Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Counter-Strike's player economy is in a freefall

polygon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 617 posts

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

#271

Post by [deleted] »

EZ-E wrote: post #227
omcnoe wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China notoriously has intense capital controls. It's difficult for ordinary Chinese citizens to take capital out of the country. CS2 items can be bought and sold in both USD and RMB, and can be transferred between Chinese and international accounts. It's not about Steam wallet balances.

Interesting. I'm curious though, assuming I am Chinese and I trade knives for USD - where would I be able to receive USD to evade capital control? Surely not my bank account or Steam wallet. Or is it for people with bank account in both countries? But in that case crypto could be more convenient? I'm puzzled

[deleted]

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

#272

Post by ehnto »

eru wrote: post #107
ehnto wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And making it cheaper wouldn't fix anything, I guess?

Making it cheaper reduces the status symbol aspect, since that's mostly about signalling wealth. But maybe not the rarity/exclusivity signals for items made artificially rare or hard to get.

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

#273

Post by Macha »

walkabout wrote: post #214
bertylicious wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. The real problem is that Valve allows items to be sold in markets outside of Valve's control which allows third party gambling websites to operate. And you guessed right, they basically don't care about your age. Valve of course knows this but won't do anything, because they make profits off all transactions happening in third party markets. Plus the whole professional CS tournament scene is spo…

> Plus the whole professional CS tournament scene is sponsored by these predatory casinos I once had a glimpse behind the scenes of the online sports gambling industry (only for a few months—turns out that was my limit of how utterly disgusting an industry I could participate in and still, literally, sleep at night!) and it answered a question for me. The question was: “How did professional gaming get so incredibly b…

I think gambling came in more in later waves. The first wave of popularity (mostly StarCraft, LoL and fighting games) tended more towards funding from sponsors, and not gambling ones (red bull, monster energy, gaming peripheral makers, the game devs themselves, mobile games).

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

#274

Post by walletdrainer »

Hikikomori wrote: post #244
abejfehr wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that they (Valve) are complicit. Don't they provide the API that those sites use? I don't think they tried very hard to shut them down, they could be doing a lot more. Edit: based on what I recall from this Coffeezilla video ( https://youtu.be/13eiDhuvM6Y?si=GJ_kXOJyXFTogy40&t=476 )

Isn't it the same API that users use?

It’s probably fair to assume that more than 90% of trading bots are not the kind of bots valve should support

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

#275

Post by kakacik »

tetrisgm wrote: post #220
GeoAtreides wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It extracts money from kids 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.

Yes, let’s blame the f2p game dev when there are literally streamers pumping fake platforms, doing fake wins, marketing gambling sites at kids. Valve did that

I have no skin the game, literally or figuratively (buying some 2d sprites for a virtual weapon is childish and pathetic from grown up man point of view and kids should spend 0 time in such game... either buy a real gun, get into ie paintball for the kick of the hunt or find something else that feels amazing and doesnt involve sitting on your introvert ass, worsening isolation and mental issues), but - your argument is very weak whataboutism, and ignoring who introduced it all, to weakest members of society to prey on addictivity of it all.

Pathetic all around, imagine I am giving you a minus I cant give, and expecting better from you next time.

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

#277

Post by matsemann »

semanticist wrote: post #258
matsemann wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you vote this down, pretty curious what you are thinking? That you used a straw man. The $20k cosmetics weren't mentioned, and even if some buy these, the thing itself can still very well be targeted as gambling towards children.

"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." They're mentioned right there in the article this is nominally meant to be a discussion thread about.

But the argument was "they're running an online casino directed at children", the fact that someone buys the result of the gambling for adult money / $20k doesn't mean it's not, and is basically irrelevant to that statement.

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

#278

Post by tonyhart7 »

SwtCyber wrote: post #276

It's wild how a virtual knife in a 20-year-old shooter can have more volatile market behavior than some national currencies

"It's wild how a virtual knife in a 20-year-old shooter can have more volatile market behavior than some national currencies"

it literally not, not until latest update

its even better performing than stocks, thats why china invested millions into this

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

#279

Post by tonyhart7 »

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.

"Gambling mechanics for anyone under 18 should be banned."

its not gambling when you "can't" withdraw the money

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

#280

Post by SwtCyber »

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…

With increasing scrutiny around gambling mechanics, this might be Valve trying to get ahead of a future headache...
Post reply on HN