Scalper related video game news

Free market! But na, **** em'

US lawmakers announce bill to prohibit bot scalping of high demand goods

"So everyone has a fair chance of buying popular products at reasonable prices".

Politicians in the US have announced a new legislative bill - named the Stopping Grinch Bots Act, after the Dr. Seuss character that stole Christmas - which seeks to curtail the scalping of high demand toys and goods.

The bill, which specifically targets scalpers using bots to snap up online inventories of in-demand items in order to resell them at significantly higher prices, doesn't limit its focus to the video games industry, but it would certainly cover items such as consoles and graphics cards - both of which have been hit particularly hard by scalping as a result of supply chain issues worsened during the pandemic.

"These third-party sellers use bots to bypass security measures and manipulate online sales systems to buy toys," the press release announcing the bill explains, "leading to some toys being almost impossible to buy online or in stores at retail prices, exacerbating shortages caused by stressed supply chains."

"At a time when families should be able to spend time with their loved ones, digital 'Grinch bots' are forcing Americans to scour online sites in the hopes of finding an affordable gift or paying exorbitant prices for a single toy," the announcement continues. "These bots don't just squeeze consumers, they pose a problem for small businesses, local retailers and other entrepreneurs trying to ensure they have the best items in stock for their customers".

The bill (thanks PC Mag) has been proposed by Representative Paul Tonko (D-NY), Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), and Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), and is intended to "create a more level playing field so everyone has a fair chance of buying popular products at reasonable prices when shopping online."

It follows a similar proposal - the Better Online Ticket Sales Act (BOTS Act) - that was signed into law in 2016, prohibiting the use of automated bots to acquire tickets for public events and making it illegal for scalpers to sell those tickets. The authors of the proposed legislation - which is supported by the Consumer Reports, Consumer Federation of America, and the National Consumer League - say it would apply similar mechanisms used in the BOTS Act to ban bots bypassing security measures implemented by online retail sites.

PC Mag notes this isn't the first time such a bill has been proposed. Tonko, Blumenthal, and Schumer originally introduced the legislation in 2019, but its progress stalled in Congressional committees. The lawmakers are clearly hoping the increased stock shortages resulting from current global supply chain issues will help drum up more support this time around.

Here in the UK, stories of scalpers and scalping groups dominating the headlines (such as these, these, and these) have similarly drawn the ire of MPs. Last December, a number of politicians put forward an Early Day Motion in UK Parliament to prohibit the resale of consoles and PC parts that are significantly overpriced - similar to existing legislation for the secondary selling of tickets - while also proposing the resale of goods purchased by bots could be made illegal. That motion has so far drawn cross-party support from 35 MPs, although, perhaps crucially, no Conservative MPs have yet signed the proposal.

In February this year, the Gaming Hardware (Automated Purchase and Resale) Bill 2019-21 - intended to prohibit the automated purchase and resale of games consoles and computer components - was introduced to the House of Commons by Scottish National Party MP Douglas Chapman. However, it is still yet to receive its second reading.

February also saw the UK government's Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy respond to a petition signed by 15,500 people, calling for a change in the law to tackle console scalping. The department said it had been discussing the issue of "bulk purchasing of high demand items like graphics cards and games consoles through automated bots with trade associations such as Ukie".

"We understand they are currently examining further actions they can take to prevent these behaviours," the government statement continued, "and are working with their retailers to improve experiences for customers purchasing their products."

With no government legislation in place, however, Ukie told Eurogamer it could only recommend that consumers "stay patient... refuse to buy from scalpers and... buy from a trusted retailer" for the time being.

This won't work. Its like trying to combat piracy.

It's one thing to try an honest attempt of your own and get a console that you scalp.

It's another thing to use bots to create holes in markets and drive up prices by doing this on a business scale.

Just like pirates, these guys should be hanged.

people think bots can't be beat, but if stores wanted to they can. Its simple, any online purchase of a console, is limited to 1 per account per credit card and that account must have at least $1000 in recent transaction history. How many scalpers are willing to spend $1000 just to buy an xbox / ps5?

UK won't do anything, neither will the US.

Hackers, modders,pirates, scalpers, all of them scum of the earth. We need to eliminate them all. Let’s go USA, you can destroy them!

FYI, the BOTS act did nothing. In fact, ticket botting grew 20%.

Botting is even easier than piracy.

@vl4d_l3nin: are there any bots capable of getting around a captcha? I hear not even the most advanced AI can do it.

If numb nuts pay scalper prices, then price will remain high. It's up to them to vote with their wallets. I'm not paying a penny over the MRRP of anything.

Putting faith in the consumer is like putting your dick in a blender and hoping the electricity cuts off before press the start button.

The odds are very low.

In 2016, Google tested state of the art AI on distorted text captcha and it was able to solve it 99.8% of the time. They launched a more sophisticated "recaptcha" in order to combat this, but its only a matter of time before AI catches up.

interesting. I wonder how image captcha and audio captcha fare.

It’s about damn time.

Vote with your wallet is a myth now. I never gone out of my way paying Scalpers price and will find MSRP price I'm gonna pay for at retailer.

I'd love to see scalping eliminated, but it'll never happen. All of these retailers could stop it, but they won't. Because, frankly, if a bot buys a unit, or a human being, the unit is still sold. They don't give a shit.

Bingo. Why are retailers gonna spend extra money and man power on something like this?

