The year 2020 has been a turbulent one for gaming, with many titles and products delayed due to the COVID-19 lock down and restrictions. To make things worse, the large number of exciting hardware launches from Nvidia, AMD, Sony, and Microsoft has pushed the problem of scalping back into the spotlight. While not a new problem, the increased ease of scalping means it is having more of an impact on gamers than in the past.
Scalping is where either individuals or a company buy up as much hardware stock as possible at launch, in order to resell them at vastly inflated prices. Enough scalpers buying up hardware ensures that the products sell out and prevents gamers from getting hold of them, pushing people to either wait or pay significantly over the odds. For example, scalpers are selling the PlayStation 5 for over $1500 on eBay. The problem has traditionally been most associated with tickets for music gigs and events, but major hardware launches have often been affected, as far back as PlayStation 2.
Every big hardware release in 2020 appears to have been significantly affected by scalping. Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards, AMD’s Zen 3 / Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs, as well as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X were targeted, with the problem almost certain to impact the AMD RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 launch which is imminent at the time of writing. Not only does this impact gamers in the period surrounding the launch, it can cause months of delays and frustration in some cases, with gamers waiting as manufacturers struggle to catch up with orders from real gamers.
Gaming hardware launches are sadly the perfect opportunity for scalpers, as they involve products with huge demand, typically low stock availability, and clearly marked retail prices that tend to remain stable. This provides scalpers with a huge opportunity to push people into paying over the odds, and even if unsuccessful, they can simply resell the products at retail price once supplies pick up. The use of bots has also made it far easier for scalpers to buy multiple units of a product from many different retail outlets, meaning that just a few scalpers can decimate launch supply for an entire city.
Hardware companies already try a number of measures to prevent scalping, including manually reviewing orders and limiting purchases to one item per address. AMD also provided Ryzen 5000 Series and RX 6000 Series retailers with information on best practices for bot detection. However, the single biggest way companies could help to stop scalpers is simply to provide more launch stock. A huge part of the problem is that every hardware company wants its newly launched products to sell out, as this provides strong PR and pushes retailers to want to order extra supply. This means that each launch becomes a balance between providing gamers with the right amount of stock and ensuring that there isn’t so much stock that some remains unsold at the end of the first day. This means that when a hardware company drastically underestimates demand, as Nvidia claims with the RTX 3080, the shortages are significant even before scalpers get involved.
Perhaps the worst case though appears to be a subsidiary of hardware manufacturer MSI, who used its access to the company’s RTX 3080 stock to sell them at up to $1000 over the retail price on eBay. Positively though, MSI responded by forcing the subsidiary to offer all buyers either a product return with a full refund, or a partial refund of the excess price paid, as well as preventing such stock access from happening in the future.
Of course, it is important to remember that producing complex new hardware in large numbers is a challenge for any manufacturer, as are decisions about how long to hold back a launch to ensure sufficient stock supply. It does appear that manufacturers are learning gradually, with Nvidia sensibly delaying the RTX 3070 launch following the RTX 3080 chaos.
Scalpers would be unable to operate without major reseller sites such as Gumtree and eBay, which allow the extreme listings to be widely seen for either zero or very little cost. While Gumtree in particular has taken some action on ticket scalping, it appears that none of the major resellers are doing anything significant to combat the problem with gaming hardware, although eBay has prevented the reselling of hardware and game preorders more than 30 days before launch. Unfortunately the income from scalpers is not insignificant, which pushes resellers to turn a blind eye to the problem. While scalpers are highly unethical, they technically aren’t doing anything illegal, so as long as they don’t break the terms and conditions of reseller sites they tend to be left alone.
Gamers have the ability to directly impact scalpers, hardware manufacturers, and reseller sites, but none of these are straightforward. The most impactful solution is for gamers to refuse to buy from scalpers. The problem only exists because some people are so keen to get the latest hardware that they are willing to pay drastically over the odds, so if gamers worked together and refused to pay above standard retail price, scalpers would have no profit to make.
Similarly, gamers can use their voices to make sure hardware manufacturers know that so-called paper launches, where next to no real stock is available, are not acceptable. Negative reception from gamers can have a big impact over time. After all, the criticism over the RTX 3080 launch prompted Nvidia’s delaying of the RTX 3070 and potentially encouraged competitor AMD to push back its own Ryzen 5000 and RX 6000 Series launches to build supply.
Sadly, it appears reseller sites are unlikely to listen to complaints about scalpers by significantly changing policies or terms and conditions. The only way to drive such a change would be for gamers to campaign together by refusing to buy from reseller websites until they act, which would require a significant amount of organisation and effort. Other tactics that some gamers have tried is to create their own listings on reseller sites that try and prevent the scalper listings from appearing in search results, which while not totally effective, it certainly helps to make life more difficult for scalpers.
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