I play CS. This is good. The gambling economy and the creator economy of people pumping their marketplaces and gambling sites is really toxic. It extracts money from kids, all for a nice skin. Making them more affordable is going to make this more fair and sensible.
Remember back in the day when we just downloaded skin packs from some random Geocities website with obnoxious red text on black background and after going through the install.txt written in broken English/Italian, lo and behold your AK47 now had a proper arctic camo skin and it was so much cooler?
What was wrong with that? Doesn’t gaben have enough money for his super yachts and sword collections?
The purpose of the update is certainly not to reduce the cost of these items, but to better position Valve to earn this revenue steam, as opposed to third party scalpers. Looks like it's working.
Most of the scarcity in artificial economies like CS is (just as with trading card games) manufactured and vulnerable.
Seeing what happens with a rug-pull in a billion dollar artificial economy like this is a valuable lesson for anyone watching.
If/when the huge Satoshi bitcoin stash gets traded in, we'll see similar outcomes there too.
I doubt it's going to change anything, this manipulated market will adapt and continue to extract money from kids. The cynic in me could even say that this change was pushed by Valve to take a bigger cut of the skin market (most trades are supervised by 3d parties). Coffeezilla investigated one of the many casino sites, there's a lot more to it.
The quickest way to end it would be to ban gifting skins. You'd be allowed to buy and sell skins in the Valve marketplace where market caps could be in place but no more private sales. Of course you could privately buy an account that has possession of the skins you want but that would add substantial obstacles to the private market.
Not it, Valve. Valve designed and implemented the system. Gabe Newell, founder and own of Valve, is one of the people responsible for introducing gambling to children. Children who grow up and develop a gambling addiction.
Just because they made some good things doesn't mean we can't call them out on literally their biggest, ongoing, evil.
I wish I knew what happened in the past few years, because steam was supposed to ban csgo gambling and trading sites, but you can see their names plastered all over twitch every day.
A few months ago, I realised CS:2 is more than 60GB and still barely worked on my M1 Pro Mac. I tried with these three: Whisky, Sikarigur, and even CrossOver trial. A friend suggested I should try some kind of partitioning and install Windows on that. I definitely will never try that.
CS:1.6 (which is what I still would want to play) is history unless I clasp my nose with my toes and then hang upside down from a ceiling fan and request someone to switch it on and then pray it works and keeps working. It doesn't; it crashes with flamboyance. There are some browser options, but that's another story altogether, and that too if I can find enough players there, let alone with good pings.
I finally realised that the only computer game I ever loved playing and played really a lot— albeit with gaps worth years in between after college— is just gone for me, and there's no coming back.
I guess now I am too old for all this, and maybe that's the point. Possibly someone who is on the older side will not buy these skins and whatnot; the company's focus is rightly not on us at all.
(PS. I always felt distracted with those skins; even in those younger and much younger days)
Same here. I play the game happily. I would prefer to switch back to the good old "This games costs 50 $" which will also harm cheating. Maintain it and release sometimes an upgrade for a fair sum, keep the old one playable.
It shall not be a marketplace for gambling and cheaters.
Thought this might be a hilarious sign of the bubble popping (a run on cs skins) but nope:
> Following Valve's Oct. 22 update to Counter-Strike, the second-highest-tier, Covert (Red), can now be traded up and turned into Knives and Gloves. Essentially, this means that a previously extremely rare and highly sought-after cosmetic is going to be much more obtainable for those who increasingly want it, reducing the value of Knives and Gloves on the open marketplace.
Gambling mechanics for anyone under 18 should be banned. Children can't buy lottery tickets or hit tables in Vegas. Its crazy they can buy loot boxes that real life value.
Gambling mechanics is everywhere nowadays, especially in mobile games. It's almost like an industry standard. I think the only solution is to ban all in-game purchases completely.
So we're against checking IDs cause privacy but we also want to limit kids from accessing certain parts of the internet because gambling/porn? Have a cake and eat a cake?
There's something funny about how some countries try to enforce this and how Valve "solved" it, which I think demonstrates how silly "there ought to be a law!" thinking can get.
I believe for some regions, Valve just shows you what's in the "lootbox" (case, whatever), and you have to pay to acquire it before you're shown the next one.
This isn't to say I don't fully agree that this kind of thing is probably predatory and probably unhealthy. But I find most discourse on the topic starts and ends at the shoreline with a version of "there ought to be a law..."
As someone who moved to the UK I find it crazy that 2p machines exist. You put 2p in, and hope to get more out. It's literally child gambling. Where I come from we had arcades with tickets for stuff, but to me that's a whole different level to money in -> money out.
