Valve finally dropped the new Steam Controller and, surprise surprise, it sold out in some regions in under 30 minutes. According to Video Games Chronicle, the controller is now out of stock across every major market, because of course it is.
Before you even had time to find your credit card between the couch cushions, scalpers were already listed the thing for up to THREE TIMES the original price. Three times. That's not a markup, that's a war crime against PC gamers everywhere.
Déjà vu, anyone?
If this feels like a boss fight you've already lost before, that's because it is. The scalper playbook hasn't changed: buy in bulk using bots, flip for obscene profit, rinse and repeat while gamers rage in the comments. The Steam Controller is just the latest loot drop to get swiped before real players could even spawn in.
The original Steam Controller from 2015 had its own cult following, and Valve's re-entry into the controller space was always going to attract attention. But this level of instant sellout suggests demand is absolutely off the charts, which is either great news for Valve or a serious wake-up call about their stock management skills - probably both.
So what now?
If you missed out, your options are pretty grim right now. You can either fork over scalper prices that would make a free-to-play microtransaction blush, or you wait for Valve to restock and hope your add-to-cart fingers are faster next time.
Valve has not publicly commented on restock timelines as of writing. Until then, the Steam Controller sits in that painful gaming purgatory alongside PS5 launch units and RTX 3080 cards - technically real, theoretically purchasable, and practically impossible to actually own.
Stay strong out there, fellow gamers. Don't let the scalpers win. Unless they're asking for only 1.5x the price, in which case, honestly, maybe just this once.
