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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

#401

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

throw10920 wrote: post #387
cubefox wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Steam factually provides a huge amount of value to both developers and to players. This is an outright falsehood. Other providers could host those games for much less than the 30% fee. Hosting costs are extremely low nowadays. It's basically nothing compared to the development cost of an AAA game. This is often many years and hundreds of people working on a game. The hosting costs are completely minor in comparison…

> Other providers could host those games for much less than the 30% fee. Hosting costs are extremely low nowadays. It's basically nothing compared to the development cost of an AAA game. This is often many years and hundreds of people working on a game. The hosting costs are completely minor in comparison. Steam does far more than just host, and everyone who uses it knows this, so it's clear that you either have no i…

> Your comments are false due to your total ignorance of reality, and your malicious lying about my statements indicates that you don't care that they're false - you'll say anything plausible, regardless of truth, to advance whatever agenda you have.

They seem to live in this bubble where steam is extremely bad or something.

Nothing is as good or as bad as it seems.

I think valve is still decent but I prefer Gog-games more if I can be honest, valve has drm but I appreciate their customer service from what I know and the amount of good games it produced like portal and the steam marketplace is still a very nice thing imo.

I don't think steam is rent-seeking at all and I agree with your statement on it.

Now I still believe that CS-GO's lootboxes are still an issue tho, maybe I am not understanding the significance of change so much

Steam still does nothing to prevent gambling for children and people selling the skins on the other websites, I am not understanding how this change changes that, I read some other comment in here which said that you can have contracts which convert the rare to extremely rare Only in steam marketplace so maybe they stopped the other shady websites/the youtubers they sponsor by limiting their influence....

I don't understand :/ I still feel like Steam had turned a blind eye to child gambling for a long time and Coffeezilla had made a video about it which I can refer to.

> There's the Epic Games Store, GOG, the EA App, Battle.net, the Xbox one/Windows Store, and more. And you know what the most popular one is, by a large margin, because it provides value to both devs and players? Steam. That's the market at work.

The same is true for linux/Windows as well. You could say that windows has the market at work but the point becomes moot.

It isn't as if there aren't better options (GOG) but that its rather good enough

Like I said nothing is as good or as bad as it seems, my opinion on steam is barely good enough partially because of its previous responses on turning a blind eye to the whole situation but maybe this is changing with this thing they did right now but I am still not sure how.

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

#402

Post by antonymoose »

mothballed wrote: post #393
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.

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

Link to the retirement fund?

I’m surprised to hear that bit, there are way too many lawsuits flying around right now in the gun the world to consider that kind of risk.

Then again perhaps the fund managers taking on fees are the real point.

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

#403

Post by pessimizer »

walkabout wrote: post #318
mosselman wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah I used to be for it on grounds of liberty but having seen a little of the actual industry it’s just purely corrosive, evil shit. It should be fought. I’d maybe be OK with some kind of well-thought-through thing that still allowed friendly poker matches or sports brackets between people who actually know each other, but got the big money out of it. Maybe just ban corporations from having anything to do with it so…

No casino gambling. Casino gambling is not gambling. It's putting $1.00 into a machine and getting $0.80 back, but the exact refund amount after every dollar put in is arbitrary. There's absolutely no risk to the casino, the casino is not gambling. The only gambling being done is by individual bettors, and they have an expected massive loss.

I don't care very much if people gamble with each other, and expect $1 back for every $1 they put in.* But casino games and lootboxes are specifically designed for consistent losses to the house. It's simply another tax, but on the addicted, desperate, and/or innumerate. The weakest people at their weakest moments; and if we're not protecting them, the government has no purpose.

* I actually think that it is good for people who have the same wealth levels to gamble with each other, as long as the outcomes are largely random. The problem is with vigs, and with pots that get too large to cover against a house that can endlessly extend itself.

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

#405

Post by azemetre »

Antelope13 wrote: post #363
zzixp wrote: post #359

The Steam Deck has essentially enabled money laundering through Steam. Before the Deck, if you sold skins on the marketplace you could only use your Steam credit to buy games on the platform, or you had to do a shady 3rd party Paypal exchange. Now, you can use your Steam credits to buy a device with value that you can resell IRL.

Before that, you could also buy the Index VR set, which probably aren't as liquid as a Steam Deck. I won a Dota chest that could only be acquired by watching tournament games in-person, and after letting it appreciate for two years it nearly covered the cost of an Index. I was thankful because I had no idea what to do with hundreds of dollars in Steam credit.

Nice haul, I remember thinking I was so slick for trading a TF2 hat for Civilization 5.

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

#406

Post by dugidugout »

cubefox wrote: post #365
knome wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

having a high profit-per-employee is not the definition of rent seeking. valve is certainly not rent-seeking. it offers service that is valuable to users, and take care of online infrastructure for games published through it, indefinitely, at no running cost to the developer.

It's not "high", it's extremely high. They just have a few hundred employees while making several millions of profit per employee. More than Apple. They are printing money. > valve is certainly not rent-seeking. it offers service that is valuable to users, A 30% fee just for hosting the game is not valuable. > and take care of online infrastructure for games published through it, indefinitely, at no running cost to t…

While I can't argue whether 30% is actually fair, I do believe you are disregarding some benefits steam brings which may seem trivial. The hosting of online-games and facilitation of sales is not their only service. One that has traceable value that immediately comes to mind is the illusion of a central authority for achievements.

I have personally purchased many titles a second time to register my feats with steam and anecdotally see similar sentiment among older gamers. Achievements feel worthless in isolation but provide fulfillment when socially recognized. These are sales being manifested solely through Steam's position.

Now, back to whether this social permanence is worth the 30% Steam is extracting, I do have my opinions. Steam is technically "rent-seeking" from a strict economic classification, but is this more-so a case of the lighthouse or the railroad?

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

#407

Post by Hikikomori »

tsimionescu wrote: post #307
Hikikomori wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but its not like vavlve provides an api specifically for them.

No one claimed that. The point was that Valve controls the API and can cut access to said API to the gambling sites. This is not like sports betting, where the gambling sites don't need any integration with the actual sport : if Valve wants, they can seriously affect the abity of the sites to function.

>Don't they provide the API that those sites use?

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

#408

Post by PeterStuer »

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…

"Having a game where some players only play in order to win money is, for sure, a no go."

Vegas begs to differ.

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

#409

Post by immibis »

bargainbin wrote: post #294
charcircuit wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtual items are legitimate investments.

Anything you put money into is a legitimate investment. This doesn’t mean they’re viable investments.

IMO the phrase "legitimate investment" should be reserved for situations where you spend money something (e.g. kitchen equipment) that allows you to create new real-world value (e.g. food) which you can hopefully sell for a profit (it's still a legitimate investment if that fails). It should not be used for Ponzi schemes, gambling, outright fraud, or anything of the sort. Buying something and then hoping its price goes up before you sell it should not be called investing, but gambling - unless it fits in the category I just described.

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

#410

Post by Ekaros »

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.
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