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> Why a randomized reservation order? [...] we wanted to create a system that would be less frustrating and more fair for everyone. A launch that starts at a sp
by sailingparrot 4mo ago
> Why a randomized reservation order?
[...] we wanted to create a system that would be less frustrating and more fair for everyone. A launch that starts at a specific day and time tends to reward bots, people with fast internet connections, talented gaming fingers for quick F5/refresh reactions, and those who can schedule their life around that moment. By accepting reservation signups over the course of a few days, without any incentive to be first, we're hoping to take away some of that friction.
This is nice.
- iLoveOncall 4mo agoIt's not worse than a traditional launch, but it's also not much better. Make 1,000 Steam accounts, which are entirely free, and you get 1,000 times more chances of getting one than others. To be fair I don't think they'll be scalped a lot because the price isn't attractive already and alternatives are plenty.
- Ekaros 4mo ago>You must have made a purchase on Steam prior to April 27th 2026. >Limit one signup per household. We will use payment method, shipping address, and other information to eliminate multiple entries. Seems like they have chosen some reasonable options here. 2 months ago having purchase and trying to detect households. Likely also including phone number, Steam Guard client and family sharing.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- xinayder 4mo agoSteam accounts newer than April do not qualify, plus I think you need to have spent at least $5 to qualify for the reservation queue (i.e. not community limited)
- flutas 4mo agoThe account has to have bought something on steam before April 27th. They also are verifying addresses via the accounts. > Are there any criteria for signing up? > Customers must meet the following criteria to be able to sign up: > You must have a Steam account in good standing. > You must have made a purchase on Steam prior to April 27th 2026. > Limit one signup per household. We will use payment method, shipping address, and other information to eliminate multiple entries.
- charcircuit 4mo agoThe price of a Steam account is going to be less than the profit of ordering an additional Steam Machine by a lot.
- kqr 4mo agoBut it's not an additional Steam Machine, it's a potential additional Steam Machine. In expectation, I'm sure it's more like 1/1000th of a Steam Machine.
- bspammer 4mo agoOk but organizing a separate address for each delivery is going to be a pain
- brokencode 4mo agoHow are people going to get a Steam account with a purchase from before April 27th though? I guess you could find somebody online and buy their account, but surely this would be a slow and unreliable process.
- boofus 4mo agosadly there's sites dedicated to buying accounts of all sorts (reddit, x, steam, etc...) that use an escrow-type system so both parties have little risk It's basically super easy and trivial to buy verified accounts for many many platforms
- garrettjoecox 4mo agoDo you really think a fresh steam account will have equal footing? I'd be surprised if that was the case. Even Nintendo has been setting fairly strict requirements to pre-order some of their products, like requiring 50 hours of playtime on the original switch to pre-order the Switch 2
- e28eta 4mo agoIt also reduces the DDoS effect of telling all your customers to repeatedly hit your web servers at a specific day & time.
- tmoertel 4mo agoYeah, this is a promising solution to scalping. Previously, if you had only small numbers of consoles available at launch, scalpers and their bots would claim a large share of them. With Valve's new policy, that share is reduced to s/g, where s is the number of verified Steam accounts controlled by scalpers and g is the number of legit gamer accounts. Since s is likely to be much less than g, s/g is close to zero, and scalping is dramatically curtailed. Almost all of the initial batch of consoles will go to legit gamers.
- baggy_trough 4mo agoScalping is a good thing, because it gets consoles in the hands of those who want them the most, as evidenced by willingness to pay.
- geon 4mo agoAbsolutely no one needs a steam machine.
- jcurtis 4mo agoThis would only make sense if everyone has equal ability to pay.
- welshwelsh 4mo agoYou're right. It's not just aboutwillingness to pay, but also how much someone deserves to own a Steam Machine, which we determine by their ability to pay. It's not a perfect system, but money is how we as a society determine how to allocate scarce resources. People labor under the promise that having additional money will give them an advantage in this type of situation.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- Escapado 4mo agoSounds like you love unregulated free capitalism but correct me if I am wrong. If that’s the case I wonder if you would see things differently if said system strongly disadvantaged you and your loved ones in other areas (health care, housing, education). I think if we derive “deserving” solely by “ability to pay” we loose our humanity.
- himata4113 4mo agoI am more surprised there's people lining up to buy this when it's genuinely cheaper to get a used PC off a local marketplace. I feel like this is unnecessary as I am pretty sure they'll be able to fill it in one shipment.