I still enjoy them though, but I enjoy gambling responsibly!
Valve employs an army of economists (notably Yanis Varoufakis as alumn) to make these decisions. It was certainly purposeful and will balance itself out.
Yanis Varoufakis is now writing and warning us about digital feudalism, seemingly based on his learnings at his Valve tenure.
Valve, as a digital feudalist, generates funds, practically for free, from both transactions of items and the lootboxes. It operates the markets on which digital goods are traded, taxes all sales occurring on these platforms.
$20,000 for a fake knife!? And I buy an item, a real one, and find later there was a cheaper price by few bucks somewhere else and I feel like an idiot.. crazy!
"The GOAT of expensive skins in CS2 is the Karambit Case Hardened in the "Blue Gem" pattern. While the original is costly, one Factory-New variant with pattern 387 reached a staggering $1.5 million! The rarity comes down to its blue pattern, which is incredibly rare on a Karambit."
I bet this is an on-purpose move by Valve, and I view this as a sane action. [1]
Having a game where some players only play in order to win money is, for sure, a no go. If the game is fun, then players will keep on playing it. It may also keep some money thirsty (sometimes very toxic) people at the gates.
It is also smoothing players' frustration and shopping-spree habits in order to obtain a rare item. If you have the ability to trade N rare items for another rare item then you quite surely may obtain any cosmetic item you want for a much lower investment (less boxes to open). The 'grey market' will adapt to this new value.
That's also a lesson on how a closed economy (and open ones too, to some extent) can collapse based on a single actor controlling the rules. That's fair to learn.
[1] EDIT: and probably a preemptive protection for any future legal threat (as some countries tend to prohibit money gambling in games)
CS is wild. I used to play and have like 40+ cases from free post-match drops. Because those cases are no longer supplied, the prices have been creeping up and to the right for years now; from $0.40 to $20+. I don't even know why people still buy these, but I will basically never have to pay for a Steam game again.
I had to check but I barely played CS:GO. I have a 5 year veteran coin, untradeable, that's it lol. I also have a $0.03 gun for Payday 2, lol.
Nearly 300 "trading cards" but they're all valued between $0.03 and $0.10 at best. Weirdly enough, even the randomest games still get some trading volume. I seriously doubt people are buying cards from random games to complete collections in those volumes, and fully expect it to be bot driven and / or some kind of scam. But I assume Valve gets a percentage for every transaction so they don't really care.
> Prior to the most recent update, some Knives, like a Doppler Ruby Butterfly Knife, could fetch around $20,000 on third-party storefronts like CSFloat.
How many whales are buying an in-game cosmetic for $20K for their own use?
How much of this is day-trading? How much is investing? How much is fabricated by trading platforms? How much is money laundering? How much is a criminal payments channel?
It seems more like a market strategy than an economic collapse. Afterall they control the skin market, and this will lead more players to buy very expensive skins (cheaper than the day before yesterday, but still quite pricey). Also, not all skins went down in price, the red ones from collections with gold skins even increased in value.
This is good news. It seems some parts of the gaming industry are starting to recover.
I contend that games like Team Fortress 2 were also ruined by the F2P loot box crap. It's not that they took anything away, but it attracted a certain kind of customer that is very unappealing to the prior base. The "hats" made me walk away from TF2. No one on average seemed serious about the core gameplay anymore. Taking away that up front cost to play cheapened the experience for the existing paying customers. It's like going from shopping at Whole Foods to Walmart.
Robinhood is your go-to application if you want to gamble legally and efficiently without (as much) fear of a single actor ruining your day.
I asked friends who play why would Valve do this. Answers were divided to:
1. Valve wants to avoid regulatory scrutiny over loot boxes
2. Valve wants to limit prices; the Steam marketplace only allows items up to 2500 usd to be traded. By averaging out the item prices (knives drop, covert-class increases) they are able to indirectly limit the usefulness and harmful side effects (money laundering, decentralized liquidity) of 3rd party trading sites
I find it fascinating how the "HN Hivemind" (and yes, I know not a real thing, but the trends seem pretty consistent) is so opposed to kids playing with lootboxes, but also very angry at governments trying to impose age verification.
87 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] threadIt seems like NFT before NFT.
What was wrong with that? Doesn’t gaben have enough money for his super yachts and sword collections?
If/when the huge Satoshi bitcoin stash gets traded in, we'll see similar outcomes there too.
Not it, Valve. Valve designed and implemented the system. Gabe Newell, founder and own of Valve, is one of the people responsible for introducing gambling to children. Children who grow up and develop a gambling addiction.
Just because they made some good things doesn't mean we can't call them out on literally their biggest, ongoing, evil.
