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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

#161

Post by c048 »

Aeolun wrote: post #152
gquere wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Anyone purchasing a $20k cosmetic is almost certainly not a child. If you vote this down, pretty curious what you are thinking? That it’s a legitimate investment? The only people spending that much money on cosmetics are drug dealers.

Considering how much this particular system has been linked to real life crime and gangs, you're not far off.

People downvoting you must either not be aware of this, or have a personal stake in it.

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

#162

Post by atraac »

adrr wrote: post #9

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.

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?

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

#163

Post by Dead_Lemon »

gquere wrote: post #144
Bengalilol wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The game does have a mature rating, so parents should be vetting their activity.

I would still contend and say the gambling aspect, with real money, is a net negative to the community.

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

#164

Post by ad_hockey »

vharuck wrote: post #32
alberth wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you consider old school coin operated arcades as something that should be banned? Just curious.

I would like to see a ban on allowing children to play machines like the Wizard of Oz ones, where you drop the coin on a shelf in the hopes it'll push off other coins or cards you need to collect. It sounds like a skill game, and I liked them when I first saw them. But then I saw how people play them with vacant faces, like slot machines. They're casino games, not arcade.

They're an institution in the UK. They're in the arcades at every seaside town, and every kid plays them. Now that I have kids I actually think they're brilliant; for £2 each they taught mine everything they need to know about gambling.

- You sometimes win a bit along the way, but eventually you lose everything.

- The jackpot prizes are only there to lure you in, and you never win them. Towards the middle of the shelf are things like £20 notes. We noticed that one of them was getting quite near the edge, and might actually become winnable, but then the following morning its position had been reset to the back of the shelf.

- It's still fun as long as you're just playing with money you don't mind losing, and not expecting to come out ahead.

They even learned something about company scrip, from the tickets that come out of the machines and the ridiculous exchange rate between tickets and the actual rewards at the prize shop.

I asked my son on the way home if he'd put all his Christmas money and savings into the machine if I let him, and the answer was hell no - maybe a pound, but he didn't want to lose all of his money. Valuable lessons all round.

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

#165

Post by bloppe »

neilwilson wrote: post #146
Gigachad wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not really, but it's actually kinda like currency. Imagine if a government suddenly devalued all $500 bills into $100 bills, but every other denomination remained the same.

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

#166

Post by neilv »

> 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?

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

#167

Post by pnt12 »

novoreorx wrote: post #154

Took me sometime to understand why these items can be so expensive, The CS trading market makes NFTs look like child's play.

That's hyperbolic. You had high profile celebrities advertising NFTs, and stuff valued at millions, that's a whole other scale.

Skins have their place when they're modestly priced, as they also have quite a modest impact. But the whole gambling, artificial restrictions and trading is quite suspicious indeed.

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

#168

Post by bashy »

formerly_proven wrote: post #88
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.

So-called skin changers (which modify what skins you yourself see in-game) are actually considered bannable cheats.

A lot of people buy CS2 community servers to use a WeaponPaints addon which allows anyone in the server to use any skin.

I’d say 90% of ours have it enabled.

They used to ban accounts but I don’t think they have (on community servers) since it went F2P.

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

#169

Post by close04 »

_cenw wrote: post #145
close04 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I was thinking of your description of the situation before sv_pure. What you wrote sounded like "sure some people completely destroyed the game but you got to see some cool skins". Skins can't make up for wallhacks, and wallhacks won't let you enjoy the skins. It wasn't a tenable situation.

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

#170

Post by mosselman »

atraac wrote: post #162
adrr wrote: post #9

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.

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?

How about no gambling at all? That would work for me.
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