommissioned computers on eBay that don't even have RAM. As for storage, there is somewhat of a "data sanitization" angle there, but seeing as how people put used disks up anyways, there is kind of no excuse to not leave them in after sanitizing them.

It's infuriating building a home lab in 2026.

But the other thousand buyers will

Offers count as purchases on eBay, though.

In the US we need modifications to the first sale doctrine. I don't think it should be done away with all-together but, It should be forced like you said to be MSRP as the ceiling. They also need to codify that licenses to use and digital goods apply to the doctrine meaning that any digital good must have a capability to resell/transfer rights of. Because with everything becoming digital only, its making the entire doctrine useless.

if they enforced MSRP, then how the hell would places like Nvidia get away with selling above MSRP...

MSRP is bullshit anyways

Fun "I Have No Mouth..." story. Daughter wanted to see the Digital Circus movie in theaters, which would include us going with and taking her. So she wanted us to watch the series too, otherwise we'd be watching the movie without the context. And I agreed, ticket purchases and watching, contingent that she get the context that's based on by reading Harlan Ellison first. Can't say she enjoyed it as much as wacky lolsorandom show... but I tried.