CS:1.6 (which is what I still would want to play) is history unless I clasp my nose with my toes and then hang upside down from a ceiling fan and request someone to switch it on and then pray it works and keeps working. It doesn't; it crashes with flamboyance. There are some browser options, but that's another story altogether, and that too if I can find enough players there, let alone with good pings.
I finally realised that the only computer game I ever loved playing and played really a lot— albeit with gaps worth years in between after college— is just gone for me, and there's no coming back.
I guess now I am too old for all this, and maybe that's the point. Possibly someone who is on the older side will not buy these skins and whatnot; the company's focus is rightly not on us at all.
(PS. I always felt distracted with those skins; even in those younger and much younger days)
It shall not be a marketplace for gambling and cheaters.
It’s fine to have some cosmetics, but the economy Valve had created brought so much toxicity to the game.
> Following Valve's Oct. 22 update to Counter-Strike, the second-highest-tier, Covert (Red), can now be traded up and turned into Knives and Gloves. Essentially, this means that a previously extremely rare and highly sought-after cosmetic is going to be much more obtainable for those who increasingly want it, reducing the value of Knives and Gloves on the open marketplace.
its not gambling when you "can't" withdraw the money
The ticket conversion rate at these establishments is a worse scam than TF2 knife trading was until this update.
I believe for some regions, Valve just shows you what's in the "lootbox" (case, whatever), and you have to pay to acquire it before you're shown the next one.
This isn't to say I don't fully agree that this kind of thing is probably predatory and probably unhealthy. But I find most discourse on the topic starts and ends at the shoreline with a version of "there ought to be a law..."
I still enjoy them though, but I enjoy gambling responsibly!
I wont google him, but take at your word an assurance that he can be trusted with the highest levels of economic decision making.
Valve, as a digital feudalist, generates funds, practically for free, from both transactions of items and the lootboxes. It operates the markets on which digital goods are traded, taxes all sales occurring on these platforms.
There's a what? I guess once you've maxed out wasted hours of time playing it, you start wasting money too?
Less absurd than NFTs though I guess
Sounds like it is working as it should. Those with oversight fixing supply in response to price signals when the private system is unable to.
Wouldn’t it be nice if those in charge of the economy in the real world made the same sort of intervention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMmNy11Mn7g [36m]
"The GOAT of expensive skins in CS2 is the Karambit Case Hardened in the "Blue Gem" pattern. While the original is costly, one Factory-New variant with pattern 387 reached a staggering $1.5 million! The rarity comes down to its blue pattern, which is incredibly rare on a Karambit."
There is a chance this skin won't sell at all anymore, not for that price at least.
Having a game where some players only play in order to win money is, for sure, a no go. If the game is fun, then players will keep on playing it. It may also keep some money thirsty (sometimes very toxic) people at the gates.
It is also smoothing players' frustration and shopping-spree habits in order to obtain a rare item. If you have the ability to trade N rare items for another rare item then you quite surely may obtain any cosmetic item you want for a much lower investment (less boxes to open). The 'grey market' will adapt to this new value.
That's also a lesson on how a closed economy (and open ones too, to some extent) can collapse based on a single actor controlling the rules. That's fair to learn.
[1] EDIT: and probably a preemptive protection for any future legal threat (as some countries tend to prohibit money gambling in games)
Nearly 300 "trading cards" but they're all valued between $0.03 and $0.10 at best. Weirdly enough, even the randomest games still get some trading volume. I seriously doubt people are buying cards from random games to complete collections in those volumes, and fully expect it to be bot driven and / or some kind of scam. But I assume Valve gets a percentage for every transaction so they don't really care.
How many whales are buying an in-game cosmetic for $20K for their own use?
How much of this is day-trading? How much is investing? How much is fabricated by trading platforms? How much is money laundering? How much is a criminal payments channel?
I contend that games like Team Fortress 2 were also ruined by the F2P loot box crap. It's not that they took anything away, but it attracted a certain kind of customer that is very unappealing to the prior base. The "hats" made me walk away from TF2. No one on average seemed serious about the core gameplay anymore. Taking away that up front cost to play cheapened the experience for the existing paying customers. It's like going from shopping at Whole Foods to Walmart.
Robinhood is your go-to application if you want to gamble legally and efficiently without (as much) fear of a single actor ruining your day.
1. Valve wants to avoid regulatory scrutiny over loot boxes
2. Valve wants to limit prices; the Steam marketplace only allows items up to 2500 usd to be traded. By averaging out the item prices (knives drop, covert-class increases) they are able to indirectly limit the usefulness and harmful side effects (money laundering, decentralized liquidity) of 3rd party trading sites