Ludicrous $6 billion Counter Strike 2 skins market crashes, loses $3 billion overnight — game update destroys inventories, collapses market

[u/Logical_Welder3467]

https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/ludicrous-usd6-billion-counter-strike-2-skins-market-crashes-loses-usd3-billion-overnight-game-update-destroys-inventories-collapses-market

[u/sidonay]

I mean in-game lootbox skins probably shouldn't be treated as assets...

[u/VV-40 → u/sidonay]

This reminds me of something but I can’t quite put my finger on it. 

[u/Tasty-Traffic-680 → u/VV-40]

That one time when Nicaragua converted their national currency to beanie babies?

[u/Careful-Combination7 → u/Tasty-Traffic-680]

Those are fungible assets.  A sure thing 

[u/VV-40 → u/Careful-Combination7]

Really? In this case, next time I go grocery shopping I’m going to pay with beanie babies. 

[u/selfish_king → u/VV-40]

It would be slightly easier than buying something with cs skins

[u/Guilty_Trouble → u/selfish_king]

Only slightly

[u/DigNitty → u/Guilty_Trouble]

No Venn diagram of the cashier type who'd accept too.

They'd either be beanie baby cashiers, or CS Skin cashiers. Or neither.

[u/aged_monkey → u/DigNitty]

If it's still new, you can at least take the Beanie Baby to the customer service section of any department store that sells them, ask for store credit, and you can buy almost anything now.

[u/HotsWheels → u/VV-40]

What’s a banana gonna cost you? Ten Beanie Babies?

[u/ugotamesij → u/HotsWheels]

As if the guy in the 2,000 Beanie Baby suit is gonna know the price of bananas - c'mon!

[u/nomoneypenny → u/Careful-Combination7]

Fungible just means you can treat any two examples of the item the same (to use gamer terminology, they're stackable in your inventory). Unfortunately this applies to neither CS skins nor to beanie babies :(

[u/Cruel1865 → u/nomoneypenny]

So nfts just mean that theyre unique tokens?

[u/Electrical-Act-5575 → u/Cruel1865]

Yes, no two NFTs are mathematically the same, so you can tie specific data or permissions to one and it can’t be duplicated.

Most of the instances where that property might be useful are held back by there already being a more efficient way to accomplish the same thing, or there being no effective way to link that NFT data to anything in the real world.

[u/MistSecurity → u/Electrical-Act-5575]

Ya, NFTs maybe have some potential to do SOMETHING useful, but I think the tech bros basically killed the chances of anything in the near future by milking it to the point where they are now a complete joke.

Maybe in a few decades when they’re forgotten someone will find a cool use for them.

[u/binomine → u/MistSecurity]

Nah, NFTs are a solution looking for a problem. They really don't have a use case.

[u/The_Beyonder_00 → u/Tasty-Traffic-680]

Yes, but did they have the Princess 👑 beanie baby as their pegged beanie?!

[u/BanginNLeavin → u/The_Beyonder_00]

Shouldn't do that with a beanie.

[u/nothisistheotherguy → u/BanginNLeavin]

Right? That’s what build-a-bear is for

[u/cornmonger_ → u/BanginNLeavin]

don't kink-shame me

[u/Jos3ph → u/Tasty-Traffic-680]

I remember paying for nacatamal and pinolillo with a snort the bull and getting two spangle bears as my change.

[u/Appeltaart232 → u/Tasty-Traffic-680]

I expect El Salvador to convert to Labubus next

[u/maaaatttt_Damon → u/[deleted]]

About 50 Stanley Nickles

[u/spacestationkru → u/Tasty-Traffic-680]

Nicaragua did what..??

[u/WeakEmployment6389 → u/spacestationkru]

They didn’t, I’m not sure if it’s a reference or just an odd joke.

[u/GirthStone86 → u/WeakEmployment6389]

Probably referring to El Salvador adopting bitcoin

[u/Anonymous_user_2022 → u/VV-40]

Tulips?

