Just don’t buy it till the lottery ends, not like you need it this second.
The lottery is just for the first wave of shipments. After that, it’s a reservation queue. It also requires an account that’s been active for some period of time, and has made purchases (to try to cut down on scalper accounts).
Is there a source for that? I am on the list but haven’t made many purchases
Eligibility: You must be a legal resident of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, any EU Member State, or Australia, at least 18 years old, and the registered account holder of an unlimited Steam account who has made one purchase prior to April 27, 2026.
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/0AC8-A264-CC02-14F0
If selected, you will be notified via email using the email address associated with your qualifying Steam account on or about September 17, 2026 that you have been added to the reservation queue. As units become available, people in the reservation queue will receive an email with the option to purchase. We’ll send the first batch of those starting Friday, September 18, 2026. Those emails will include a link for purchasing the Product (“Link”). The Link will expire 72 hours after it is sent by Valve. If you do not buy the Product by the expiration date, your opportunity will also expire. If you are not selected, you will receive an email letting you know that you’ve been added to the waitlist and we’ll let you know when more units become available.
FYI read the small print: they’ll remove entries with the same address, so if you live with other people don’t all join the queue or you’ll silently disqualify yourselves.
I’m so fucking glad I didn’t update my address after moving recently so my wife and I don’t have the same address.
I’m asking every friend that doesn’t want one to line for me. I still think the demand will outpace supply so much it won’t even matter.
I care enough to want it but I’ll just throw my name in the hat and see where it lands.
I was considering the same strategy, but I don’t know how it would work having a device that was bought on another account. I’m sure the other person would have to pay from their own account, and that they could still ship to a different address, but what about support later on? Or what about the accessory kits that are only available for Frame owners, like the ergonomic kit or the upcoming enthusiast kit? Still trying to figure out if it’s worth it to ask friends to join me in the lottery.
They will pay with their card and put my shipping address. It’s only one, I don’t want more, so likely no issue. Even of we ship to their address… I’ll just walk there?
The accessories are bought together with the frame, and the device is not DRM locked. I don’t think valve will prosecute us, when we buy only one and our accounts are 18+ years old.
No worries, scalpers can still get their way on the Asian region website. There’s no lottery. They released it this morning, and within the hour, all units were sold. I think there was a limit of how many per head you could get, but still, no biggie for scalpers. I managed out of sheer luck to get mine, but definitely a lottery might have been better.
Oof, ok. Whelp, at least you got one :)
I assume some amount of units are already imported into the U.S.
That’s me too and I’m not even a scalper. :(
I feel like they should have at least required a deposit so people don’t sing up when they don’t really plan to buy it.
With extremely limited supply anyone that doesn’t get Frame now, will probably have to pay an even higher price whenever stock is back…
With extremely limited supply anyone that doesn’t get Frame now, will probably have to pay an even higher price whenever stock is back…
I remember when tech used to depreciate in price with age.
Yeah, I signed up for a slot, but I had a thought that I’d just wait and get it cheaper later. Then I realized that’s not really how things work anymore somehow, and I could probably buy now and resell it higher later, even used, because none of this makes any sense.
This is, of course, assuming the current status quo continues. With the recent “AI needs to be restrained” comments from AI execs, it might crash soon and things go back to being sane.
Feels like another life…
They have 72 hours to actually go through with the purchase and then steam offers it to next person. Seems like fake reservations might slow things down a bit but not really remove supply
It’s a somewhat solved problem already
Glastonbury festival has made you register your name, address and a mugshot for about a decade or so now
It gets printed on the ticket.
If you don’t look like the person on the ticket and don’t have the ID of the person named, you’re not getting in
Kinda invasive, but it’s basically killed touting
Not quite sure how you do this with hardware, perhaps tying it to the device?
Maybe you need to own the device for a year or two before you’re allowed to use it with another account
I would rather let a few people scalp some devices then give up ownership over the devices I buy. I would not want valve to have a remote way to brick something I have bought.
The fact you need an account in good standing and it’s limited to one per address helps a lot in cutting down on the number of devices that can be scalped. It is basically just a few individuals that can do that and not a few people systematically buying up all the stock at once to resell.
I would rather them focus on upping the supply then preventing every single scalper.
