We’ve had a few big launches ruined by scalpers this year, starting with Nvidia’s RTX 30 series graphics cards and eventually impacting the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 launch. Now it would seem that politicians in the UK want to crack down on these practices. 

As reported by Video Game Chronicle, a motion has been put forward by six MPs for the SNP, calling for government to introduce legislation that would prohibit the resale of gaming consoles and PC components at prices “greatly above the manufacturer’s recommended retail price”. Importantly, the motion specifically mentions the resale of goods purchased through use of a bot as something that could be deemed illegal.

As we know now, thousands of Xbox Series X/S and PS5 consoles were purchased using bot programs to horde stock and resell it for a huge profit margin. There has also been a stock shortage of RTX 30 series cards, leading to extortionate pricing on sites like eBay.

At the moment, this motion has 21 signatures and there is no specific date for it to be brought in front of the House of Commons. With that in mind, if this is ever going to be introduced into law, it is still a long way off.

KitGuru Says: This isn’t going to impact anything in the immediate future and for all we know, this motion could be dropped entirely. Still, it is nice to see that at least a few politicians are interested in curbing the scalping problem. How do you feel about scalping? Is it something that should be made illegal?

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