I think Steam is by far the greatest technology in PC gaming. They are doing a great job to end customers in terms of supplying up-to-date PC games and makes it available on cloud. Basically, you are able to play your game on different computers and platforms starting from your last saved state. That’s really cool. I don’t even mention the variety of games in Steam and how much this distribution type is good for our planet.
After working until morning for my research / homework / project, I usually play one or two rounds of Counter-Strike GO which helps to vent my stress. Anyone who is around the same age with me is familiar to earlier version of CS (CS 1.3, 1.5, 1.6) that famous game which is played after school is over, in internet cafes. Development in recent years in the game experience is -simply- amazing. The best thing is Valve is regularly updating the game. So actually I want to talk about a recent update, called Arms Deal.
Different than other CS versions, there are “100 all-new decorated” guns on top of the classical ones. Players are able to collect, buy, sell and trade with other players. When you are playing the game, random guns are dropped to random player which creates supply in the system. And -as you expect- there are lots of people who are buying and selling these guns and making money in the Steam system. If I recall correctly, CS:GO is $14 while a “cool gun” is about $30. Of course, there are cheap guns but some of the popular (AWP) and ultra-rare guns (knives) are around $300. I’m not kidding. Steam is taking a part on all sales, hence they are probably making more money than regular CS sales. On top of that, player who wants to buy these games are adding money to their Steam accounts and as far as I know there is no way out for these. So, basically even if you make money by trading, that money will go the system eventually. On top of that, they implemented “locked cases”. When you got a locked case, you need to buy a key (for around $2.50) to open it. They have random guns in it and many times they are cheapest guns (that you can sell $0.10). I saw many players that are buying keys to open these random boxes and spend lots of money. So it is kind of a gamble – Steam benefits from gamble-addicted players to earn money.
In my case, I only bought a gun (Stat Track AUG) for $4.30 and its market is below $2.90 now. I sold my locked cases since I know they have useless weapons most of the time. Also, since supply is increasing constantly, gun prices are decreasing, which is no surprise to you.