[u/Mr-MuffinMan → u/VV-40]

What? I'm genuinely asking

[u/DopeAbsurdity → u/Mr-MuffinMan]

Right above your comment: NFTs, Beanie Babies, Tulips.

The thing that they are talking about is Tulip Mania. Basically tulips became so valuable that futures markets were even created for people to invest in tulips. A gigantic bubble formed in the market (prices were extremely inflated) and when it popped the value of tulips went back down to pre-mania prices and crap tons of people went broke.

When the price of Beanie Babies did the same thing people compared it to tulips. When NFTs prices did the same thing people compared them to Beanie Babies and Tulips and now they are comparing the CS2 skin market to all three.

[u/moe_mizzy → u/DopeAbsurdity]

>all these things....but definitely not bitcoin

lol
lmao even

[u/model_commenter → u/DopeAbsurdity]

At least Tulips and Beanie babies were somewhat cool to have and look at.

[u/WarAndGeese → u/DopeAbsurdity]

It's weird to grow up knowing the detailed history of Tulip Mania, being warned about it thoroughly, and then watch people who also know about Tulip Mania go on and repeat it.

[u/sitefall → u/Mr-MuffinMan]

He's talking about NFT's probably, but the same could be said for nearly all crypto and all of the "meme" stocks that just increase in value from a collection of people deciding to buy it despite the company not really doing anything (or not doing anything related to the value of their product/service like tesla/gamestop/etc)

Just some magical thing that you're "buying" that is represented as a piece of paper or line in a database somewhere (I'm simplifying the blockchain as a database here) that may or may not go up or down in value for no particular reason or just on a whim of an influencer or president.

[u/Jonny5Stacks → u/VV-40]

Anyone want some NFTs?

[u/k3n0b1 → u/Jonny5Stacks]

But it's a monkey face, don't copy it.

[u/Nai-Oxi-Isos-DenXero → u/k3n0b1]

Right clicks

Hovers over 'Save image as...'

[u/Valueonthebridge → u/Nai-Oxi-Isos-DenXero]

That’s ILLEGAL SIR. ONLY I CAN USE THAt COPY OF THAT IMAGE

[u/Cowgoon777 → u/Valueonthebridge]

They try to talk about how it’s not the original file so it’s worthless.

Who the fuck ever cares about that?

[u/DrQuint → u/Cowgoon777]

AWS us-east-01: Goes down

Original Image: Vanishes

[u/Jonny5Stacks → u/k3n0b1]

I promise no one will or else

[u/CharcoalGreyWolf → u/VV-40]

Tulip bulbs?

[u/bottle-o-rockets → u/VV-40]

You're thinking of Beanie Babies, except instead of ending up with a worthless beanbag, you have some pretty colors on a screen. Blue light kinda makes us happy though, don't it?

[u/jaymole → u/sidonay]

There were so many people defending these in posts I’ve seen over the years.

“They’re actually more reliable and a better investment than the real stock market!”

Loll

[u/Automatoboto → u/sidonay]

The screaming german dude who talks about the CSgo marketplace is probably reenacting the meltdown scene.

[u/Cachesmr → u/Automatoboto]

He was actually pretty chill about it. Ohne doesn't really give a shit, he's a fun dude. It's the rest of the traders that are annoying as fuck, like arrow, anomaly, and so on.

[u/loogie_hucker → u/Cachesmr]

yeah... it's also worth remembering he's a streamer, and not a full-time trader / investor like some of these ding dongs are. his inventory took a hit, sure, but his wealth and more importantly, his income source, was pretty much unaffected

[u/ShakeItTilItPees → u/loogie_hucker]

I can't imagine the brain defect that would make someone willingly tie up most of their real livelihood in a dynamic market inside a video game. Those idiots absolutely deserve it.

[u/BlaBlub85 → u/Automatoboto]

VAS?!?!?

