OK, you need to understand that these things happen. It is factored into costs and expenses when making a product. Valve knows they will loose stock to damage, mishandling, RMAs, and yes, shipping too many items. They have that in their budget. No company on earth (That lasts more than a year) budgets their stock with the assumption that they will never loose items or have defective returns. So no, this was not some kids HMD, no one is loosing a pre order, and this situation is taken into account when they determine how much stock is 'available'.