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Counter-Strike's player economy is in a freefall

polygon.com

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Re: Counter-Strike's player economy is in a freefall

#141

Post by friedtofu »

ehnto wrote: post #83
jayd16 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its about showing off to other players. You can still do local game mods just fine but that's not what people are after.

Which is an easy technical problem to solve, but the liability of abuse when sharing user content with other users is not palatable. It is also not impressive to others, not a status symbol, and that's actually the purpose of skins in the modern day. No one grinds 1000hrs of warframe for a skin just because they think it looks cool, they think it makes THEM look cool. They want people to be impressed that they had $2…

This is what turned me off of Global Offensive, and CS2 I guess but it doesnt look like much(if anything) has changed between GO and CS2 compared to the changes made from 1.6 -> Source -> GO.

Looking back to ~2012/2013 and its seeming to be clear now that the introduction of weapon crates, the steam marketplace, and all of the other MTX in all of their(proprietary) competitve games may have been a good indication that these would be the last games Valve would develop in-house.

To be fair though and just to give a counter-example, the "clout chasers" with the $1000 knife skins is essentially the same as the bragging rights of a 4/5/6 digit steamID during 1.6 and CS:Source. Although flexing SteamID length was something I only really saw in the competitive scene and of course had a much smaller(unofficial) market.

Oh well, RIP Steam games, long live Steam software(their platform/Proton, etc) and hardware...minus the steam controller.

Re: Counter-Strike's player economy is in a freefall

#142

Post by cornholio »

tetrisgm wrote: post #61
cornholio wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They crashed the premium market and resell value. Prices down. It’s a side effect, but the direct effect to the user.

They don't care about the resell value since they don't earn a commission on those sales.

The point is that, for as long as items can be transferred in game, they are always convertible to cash in the real world. Inserting artificial friction inside the game to increase scarcity, such as limiting convertibility of items, will drive those trades away from the game economy and into the third party ecosystem where the dollar rules supreme as the super-convertible means of exchange. So you have an induced scarcity that in effect drives third party profits.

By increasing in-game convertibility, the trades are directed to other in game assets that are a just a proxy for loot boxes, i.e money in Valve's accounts. So prices crashing in the third party market signal that players have a cheaper and more direct route to acquire them - give the money to Valve - which also generates the supply of new rare items as those loot boxes are opened.

It's a smart economic move.

Buy that doesn't mean the prices will stay low, since they can always control the overall scarcity, or add new, rarer and more exclusive items. The total amount of money they extract from "kids" is ultimately linked to their ability and willingness to pay.

Re: Counter-Strike's player economy is in a freefall

#143

Post by Bengalilol »

gquere wrote: post #140
Bengalilol wrote: post #132

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 t…

They did this to take a bigger cut of the market because most trades happened off-platform. This new update ensures that they will sell more of their new items through their shop (contract cases) because it's going to be the only way to get the red items to fuses into "valuable" knives. They're rotten to the core.

Any market maker, such as Valve, is free to establish the rules of its own "reality".

I understand your analysis, and I certainly failed to mention that point, but making the overall value less attractive to speculators is not evidence of being "rotten to the core".

Re: Counter-Strike's player economy is in a freefall

#144

Post by gquere »

Bengalilol wrote: post #143
gquere wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did this to take a bigger cut of the market because most trades happened off-platform. This new update ensures that they will sell more of their new items through their shop (contract cases) because it's going to be the only way to get the red items to fuses into "valuable" knives. They're rotten to the core.

Any market maker, such as Valve, is free to establish the rules of its own "reality". I understand your analysis, and I certainly failed to mention that point, but making the overall value less attractive to speculators is not evidence of being "rotten to the core".

They're running an online casino directed at children and have made specific adaptations to bypass legal regulations in several countries.

Re: Counter-Strike's player economy is in a freefall

#145

Post by _cenw »

close04 wrote: post #138
_cenw wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's sad. I remember a time before sv_pure. Sure, people installed transparent wall textures, but there was also a lot of cool customization to be done. And it was just your game, before streaming.

> Sure, people installed transparent wall textures, but there was also a lot of cool customization to be done This undersells how bad it was to play a game with people who can see through walls and hear your footsteps from a mile away. No skin is worth that.

sv_pure specifically actually allows the server admin to allow selective model/material swaps.

Re: Counter-Strike's player economy is in a freefall

#146

Post by neilwilson »

Gigachad wrote: post #58
neilwilson wrote: post #49

So high prices induce new supply in a market to relieve shortages and the “economy is in free fall”? 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.

The supply of digital knife skins is infinite and free. The only reason they hold any value at all is because a company artificially restricts them. Doesn’t really tie in to actual markets involving physical item.

Not like, say, houses then.

Or shares in Nvidia.

Re: Counter-Strike's player economy is in a freefall

#147

Post by justacrow »

bilekas wrote: post #127
uvaursi wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Doesn’t gaben have enough money for his super yachts and sword collections? Steam is still a business, but of all the gaming industry, Gaben is one of the highlights, steam try hard to be extremely pro consumer. Refunds with no questions asked if you've played less than 2 hours of the game, requiring publisher and developers to explicitly state the AI generated content thats in the game to name just 2.

[flagged]

Re: Counter-Strike's player economy is in a freefall

#148

Post by janwl »

themafia wrote: post #26
someothherguyy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wasted hours of time playing it What would you dictate that humans do instead to not be wasteful with their time? Comment on threads about games?

They can do whatever they want with their time. Except operate and profit off of make shift casinos and unregulated games of chance.

Why exactly? Why are these games of chance moral only if the government gets a cut?

Re: Counter-Strike's player economy is in a freefall

#149

Post by [deleted] »

jayd16 wrote: post #57
uvaursi wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Its about showing off to other players. You can still do local game mods just fine but that's not what people are after.

[deleted]

Re: Counter-Strike's player economy is in a freefall

#150

Post by lurk2 »

mrheosuper wrote: post #91
smt88 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Close to 0% of children do their own grocery shopping and buy their own boxes of cereal

And 0% of children having credit card to buy lootbox (My country requires you to be over 18 to have one)

A lot of gas stations and retail stores sell prepaid credit cards as well as gift cards that you can buy with cash.
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