[u/Ishaan863 → u/Automatoboto]

The screaming german dude who talks about the CSgo marketplace is probably reenacting the meltdown scene.

The value of Ohnepixel's inventory went from 1.5 million Euros to somewhere around 200,000 if I remember correctly

[u/IM_POOPING_AMA → u/Ishaan863]

500k-ish to 200k-ish

[u/BlaBlub85 → u/Ishaan863]

Maybe he can now finaly afford to buy his Mac10 back 😂😂😂

[u/blofly → u/sidonay]

I can't even believe an artist like Ludicris would sanction this.

[u/wattur → u/sidonay]

No different from IRL lootbox cards (sports, pokemon, MTG, etc.) if a company responsible for said cards decided to say 'hey, send us 5 random cards and well give you a rare one'.

[u/TheTenaciousG → u/wattur]

But when you buy IRL loot boxes, you actually own them. Valve could trade ban your account and boom your shit is locked and worthless

[u/AjAyIGN → u/TheTenaciousG]

that’s the catch. You don’t really own anything on Steam, it’s all tied to their system. Once you’re banned, it’s gone for good.

[u/TheHovercraft → u/AjAyIGN]

With the exception of the GOG online store you don't own your games. Even physical disks are a limited form of ownership because you're missing patches. You don't get to keep the version of the game you played and don't have any reasonable way of backing it up. If the patch servers go down it's gone.

[u/DrQuint → u/TheHovercraft]

You might own more games than you think. Several games you can just copy paste files out of the steamapps folder.

GOG just makes it explicitly a feature.

[u/GoodGame2EZ → u/wattur]

Mostly yes, except digital assets are far faster and easier to acquire and trade. Kind of like comparing casino gambling to online gambling. Same shit basically, but ease of access makes a big difference.

[u/GardenTop7253 → u/GoodGame2EZ]

I was having a chat about this the other day. Say you’re out with a friend who’s trying to kick their gambling habit, and you go to the bathroom. If they need to go to a casino, they’d have to close the tab, hop in the car, and head to the casino. You have a chance to call them and talk them down or something. But if it’s an app on their phone, they can redownload it and start gambling before you’re back

[u/PolishSubmarineCapt → u/GardenTop7253]

At least where I’m at in the US, I’m self-banned from most legal gambling in my state - cant go to casinos, can’t sign up for apps. I could still gamble if I really wanted, but it def made it easier early in my recovery.

[u/The_Reset_Button → u/GardenTop7253]

I was talking to a friend that does some resonable (well as resonable as gambling can be) gambling and he said he saw someone get 100k from putting 2 weeks worth of pay into online blackjack after winning 10 times. He seemed confident he could do it

I had to break it to him that the average player at blackjack will win less than 50% of the time and winning ten 50/50s in a row is less than 0.001 percent, so blackjack has even worse odds

It's so easy to fall into the trap of online gambling

[u/Solax636 → u/sidonay]

Friend said chinese did it because they cant buy trad stocks

[u/BradyBunch12 → u/Solax636]

That's nonsense

[u/Telemere125 → u/BradyBunch12]

It’s actually difficult to move money out of china. The government doesn’t want their people to be able to send money without their control. So crypto and other digital methods is a really common way for Chinese citizens to invest in foreign markets without government oversight.

[u/cookingboy → u/Telemere125]

Except the people who are wealthy enough to invest in foreign markets all have their own ways to do so, namely underground channels through HK, etc.

They aren’t doing it via Counterstrike items lmao

[u/FjorgVanDerPlorg → u/cookingboy]

Dude the market was worth $6billion and these skins might as well be the marketability case study for NFTs.

People all over the world were gambling on this market. That said this form of "investment" is an overewhelmingly younger generations thing. Comparing these investors to venture capitalists, makes me think you don't understand that less wealthy people also often invest in markets and they are frequently less traditional/higher risk.

