Mad scramble for video game consoles is a cottage industry
A few seconds before noon on a Monday, Jake Randall began encouraging people watching his livestream on Youtube to start refreshing Walmart’s website on their computers.
At his bidding, thousands of people around the country began furiously pounding keys, jostling to get to the front of the retailer’s virtual line for this holiday season’s hottest gift: a video game console.
To increase their odds, Randall recommended that the 8,000 viewers on his livestream also get in line through Walmart’s app on their phones. As the minutes ticked by, a lucky few sent Randall screenshots of their purchases. Some sent him donations — about $2,000 in total — as thanks for his help.
Others were unsuccessful. In an hour, all of the consoles were sold out.
Long lines outside retail stores devolving into brawls, desperate shoppers refreshing websites in a bid to outrace the bots and a cottage industry of people like Randall trading tips and making money in the process — that is the state of the video game console market a year after a new generation of widely coveted devices was released during the height of the pandemic.
The Xbox Series X from Microsoft, with a list price of $499, and the Playstation 5 from Sony, $399, arrived as the popularity of gaming was skyrocketing with people stuck indoors, and they have been in short supply ever since.
Now, with the holiday shopping season in full swing, those same consoles remain the must-have gift on many wish lists.
The result is fierce competition, both from other gamers and from people who snag as many devices as they can — sometimes using so-called purchase bots to snatch them faster than a human could — and then resell them for two or even three times the purchase price on websites like ebay or Facebook Marketplace.
“I grew up playing video games. Everyone wants to be the video game hero,” said Matt Swider, who quit his journalism job last month and now sits in his apartment in New York City, furiously scanning websites to send out alerts on Twitter to his followers whenever retailers have consoles for sale. “The villains in this story are the resellers employing bots both in person and online.”
Shortly after Playstation 5 was first released, Swider, then the U.S. editor-in-chief of Techradar, a technology reviewing and recommendation website, was frustrated in his own attempts to purchase one. So he began tracking and tweeting when he would find game consoles for sale.
He started getting tips from employees inside retailers like Best Buy and Walmart when a shipment of consoles arrived at individual stores or regional warehouses.
He estimated that he has helped more than 130,000 people obtain a console this year. In return, he hopes to make money by charging $5 a month for subscribers to his new Substack newsletter, called “The Shortcut,” that will offer recommendations on technology and tips on how to find a console or other electronics. When his followers use his links to buy items on various retailer websites, he can earn a commission, so-called “affiliate fees.”
Another retail sleuth, Randall, said he did not make money from commissions but does make money from his livestreams on Youtube, which offer hints on when retailers may release consoles and tricks and tips on how to buy one. Randall, who cannot work a typical job because he has cystic fibrosis, said the streams were about more than just helping frustrated parents or gamers.
“I’m not curing a disease, but with my limitations because of cystic fibrosis, helping people get a video console and be happy is something I can do, and it means a lot to me,” said Randall, 30, who streams out of his studio apartment in Nashua, New Hampshire. “When I livestream, I get a lot of love and support from the whole community.”