I‘ve tried to spread the word on strategies and tricks to getting consoles on this board. The, “I refuse to use twitter” excuse is costing most of you a console. I have co-workers that did the same shit. They finally broke down, signed up for twitter and literally only followed Wario64 and BOOM! They are PS5 and or Xbox Series console owners. I‘ve purchased consoles for folks that were ready to pay scalper prices. I think I’m up to 8 total consoles purchased for other people at this point. It‘s not that hard. Much easier than waiting for D.C. to solve the problem for me…

Yes and no. Retailers aren't make much money on consoles sold. They want games and accessories sold with those consoles.

I think there should be a requirement from the retailer to improve their web code to mitigate access by bots.

Yeah it's hard, but these companies have lots of money. Spend some to improve your web api. If I am able to make thousands of requests per second to your cart api, that's a problem. It also makes the site unusable for normal traffic.

If that means I can't buy certain problems a quickly, fine. I will be happy to go through a verification process before I can add an item to my cart. I don't know what the solution is, but there are people who get paid way more than I to do web stuff.

The fact is, there is no incentive for retailers to change anything when they sell out of their products. Time for some external incentive.

so its Florida then.

Good, all transactions should be made by people on the open market. There were already SEVERAL ways they could have fought back against this but the companies selling the products don't care enough since they make their money either way.

Either way the bill probably won't pass because Dr. Seuss got cancelled by morons.

Tbh, I'd just feel bad paying over MSRP. In London there's this buy and sell electronics chain called CEX. And they're selling a 2nd hand Series X for over £600, and it's just offensive to me, I'd just feel like a complete mug (someone who allows themselves to be hustled for those that might not know) paying that.

None of my stuff is anywhere near high end, but it'll do. I have a Series S and an i7 3770 based PC with a 1060 6G graphics card. And that'll do me. I'm not paying silly prices for consoles or new PC tech. I'll wait however long for this problem to be solved and buy at regular prices.

Even the PC tech giants are taking advantage, officially over pricing there CPUs and GPUs. I just refuse to indulge that. yeah, "vote with your wallet" is a myth, but it's just a principle for me. Given the value, the Series S has been a great console during a shit time imo.

And this situation is a shame, because the RTX 30XX series was remarkable, but the generation has been ruined by a combination of the supply problems, and a-hole crypto miners.

Well this is a step in the right direction.

I'm curious how retailers feel about this, as demand has allowed them to in turn increase the prices of their products well beyond the MSRP.

Would have been nice to see some Republicans sponsor this bill, but I guess that's how things go these days.

Maybe, but you have to at least make an attempt. Otherwise what is the point of anything?

Exactly. Scalping because you were lucky enough to snag one or two items that are in popular demand is one thing; buying out entire inventories and doing this as a business is something else entirely.

Both are wrong, but one is borderline evil.

I almost bought a $1900 PC the other day because it has an RTX 3080Ti in it and the ENTIRE PC would be like 500 dollars cheaper than the card itself from a retailer. Granted I've been wanting a second PC for my living room so it would not have gone entirely to waste, but about 80% of buying it would have been for the card.

How messed up is that?

In either case, I'm like you, I can wait it out; my only concern is card failure. I mean I'd be totally screwed if my RTX 2080 went out on me. I'd have to put my old GTX 980 back in and while that card was a beast, it's about 6+ years old at this point and I've gone to 2K monitors now.

Just more government fluff. I'd genuinely be shocked if this was passed, let alone half-ass enacted. Storefronts need to deal with this shit, but they largely won't as sales are sales.

Scalping needs to be a crime.

@nintendoboy16: then it would violate free market and first sale doctrine.

What needs to be done is for online stores to create some anti bot measures. I don't know how, but this is what will save the stock from scalpers. If this is not done, every single new popular item might be sold out for a year plus. How much longer do i need to wait for a 3070/3060ti? I swear, the 4000 series will be out by then.......

What bugs me even more is that these people that use professional tools and work like companies aren't being taxed as companies. They fly under the radar with their scalping as its such a grey market that was once used to only resell tickets.

This isn't fair to regular companies that do everything in their power to abide by the law.

Other people see this: how easy it is to scalp, how easy it is to get money tax free and of course this draws in even more scum of the earth.

@R4gn4r0k: Yeah. Just to add to the fire, was reading an article not too long ago about how Nvidia is releasing a 12 GB RTX 3060 card (pretty sweet), and they had a chart comparing to other 3060 cards with the summary and price was in there.

MSRP $349 for a 3060

3. 4. 9. Dollars.

Not 1200 dollars. Not 1500 dollars.

349 dollars.

God damn.

I used to buy mid end cards for €400. GTX970, GTX1070 and so on.

Back when I was willing to spend a good deal more on a card I bought a €800 1080ti. Still rocking that card and I'm super happy with it. It hasn't let me down when asking 4K or high framerates from it.

But when the 2080ti launched at its performance point €1200 was a lot of money. And it used gimmicks to sell the card (Ray tracing, DLSS, with almost zero support from games).

But now people go: Oh yeah the 3080ti at €1800 is a good price because it's only slighty more expensive than a RTX3080.

No >:(

Now do it for the stock market.

Despite the law I see this hard to enforce.

How is that possible? Piracy is so easy these days that you can almost do it by accident.

We need a CCP like government for this to work😊