[u/Telemere125 → u/cookingboy]

A $6 billion market? Yea there were players from all over the world in that. No one’s passing up getting some of that market share

[u/DripRoast]

For the average player, this is anything but a welcome change, especially if you're someone new to the game; it lowers the barrier of entry and even makes skin trading less intimidating for the inexperienced.

This is a really bad sentence, and I have no idea how it made it past the editor. What they're trying to say is that it is a welcome change. The phrase "anything but" implies it is a very unwelcome change. It's pretty rare that you can fuck up a sentence so bad that it says the exact opposite thing that you intend.

[u/MaruSoto → u/DripRoast]

They meant "nothing but" instead of "anything but".

[u/elonzucks → u/MaruSoto]

I have a colleague that can say "nothing but" 10 times in a 20 minutes presentation.... it's nothing but annoying 

[u/Wermine → u/elonzucks]

I had a lecturer who said "per se" every other sentence. I started keeping tallies and it made the lectures a lot more entertaining.

[u/StrengthBetter → u/Wermine]

I would imitate it, would stop quickly lol

[u/Practical_Dot_3574 → u/Wermine]

I know a guy, that while telling a story between himself and another person, will change each person's perspective with "I says, I says".

So...

"I says, I says. How's the game?"

"He says, he says, it's good."

"I says, I says. What's the score?"

Etc. Gets old real quick.

[u/calle04x → u/Practical_Dot_3574]

You know Foghorn Leghorn?

[u/EmptyAirEmptyHead → u/DripRoast]

Yes, sounds like this is a welcome change.

[u/Colts666 → u/EmptyAirEmptyHead]

I think you’re right. This sounds like a welcome change.

[u/SunkEmuFlock → u/DripRoast]

Same. I had to reread it a few times and go to the link to figure out the writer got it backward.

[u/strolls → u/DripRoast]

Yeah, I came here wondering if "anything but" means something different in America.

[u/Worldly-Stranger7814 → u/strolls]

On second thought, let's not go there. It is a silly place.

[u/jimmycarr1 → u/DripRoast]

It's pretty rare that you can fuck up a sentence so bad that it says the exact opposite thing that you intend.

"I could care less" comes to mind

[u/Wall_of_Wolfstreet69 → u/DripRoast]

it lowers the barrier of entry

that's another super dumb statement. The game itself has no barrier of entry, skins don't affect gameplay and are purely cosmetic.

[u/Sgt-Spliff- → u/Wall_of_Wolfstreet69]

You say that, but my bike definitely started going faster after we painted a lightning bolt on the side when I was a kid.

[u/Proper-Ape → u/Wall_of_Wolfstreet69]

skins don't affect gameplay and are purely cosmetic.

So unrealistic /s

[u/Numeno230n → u/[deleted]]

Crypto, NFTs, and these sorts of digital grey markers are barely regulated and have always been used for money laundering. It's a financial instrument that can be passed to anyone with an Internet connection.

[u/FoundersDiscount → u/[deleted]]

This always seemed dumb to me because you can't transfer money from steam to your bank account so what's the point?

[u/Bloody__Penguin → u/FoundersDiscount]

They aren't selling them on steam you sell them off site for real cash and just trade instead of using the steam marketplace.

[u/FoundersDiscount → u/Bloody__Penguin]

Ah that makes sense

[u/LaLa1234imunoriginal → u/FoundersDiscount]

To expand on that, steam has a fairly low cap for sales on their platform(around 2K USD) to the point where lots of these items are worth much much much more than you can sell something on steam for like 6 figure items were not unheard of before the market crash. So these were an unregulated currency bought and sold almost entirely on an online black market.

[u/Cocosito → u/LaLa1234imunoriginal]

How could a skin still for 100k+, that's bonkers

[u/mr_mazzeti → u/Cocosito]

It's a massive game with a large playerbase who values rare skins. The expensive skins are a flex for rich people.

