In a significant blow to gaming enthusiasts, automated scalper bots have reportedly purchased the entire European stock of NVIDIA’s latest GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics cards before their official release. Furthermore, the exclusive European retailer, Proshop, has allegedly broken NVIDIA’s sales embargo, allowing these purchases to occur ahead of the scheduled launch time.
Understanding Scalper Bots’ Impact on Launch Day
According to PC Games Hardware, a sophisticated bot named “NVIDIA KSB Test v1.1” was distributed through German-speaking Discord channels. Subsequently, this automated system discovered unlisted product pages on Proshop’s website, enabling purchases well before the official 3:00 PM local time launch. Moreover, the bot’s users received detailed configuration instructions, ensuring they could secure multiple cards despite restrictions limiting purchases to one per address.
How Scalper Bots Exploited the System
Following the incident, Proshop’s response has been particularly concerning. When confronted about the situation, the retailer simply directed inquiries to NVIDIA, effectively refusing to acknowledge the embargo violation. Additionally, some retailers have been observed engaging in price manipulation, initially listing fake prices before dramatically inflating them once sales began. For instance, certain German retailers listed MSI’s custom RTX 5090 cards at nearly €5,000, significantly above NVIDIA’s suggested retail price of US$1,999.
Impact on Genuine Customers
The combination of scalper bots and retailer malpractice has effectively eliminated any chance for legitimate customers to purchase these graphics cards at their intended prices. Consequently, PC Games Hardware has compiled a list of known scalper bot users and their corresponding invoices, offering to share this information with both the retailer and NVIDIA. However, thus far, neither party has expressed interest in addressing these violations.
Looking Ahead
With the RTX 5070 Ti launch approaching in just 20 days, the gaming community remains concerned about potential repeated incidents. Therefore, many are calling for NVIDIA to implement stricter measures against both scalping activities and retailer embargo violations. Nevertheless, as of this writing, NVIDIA has yet to announce any concrete actions to prevent similar situations in future launches.
Sources: VideoCardz, Lowyat.NET, NotebookCheck