- retired 4mo agoFor €1039 you can even get a mini-ITX PC that fits nicely in your living room. Install SteamOS to get a similar experience. Only thing you will not get is the HDMI CEC functionality.
- nomel 4mo agoInteresting claim. Complete parts list please! Every time I've seen a comment like this, the eventual parts list is about the same price, has large deviations, or re-uses existing hardware (or used hardware). Looking at all the subreddits, the general consensus seems to be the price is fine for the components, and (if you care) it's impossible to build anything with that form factor.
- retired 4mo agoIt will be difficult to build it that small, however you will end up with a PC that doesn’t use proprietary hardware and is easier to repair. There is something to say about that.
- nomel 4mo agoYou misunderstood my last sentence, and my overall point, so I'll try again: Do you have parts list that supports your claim, with all new parts, without caring about the form factor?
- kllrnohj 4mo agoOr buy this and get the exact same thing, but without building and parting it our yourself? It's still an open computer, not a locked down console. The price reflects that reality. It's not subsidized because you actually just properly own it. The price of this steam machine is a rounding error away from the build it yourself DIY price. It's not marked up, this is just what PC components actually cost these days :/
- srmatto 4mo agoI would love to see a generalized FOSS reservation system that could be used for just about anything that would help address the issues Valve listed. It could be as simple as a short lived deployment (1,3,7,14 days) that writes out the entries to a Google Sheets. I have encountered so many people trying to come up with their own approach to this problem that I think it would be worth solving. Maybe I can find time to work on it later this year.
- wiether 4mo agoSeems weird to base a FOSS reservation system on... Google Sheets?
- srmatto 4mo agoFair point but I mean it eliminates state and would be familiar to just about anyone that might need something like this.
- mannanj 4mo agoWould love to know if you decide to work on this, or if otherwise, want to collaborate. feel free to email me hello@mannan.is - or maybe I'll begin work on this before you and we can share notes edit: I don't particularly care for Google Sheets, just the idea of solving the underlying problem.
- srmatto 4mo agoYeah I regret throwing that in the mix because it seems to have rubbed folks the wrong way for whatever reason. I just think avoiding storing state means it's a much easier project. Doesn't have to be G sheets.
- mannanj 4mo agoyou had the right spirit and a hackers mindset. so dont fret too much on others opinions of you
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- throwaway21233 4mo agoI don't get why companies don't take advantage of the demand. For example: Start the bidding at BASE_PRICE (BP) + 2400. Then reduce the price by $1 every 3mins over the course of 5 days. Until the BP is met and then just carry on queuing. You could buy it early if you want it that much or just wait an extra couple of days and end up in the queue at the BP. I don't know if it would create pressure on that second it ticks over to the BP, so then its BP+1 - well I guess the nash equilibrium would be pushed up.
- iamtheworstdev 4mo agobecause the less wealthy get mad about it
- eximius 4mo agoHoly fuck, not everything in this life needs to be profit maximized.
- maerF0x0 4mo agoProfit and premium models can be great if it's allocated to useful things. For example if it went as bonuses to the rank and file employees, or was as steam store credit, or went to a charity. I get your cynicism it would just go to billionaire shareholders, but profit itself isnt the enemy, greed is.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- baq 4mo agogreed isn't even the worst. greed is a necessity if you have any competition. sometimes it's hard to tell greed from operational efficicency. rent seeking however... rent seeking should be taxed to hell and back.
- maerF0x0 4mo agoI think we define greed in a different manner, I presume what you call greed, I'd call self interest. To me greed is being willing to take to the detriment of others.
- WarmWash 4mo agoI would be curious how the public would react to a Dutch auction, where Valve launches the console at a $10,000 price tag, and every ~hour drops the price by $100 until they are sold out. It creates the illusion that buyers are "breaking the line" when buying high, so it's their fault (not valves) for the high selling price. This would also eliminate scalpers.
- philistine 4mo agoThe problem with a dutch auction is if you don't know how a dutch auction functions, it looks like you're getting royally screwed. That's why they're usually reserved for professional settings.
- jojobas 4mo agoHow so? You don't like the price, you don't make a bid. You can only royally screw yourself.
- selcuka 4mo agoWhat you said is correct, but only for a rational person. Note the wording of your parent comment: "it looks like". Many if not most people will buy the thing for $X, then complain that someone else scored the same item for $X - $100.
