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

421–430 of 617 posts

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

#421

Post by mothballed »

mikkupikku wrote: post #415
mothballed wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hilarious to US CS items/weapons as a retirement portfolio when you could get pretty damn good and government protected monopoly by buying NFA machine guns knowing the number is capped and the price is likely to only go up. These are now being used by actual retirement funds. http://machinegunpriceguide.com/html/german_subguns_0.html

That market could crash overnight with a single SCOTUS ruling against the NFA.

NFA for machine guns will never be overruled, never. The odds of Hughes amendment being ruled against, are one iota above nil.

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

#422

Post by Ekaros »

a3w wrote: post #413
Ekaros wrote: post #410

I think this is smart move. Basically any item with price higher than 1800 is useless for Valve. As that item can not be transacted on Steam's marketplace. As such forcing prices lower than this means more transactions can happen there and Valve gets to take their 15% cut on each of them.

1800 what? USD, steam points, EUR?

USD. Then converted by some rate to local currencies.

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

#423

Post by mikkupikku »

rewqaz555 wrote: post #420

I get why they wanted to do this, but I don't get why they made it this way, I mean yeah it makes a bit money in short term, but creates terrible problems long term. First of all having 3 billions less in economy means we are 3 billions closer to recession. Worth keeping in mind that games are not essential. Second thing is trust, without it whole steam can implode. Whole business is based on infinite purchases. Thir…

People holding virtual cosmetic items that nominally had some value as collectables doesn't mean the whole thing was actually worth that much to society. If everybody tried to cash out their collection they would have soon found there was nothing close to 3 billion in value. The prices of these things were inflated by gamblers using them for speculation. And generally speaking, anything that teaches gamblers a lesson is good for society in the long run.

As for it collapsing Steam; not a chance. They didn't take away anybody's games, and that's what Steam is for to the overwhelmingly majority of users. The gambling addicts are a small minority and generally an annoyance to everybody else.

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

#424

Post by mothballed »

rhcom2 wrote: post #411
mothballed wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hilarious to US CS items/weapons as a retirement portfolio when you could get pretty damn good and government protected monopoly by buying NFA machine guns knowing the number is capped and the price is likely to only go up. These are now being used by actual retirement funds. http://machinegunpriceguide.com/html/german_subguns_0.html

Relying on the sanity and/or consistency of government policy would keep me up at night.

I would sleep perfectly soundly if it relied on politicians not wanting the plebs they subjugate to have easier access to machine guns, which is what keeps their value up.

As for current NFA items holder, the constitution requires them to be compensated fair value if they are to be confiscated.

The risk is arguably lower than many single stocks, many of which are bought in retirement portfolio.

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

#425

Post by dcow »

agentcoops wrote: post #377
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…

I waded through some Tik Tok comment threads on this change and it was so eye-opening: there are a shocking number of people without disposable income who were seriously investing in CS items, thinking it was a retirement portfolio. I fear the crypto era has lead to even further diminished financial literacy at large… Blessed be compound interest and financial regulation.

That anyone would use a game cosmetic as a retirement portfolio is so unbelievable it has to be trolling, right? I think we might just be witnessing the grief process unfold…

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

#426

Post by mikkupikku »

dcow wrote: post #425
agentcoops wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I waded through some Tik Tok comment threads on this change and it was so eye-opening: there are a shocking number of people without disposable income who were seriously investing in CS items, thinking it was a retirement portfolio. I fear the crypto era has lead to even further diminished financial literacy at large… Blessed be compound interest and financial regulation.

That anyone would use a game cosmetic as a retirement portfolio is so unbelievable it has to be trolling, right? I think we might just be witnessing the grief process unfold…

It's not trolling. People living paycheck to paycheck, without much in the way of financial literacy, are big consumers of "made to be collectible" widgets because they're desperate for appreciating assets and don't know how to do better when they struggle to save up a few hundred dollars (in no small part, because of their gambling addictions.)

Funko pops, baseball cards, knife skins, it's all used this way.

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

#427

Post by CivBase »

> 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.

> Now, that Butterfly Knife mentioned above? It's going for around $12,000, as people are essentially dumping their stock, with 15 sold over the past 16 hours at the time of this writing.

Why on earth would anyone think an item in a video game is a good store of real-world value? Who are the people buying these items right now for $12k? How the heck did we get here?

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

#428

Post by lofaszvanitt »

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…

And they came to this conclusion after how many years of exploitative behaviour?

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

#429

Post by mothballed »

mikkupikku wrote: post #426
dcow wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That anyone would use a game cosmetic as a retirement portfolio is so unbelievable it has to be trolling, right? I think we might just be witnessing the grief process unfold…

It's not trolling. People living paycheck to paycheck, without much in the way of financial literacy, are big consumers of "made to be collectible" widgets because they're desperate for appreciating assets and don't know how to do better when they struggle to save up a few hundred dollars (in no small part, because of their gambling addictions.) Funko pops, baseball cards, knife skins, it's all used this way.

It's not always instructive to assume people making seemingly bad financial decisions are acting irrationally.

People living paycheck to paycheck due to child support orders, alimony, or other judgements taking a giant cut of their paycheck are likely buying collectibles instead of on-paper stocks or commodities because they can actually keep those without the state being able to as easily take them.

Also, the sketchy looking guy buying tons of $20 scratch-off tickets could just be laundering drug money rather than making some irrational gambling decision.

Post reply on HN