Zotac Outlines Anti-Scalper Plan For GeForce RTX 5090 And 5080 GPUs, Will It Work?
The severe shortage of GeForce RTX 5080 and especially GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards has NVIDIA's retail and hardware partners experimenting with ways to get a limited number of gaming GPUs into the hands of actual gamers. We saw this with Newegg, which implemented a quirky email lottery system, and now Zotac is following suit, albeit with a different strategy that has the same goal.
On its Discord channel, Zotac USA posted a message outlining a new "priority access campaign" that attempts to "reward real gamers and active members" by giving them first dibs on buying a high-end Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 50 series GPU.
"No bots, no scalplers, just my fellow gamers," Zotac marketing coordinator Bryant Gan stated in the post.
The post on Discord, which is drawing attention on Reddit, states that this strategy to get NVIDIA's newfangled graphics cards into the hands of actual gamers is "purely based on engagement." Gan goes on to outline several rules of engagement, one of which requires being active within the Zotac Gaming community on Discord.
"Spam low-effort messages will not count," Gan states as one of the caveats.
There are several others, though the one that really stands out is Zotac's attempt to dissuade selected participants from turning around and reselling their shiny new card for a hefty sum, or any sum at all.
"There is a zero-tolerance policy against re-selling & scalping," Gan says.
Of course, it would be impossible for Zotac to enforce this at face value. Once a customer pays for a card, it's theirs to do with whatever they please (within the bounds of the law, naturally), whether that means installing it in their gaming PC as Zotac hopes they'll do, reselling it on eBay (boo!), or even smashing it with a sledgehammer for views on TikTok (please don't!).
However, Zotac can and will track these cards by serial number. if someone 'wins' the opportunity to pay full price for a $1,000 to $2,000+ graphics card and is caught turning around and selling it, Zotac will add their Discord name to a ban list for future raffles.
The other caveat is that prices will vary by model. We've already seen prices on GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 cards go up after the initial launch, which Newegg blamed on tariffs in a recent X/Twitter post. The company is referring to the 10% tariff on Chinese imports, though we've seen models shoot up in price by as much as 27% over their original MSRPs.
In any event, it will be interesting to see how this turns out. Zotac's Discord channel has seen a flood of new members, so Gan and the gang will certainly have their cut out for them in selecting which members are truly and genuinely engaging with the community, versus which ones are essentially faking it in hopes of scoring a highly sought-after GPU.