- jojobas 4mo ago"Dumb people are going to be unhappy" is a strange argument to make.
- WarmWash 4mo agoBut plays a massive role in shaping society
- dghlsakjg 4mo agoPissing off your customers by nakedly profit maximizing is great for one shot life games. They would maximize profit for this launch and in the process damage a reputation that is literally worth billions. Gamers are famously sensitive, and famously have a long memory for PR fuckups.
- Zenst 4mo agoInteresting, as it sounds like a lottery reservation system, which is kinda a neat way to deal with many issues. I'm always supprised that companies don't do a tiered price release, offer it at 200% price, you get it, 150%, you lower down the list and then 100% lottery time, that way they gain from those who can afford to pay more(maybe able to subsidise other sales later and price cuts down the line). Why feed scalpers when you can coin it directly and then offer a lower price to those who are prepared to wait a few more months or so.
- agilob 4mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition In governance, sortition is the selection of public officials or jurors at random, i.e., by lottery, in order to obtain a representative sample.[1][2][3] In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy.[4][5] Sortition is often classified as a method for both direct democracy and deliberative democracy.
- HerbManic 4mo agoWhile it sounds nice in principal, it basically just means cashed up people get it first. But there is also the fun side of it becoming a status symbol I guess. Drive up future demand.
- Zenst 4mo agoAs it is, scalpers/bots have been cashing in for a while, coining it from cashed-up people, so flipping that would make sense by a company and taking advantage of that to help reduce/fund a lower price down the line quicker. Another way would be to auction of X amount of units, then those with cash can pay through the nose directly and again, the company gains and by that, so do normal consumers on a breadline, as it would help reduce the cost quicker down the line for the rest of the purchasers.
- mjevans 4mo ago
- d3Xt3r 4mo ago> This is nice But this is not nice: > This item is not available for purchase in your region
- annzabelle 4mo agoI moved to New Zealand recently from the US and am now seeing that everywhere. A lot of the time some local ecommerce platform imports the Australian version of most electronics with a markup, but we don't have official retailers for a lot of products, most notably Pixel phones. Also no Apple stores, though there are official retailers for Apple products.
- Rapzid 4mo agoIt's way, way better than it was 15 years ago. Amazon and Amazon AU, Costco, etc. TradeMe for the cheaper stuff you don't want to wait for shipping from China. But yeah the selection and availability is nowhere near the USA or even say.. Indonesia.
- annzabelle 4mo agoI'm in the rural South Island, which doesn't help either. No Costco for me.
- HerbManic 4mo agoYou do have the eighth wonder of the world however. The 'Wall of Whittakers' at Pak'n'Save. Also sorry that we send you our trash from Cadburies in tassie.
- annzabelle 4mo agoI live an hour from the nearest Pak'n'Save... It's lovely here, but it's been a real shift vs having nearly every retailer available in my county and being able to go to NYC for a weekend on a whim.
- 4mo ago
- racl101 4mo agoThat's pretty cool!
- brunoborges 4mo agoThis is how tickets for sports and concerts should always be sold. Entertainment tends to compare with airline tickets, except that with air travel, there are regular flights and competition. There is no such thing as a single flight from Paris to New York on one Saturday at 9pm on a window of a few years.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4mo ago> Why a randomized reservation order? Lies, they just want to protect themselves from the German Tank Problem [0] type of analysis. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem
- selcuka 4mo ago> they just want to protect themselves from the German Tank Problem type of analysis How could you estimate that when they don't let you know your position in the queue (with or without randomisation)? > we'll send you an email with the option to purchase. You'll then have 72 hours to complete the purchase.
- anthonyrstevens 4mo agoI thought about this, and can not tell if you are being serious or not. I can see arguments for either.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4mo agoAll the best jokes are only part jokes.
- petterroea 4mo agoLiving in Japan, most popular concerts are handled this way. It really really sucks to not get a ticket, and it sucks even more that we need to do it this way because of scalpers. But hey, if it means I overall have a better chance of getting tickets (at list price at that), hey, I guess it is worth it. I wish there were better ways of defeating scalpers.
- jillesvangurp 4mo agoExactly, get the devices in the hands of real users instead of ebay traders trying to get rich.
- ozgrakkurt 4mo agoThis would also be a very good idea for university course selection systems
- taintlord 4mo ago[dead]
- superxpro12 4mo ago[dead]
- firemelt 4mo agoa fucking real raffle