It being limited to one person address is a problem when you have a family though. Only single people are allowed to own this thing I guess. Can’t have gamer roommates.
I get it but it’ll be years before I can buy this thing or the stream machine mostly likely and it’s for a variety of reasons. My husband actually put in for the lottery for the steam machine and didn’t get picked.
I have no idea how their system handles a second attempt with a different account but the same address but I’m not sure I want to find out even though I would like to buy one.
Yes it is a problem. But a temporary one that IMO is worth the tradeoff. You might not get multiple devices up front but that means other people can have a device at all. Why should you get 3-5 devices and stop 3-5 other people from having one at all? You can share a single device for several months while the initial wave die down and stock is able to be replenished. Then they will remove the restrictions and you can get multiple devices. In the meantime it means more people can get a device and helps to stop scalpers from getting them all. It is a tradeoff, ideally it would be better if there was enough devices for everyone that wants one to get one. But you can only scale production up so fast.
When it is hard enough for 1 person in a household to even get one steam hardware to share I’m fine with the one address limit. A household having multiple devices is a luxury when it is hard enough getting even one.
I don’t think you understand what I am saying here. One person in the household signed up and didn’t get picked. They do not specify or clarify what happens if the other person in the household signs up. Does it risk one or both of the accounts?
Roommates can’t have two systems and should share?! Did you read what I actually said or are you just ignoring half of it because you don’t like the idea that this is not a cut and dry thing.
I didn’t even say I don’t understand the limit. Scalpers suck. I just said I wasn’t going to gamble with my steam account over it. I have bought steam hardware before. I’ve owned both the steam link and the original controller. I had one of their Alienware steam machines back in the day.
This is a system that hurts prospective buyers who want the product because scalpers are doing the wrong thing and it sucks to be essentially treated as a person trying to take advantage of the system when you haven’t done anything wrong.
Who said anything about roommates not being allowed to have two systems?
Just making the point that when it is hard to even get one system for them to share it makes sense why until shortages are resolved why they’d limit it to one per household.
You made the suppositions about units per household. I framed it as roommates because you didn’t think through what you were saying.
It doesn’t matter if it’s roommates, spouses or any other permutation of people living in the same house. They shouldn’t necessarily be expected to share a PC just because someone else is doing something wrong.
I get why Valve did it. I fully remember during the pandemic trying to buy a console and not being able to because of scalpers. But that doesn’t negate any of what I said.
I just said I wasn’t going to gamble with my steak account over it. I have bought steak hardware before. I’ve owned both the steak link and the original controller.
We get it, you like steak.
Can you change your address to a parent or friend’s house who won’t be buying it? Maybe that’s too risky as well
My billing address doesn’t change so that’s unlikely to work. I have to assume having it shipped somewhere else wouldn’t make a difference in the long run because the billing address on the account is what they go by.
My husband actually put in for the lottery for the steam machine and didn’t get picked.
The lottery is only for the first batch. Everyone else is supposed to be chronologically based
How many batches will there be? Just out of curiosity because I doubt we can assume that there will be a chance to buy it later with limited qualities of hardware at all. This isn’t a for sure thing is what I’m saying. Stock for their other products fluctuates a lot.
There’s also a possibility that price will go up because component costs keep rising.
How many batches will there be?
I doubt that even Valve knows that
As per supply, unfortunately all the ai companies have bought all of next year’s ram
They have not.
They have provided an IOU from the bank of “trust me bro, this shit’s gonna moon” same as everyone else in that circlejerk of stockmarket destruction.
and the other side has said :
“sure bro, we’ll set you aside a 100 million future rams” *wink*while announcing this big “sale” they have completed to boost their stock price.
It’s fucking monopoly money to them and it’s going fuck everybody
Obsession 2025… you know… for science
That film was weird. It’s like the director decided half-way through, “actually this is too cringe for me, I’m just gonna have fun with it” and then proceeded to wrap things up in a deeply unsatisfying way. I still think about this film.
It’s like a 9/10 movie at least, and it’s supposed to be unsatisfying or at least unresolved, but I’d argue nothing is too cringe for Curry Barker. Look up their YouTube channel “that’s a bad idea” if you want to see just how wacky they are.
I love movies that end like that and ones that go off the rails in the last act, leaving you wondering what you just watched.
