Valve Shows the Proper Way to Pre-Order

The Steam Deck is available for pre-order starting 10 a.m. PDT this morning and unlike the horror show of the PlayStation 5 and the X-Box Series X launch, Valve overall did it right. Did the Steam store give you an error when you tried to complete the pre-order as soon as it became available? Of course it did. Or should I say, of course it would. I had to take care of an important business around 10 this morning and I tried to complete my pre-order before I leave and I got an error message. I shrugged it off and left and when I came back around 1 p.m., I went back to the cart and completed the pre-order and it went through. I have seen the mad tweets and articles on the Internet about the "difficulties" securing the Deck and I just laughed. Apparently, these people are not familiar with Steam at all because this always happens during big events. The Steam client and website usually cannot handle the amount of traffic they get during the launch of major sales events but things have gotten better over the years. I usually have wait a couple of hours before I am able to start shopping but I didn't have to do that at all last month during the start of the Steam Summer Sale.

See Sony, it's not that hard to do.

Still, a little hiccup should be expected, especially since the Steam Deck is bound to attract people outside of Steam's regular circle. The fact that Valve will only accept pre-orders from those with accounts that are in good-standing and have made purchases prior to June 2021 is bloody brilliant. This limitation is only in effect for the first 48 hours so those who are lured to the service just because it offers a brand new toy - or those scalpers ready to make a killing by opening up a million new Steam accounts - will have to wait. This is a gold standard that the likes of Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony should strive for, especially Sony who just don't know who they want to offer the PS5 to from their pool of PlayStation Network users whenever they have units in stock. As I have suspected, only 4% of people on my friend's list made the pre-order so the demand is not that high. The Deck should not be sold out because it's just an enhancement to the Steam experience and well, we are already playing Steam games now. As a matter of fact, we are using Steam in its superior form. The reason I went ahead and pre-ordered mine is because I do use the Steam Link app quite often when I am in bed. I like the idea of just letting my Personal Computer go into a resting phase while I'm doing the same. Also, if I change my mind, I can always cancel the pre-order. Since you can only pre-order one unit per account, this setup should repel scalping but still, the Steam Deck should be sought after by those who are new to PC gaming because it's a really good deal.