For an item that was 90% off, Valve’s $5 Steam Controller remained available for a suspiciously long time, and now we know why. Apparently, the company had a logistics hiccup and “mistakenly took more orders” than it could fulfill. Many purchasers began receiving notifications of their orders being canceled, and when Steam Support was queried as to why, it admitted that it had screwed up and was sending out full refunds. Added accessories were not canceled, however.
A number of users posted screenshots of their order status, which show the Steam Controller portion of their order cancelled, whereas other items bought with it were not. Those who only ordered controllers, sometimes more than one in a single order, also had them cancelled and the value refunded. There’s always uncertainty with those types of deep discounts, but it seems demand came in faster than Valve could close ordering.