Definitely left me wondering
Hey the ending had to be as it was to remind you that it was NOT a documentary about your worst ex.
Well, maybe just me. There was tons of similarity in behaviour patterns until things went completely off the rails. 'cept mine wasn’t bound by a wish, but rather the desire to have complete control over me. Honestly think Nikki was less problematic in that regard, she at least had no choice.
Nikki Frowning or Obsession “How Your Girlfriend Looks At You” refers to a series of memes, including X / Twitter posts, using a reaction image of the character Nikki (played by actress Inde Navarrette) from the 2026 horror film Obsession frowning under a variation of the phrasal template “How your girlfriend looks at you when you X,” “X” being framed as a reasonable request that the girlfriend does not want to go through with.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nikki-frowning-obsession-how-your-girlfriend-looks-at-you
I got fucked on the steam cube lottery but I’ll take it any day over watching the scrapers buy everything
The Asian official booking webpage is completely crashed…
I expect they’ll just script/automate some way to get 1000 entries for every legitimate one. Then again, I’m not familiar with what the entry requirements are. Unless the entry requirements are more than the potential profit, you’re still going to see scalping.
if it’s like for the steam machine, the account must have existed for like six months before the start date and must have previously purchased something.
It is. Steam account with a purchase from before April 27.
Hope I get the golden ticket.
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I’m not a scalper and I hate this lottery system. My friend signed up for steam machine and still hasn’t received his email.
I have purchased every valve hardware since the first controller. Never had a problem just clicking add to cart and buying. Same shit when Covid hit and 3090s were just released. Got one direct from Nvidia no problem.
Now with this lottery crap I might never get my reservation due to RNG. I rather just be first in line on the purchase day.
I rather just be first in line on the purchase day.
That’s just it. The scalpers have bots that can both do this faster than you and at scale. The idea of being “first in line” is simply not realistic anymore. The lottery ensures some semblance of fairness for a limited supply brought on by the AI tech bros buying up production capacity for the next two years (or more).
I like it because free for all never worked for me and I experienced the worst of it trying to get a gpu during the crypto craze and everyone using bots and alerts to try to snipe something that would go out of stock in seconds.
EVGA game in clutch and did queue system and I got my card for msrp. And I liked it when Valve did it for the Steam Deck.
Hated when Steam Controller did a free for all and ended up wasting couple of hours clicking and coming up empty handed. They went to queue and I finally got one after a few months.
I’d rather wait and if it takes a year or longer so be it, but a free for all approach is one I know I’ll have zero chance at compared to the lotto.
There it is, folks. The ramblings of a selfish person who doesn’t understand that this system is in place to help them. Ignorant as hell.
I managed to grab my steam controller on the 4th when it dropped and it got… well I’m not great with time but I think I got it in July.
But anyways I lucked out and when I heard of the machine (and assumed frame) would have the reservation queue INITIALLY I was disliked it. I was thinking even with bots people could grab it, then I saw the amount of scalp listings
And then thinking about it, the window allows people not to plan around the date, I was lucky with the controller that I could use my college WiFi in the middle of lecture. But people at work or otherwise unable to fight in the refreshing gauntlet, or me on frame day sleeping through the announcement by 15 minutes.
Like I’m a little sore because… well idk why… but I think the benifits greatly outweigh the cons compared to the gauntlet of clicks
This kinda turned into a ramble I’m sure there’s an idea in here somewhere
Wait, you got your steam controller? I reserved my steam controller back in May and I just now checked and it says I’ll get it in 2027 lmao
Edit: :(
I believe in your waiting ability
It’s very nice, basically the decks extra functionality on a gamepad. Gut feeling tells me once the initial wave of frames are out the back order of controllers will get going (my source is it came to me in a
dreamdelusion)It’s very nice, basically the decks extra functionality on a gamepad.
That’s all I could ever ask or hope for, and now you have me hyped about it even more lol but thank you for believing in my patience!
Don’t worry I will hopefully get the purchase email much sooner than 2027 (damn oh wait, that also came to me in a dream/delusion 😢)
![[Frame] Honest hardworking scalpers when you tell them there's a reservation lottery](https://quokk.au/static/media/posts/sC/Fd/sCFdszuqvuPYASu.jpg){kind=link}