As a gamer, getting my hands on a PS5 is something that I was super excited about getting. What I wasn’t prepared for was a process so excruciating I would have had more fun pulling my teeth out without any anesthetic. PS5 merchants have turned the whole process into a labyrinthine affair, where you have to join a Discord server, follow someone in the know on Twitter so you can get a heads-up on when a store will be selling PS5s. It’s so frustrating! It shouldn’t be this difficult to buy a PS5.

Perhaps because they want to use the idea of scarcity to drive up the price of PS5s, merchants have turned PS5 drops into big events. It feels trying to get the first iPhone, or getting tickets to a Beyonce concert a day before she performs. For a product that is the apex of gaming technology, it seems so strange that it is so difficult to buy a PS5. How can a product so great be purchased with so much difficulty?

Don’t get me started about the Recaptcha process. It truly stinks. I’ve had to become a world champion in spotting a boat from the weirdest angles, or seeing a hidden bicycle without any trouble. And if you happen to have an ad-blocker, you have to whitelist every single website you’re trying to get a PS5 from, otherwise the whole Recaptcha process just goes on forever and ever. I long for the day when there is a less clunky way of proving that, yes, I am not a robot. Perhaps someone can invent a superslick way for me to buy a PS5?!

I’m not one of those people who is willing to queue for hours and hours to get a PS5. When the next-gen console came out, I decided I’d wait until things had cooled down and I could buy it with ease. But now I really want to play Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade when it comes out this June and my resolve has been shaken. You see, the mania surrounding the PS5 is still red hot. It’s crazy.

Thanks to the supply disruptions arising from the global pandemic, there is a shortage of semiconductors and it’s affected Sony’s ability to meet the insane demand for the PS5. Sony believes that it will only be able to meet demand deep into 2022! That’s a long time to wait!

So what we have here is a pretty bad system coupled with supply chain disruptions and equaling the worst shopping experience of my life.

Now, I’d love to deposit money somewhere and go on a waitlist and, well, just wait till I get my hands on the PS5. But this being the PS5, you can’t just do that. You have to dive into an underground economy of scarce products like the PS5, GPUs made by AMD or Nvidia, and other items affected by the global semiconductor shortage.

The demand is so big that when word of a drop of new PS5s goes live, that stock is quickly sold out. You literally have to spend every waking minute trolling for PS5s to succeed at getting one. Maybe that’s my problem: I haven’t been trolling.

Retailers have tried everything to stop scalpers from buying out their stock and reselling them for obscene markups. Yet, scalpers have proved very inventive at finding ways round the barriers retailers erect and customers are forced to live in this nightmarish world where they never know when or if they’ll ever be worthy of getting a PS5. Some programmers have created software that overbids for goods on eBay, where people buy, sell, and trade shoes, in an effort to stop scalpers from buying up everything. This hasn’t stopped the development of a situation in which people like me are racing against everyone else, for a chance to buy a PS5.

If it sounds like a raffle, perhaps it should be a raffle.. Well, NewEgg has begun selling the PS5 through a raffle system. You heard right: the prize for winning the raffle is a chance to buy a PS5.

You can buy a PS5 direct from Sony, but, but, but, they use a randomized queue to do it. The upside is, once you get in the queue, you’re in. You’re guaranteed to get your PS5. You’ll have to pay for your own shipping because Sony doesn’t give free shipping for purchases worth less than $510. But like I said, it’s a randomized queue so getting in is very hard.

Best Buy, Target, Walmart and GameStop, among others, have their own clunky ways of trying to combat scalpers and handle the massive demand for the PS5. BestBuy and Target both slow down the speed between the first and second clicks before they allow you to buy a PS5. Walmart and GameStop are very inconsistent in restocking and GameStop makes you get gift certificates and other things you don;t want. Walmart and GameStop have the clunkiest ecommerce sites I have ever seen.

Welcome to the world of supply chain disruptions and semiconductors shortages.