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

461–470 of 617 posts

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

#461

Post by agentcoops »

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 mean, I think they’ve proven over the last century that the single thing they’re good at is protecting the regular payment of dividends (and of course buybacks more recently)… One might not be entirely mistaken to compare expecting much more than that from the modern state to expecting Valve to protect your skin investments.

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

#462

Post by lanfeust6 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #455
lanfeust6 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a pittance. Either way they would be playing with money they didn't put in themselves.

It isn't a pittance. It's literally "The first hit is free". The sketchy gambling sites spot you bonus skins and stuff for the same reason. It doesn't matter, they don't actually have to ever pay out, so they can just give you fake money to get you addicted.

Unless they're using their own money with the blessing of their parents, this remains in the realm of tin-foil-hat paranoia. There's no reason to believe we're in child gambling crisis because of fake money.

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

#463

Post by agentcoops »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #445
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.

I have had friends in the 90s and 00s "invest" in Beanie Babies and Legos and make a ton of money... for a while... and then get wiped out. This is not a new thing.

Yeah, I was trying to think about that when I wrote my comment. I do think there’s at the very least a scale change between the proliferation of unregulated “markets” these days (crypto, cs skins, Pokémon cards, I’m sure others) and the “your beanie babies will be worth a fortune some day” of the past. Perhaps what’s more surprising, though, is how consumer behavior leads these markets to now actually move up and to the right for remarkably long. My sense is you were always in fact delusional to think your beanie babies would hold value, but perhaps people are not entirely crazy looking at the charts of skin prices over X years and expecting it to continue. Perhaps I’m being too harsh on the collectors and too charitable to our contemporaries…

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

#464

Post by mlyle »

mothballed wrote: post #421
mikkupikku wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But something like legislation preventing further transfers, etc, could also happen.

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

#465

Post by xboxnolifes »

strix_varius wrote: post #319
Raed667 wrote: post #311

Can someone explain to me how such an "economy" can grow so large ? How many people actually care about the skin of the CS knife or gun?

This is what I'd like to know as well. $20k - $12k at "dumping stock" prices! - for a digital item for a video game is just incomprehensible to me. But clearly it's happening, so I'd like to understand better the venn diagram of people who have $20k completely disposable and people who are so highly motivated by their appearance in a video game. My assumptions are obviously wrong.

There is a number of wealthy individuals who whale on video games. Thats at least a part of the venn diagram. Having money doesn't remove your vanity.

But the skins are also used as a money substitute for gambling and as an intermediate item to exchange money between currencies. The skins "just happened" to be a stable enough store of value to create secondary markets.

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

#466

Post by Hikikomori »

riotnrrd wrote: post #450

I used to work at Valve -- on the CS:GO team, no less -- although I left nearly a decade ago. I don't know what prompted this change but I have some suspicions. Even when I was there and the loot box system was new to CS:GO, there were concerns that a lot of trading was happening outside of the marketplace. The trading happened elsewhere because you can't have more than $300 in your Steam wallet (more than this would…

>we couldn't prevent people "gifting" items to each other

Why not remove trade and use an auction system with a limit? Or not allowing trades under market price?

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

#467

Post by mlyle »

mothballed wrote: post #424
rhcom2 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

There's plenty of ways to not confiscate them but impair their value.

Further restrictions on transfer, restrictions on use, disadvantaged tax treatment, requirements for storage, security, insurance, bonding, etc.

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

#468

Post by agentcoops »

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…

I saw an absolutely shocking number of posts from people clearly on minimum wage at best with 20k or so in CS skins, buying loot boxes every week, and no other investments. Obviously no way to verify the accuracy of such statements, but my sense is you would be horrified to know the scale of the market.

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

#469

Post by kiddico »

Hikikomori wrote: post #466
riotnrrd wrote: post #450

I used to work at Valve -- on the CS:GO team, no less -- although I left nearly a decade ago. I don't know what prompted this change but I have some suspicions. Even when I was there and the loot box system was new to CS:GO, there were concerns that a lot of trading was happening outside of the marketplace. The trading happened elsewhere because you can't have more than $300 in your Steam wallet (more than this would…

>we couldn't prevent people "gifting" items to each other Why not remove trade and use an auction system with a limit? Or not allowing trades under market price?

Because people literally want to give gifts to each other sometimes. A friend I met playing CS get each other a skin every year for Christmas.

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

#470

Post by babypuncher »

Hikikomori wrote: post #466
riotnrrd wrote: post #450

I used to work at Valve -- on the CS:GO team, no less -- although I left nearly a decade ago. I don't know what prompted this change but I have some suspicions. Even when I was there and the loot box system was new to CS:GO, there were concerns that a lot of trading was happening outside of the marketplace. The trading happened elsewhere because you can't have more than $300 in your Steam wallet (more than this would…

>we couldn't prevent people "gifting" items to each other Why not remove trade and use an auction system with a limit? Or not allowing trades under market price?

Or just skipping the predatory gambling crap entirely and selling the skins directly like every other live service PvP shooter these days
Post reply on HN