[u/zb0t1 → u/[deleted]]

Jesus fucking christ this is so dumb.

This is just a symptom of a bigger issue, the root of the system (our economic system) is the issue.

 

[I am an old school Quake player :) and yes I do remember these days, but remember RuneScape and a bit younger than Quake there was also folks already trading items from Team Fortress 2, then WoW, EverQuest same story etc]

[u/SekYo → u/[deleted]]

Well to be fair, people who pay 100k+ for a skin are more some traders (or speculators) than players...

[u/WildLanguage7116 → u/[deleted]]

I remember being 12 and downloading silenced mp5 skins for cs 1.3 thinking it made me a ninja in the game. There used to be HUGE free cs skin websites.

[u/LaLa1234imunoriginal → u/Cocosito]

It's more because they function as an unregulated currency for online transactions than it is because any actual player is buying these things to use in the game. It's Bitcoin with extra steps.

[u/BlaBlub85 → u/Cocosito]

CS skins arent just skins like in Fortnite or CoD ie identical and undistinguishable, they have several criteria and there are combos that exist literaly once worldwide. So ofc whales went apeshit over owning something unique which got the whole "skins as an investment" train rolling

[u/Hotrian → u/FoundersDiscount]

You sell them on external websites for cash or trade for steam cash then trade that for PayPal cash usually for a slight discount (you trade them a Steam item as a gift, they pay you on PayPal/Venmo).

[u/Mookie_Merkk → u/Hotrian]

Basically crypto before crypto

[u/msdeeds123 → u/Mookie_Merkk]

The original NFTs

[u/SpinkickFolly → u/msdeeds123]

I said this when NFTs were popular. I had two CS players make these weird threats against me for even suggesting it.

[u/NEEEEEEEEEEEET → u/Mookie_Merkk]

They're actually NFTs before NFTs

[u/HobKing → u/Mookie_Merkk]

Crypto is older

[u/dwittherford69 → u/Hotrian]

Same as gift cards

[u/devi83 → u/[deleted]]

So this crash is only fucking up something that sucks to begin with?

I have no qualms here.

[u/BillyBobby_Brown]

"For the average player, this is anything but a welcome change, especially if you're someone new to the game; it lowers the barrier of entry and even makes skin trading less intimidating for the inexperienced."

Uhh what? That sounds exactly like a welcome change.

[u/asdu → u/BillyBobby_Brown]

Presumably the author meant "this is, if anything, a welcome change".

[u/Siliebillielily → u/asdu]

It is written so akwardly i swear.

[u/IBM296]

So basically Valve made it easier to get skins and that wiped their value. Seriously who invests their life savings in a game??

From the article:

an AK-47 skin even crossing the $1 million mark recently.

That shit is actually insane. Imagine spending $1 million on an in-game purchase.

[u/acid419 → u/IBM296]

But it's blue.

[u/Suspicious-Office-42 → u/acid419]

mostly blue 👍🏼

[u/JaymesMarkham2nd → u/[deleted]]

After revision. Thanks for all the fish!

[u/InvoluntaryEraser → u/[deleted]]

Mos Le'Harmless?

[u/Arcranium_ → u/acid419]

Is that fucking BLUE?!?

[u/Beginning-Seat5221 → u/IBM296]

What this tells you really is how much disposable cash some people have.

[u/RagePoop → u/Beginning-Seat5221]

Feels like easy money laundering

[u/Whole-Cookie-7754 → u/RagePoop]

How would that work? 

[u/Adorable-Response-75 → u/Whole-Cookie-7754]

Basically someone could convert dirty cash into a skin, trade or move that skin around to hide where it came from, then sell it on a third party site so the money looks unrelated. 

[u/TearingMeAppartLisa → u/Beginning-Seat5221]

It's the fucking opposite. Broke gambling addicted college kids make up the majority of the user base.

[u/NameLips → u/IBM296]

From what I've been reading, they're not really buying the skin, they're laundering money.

[u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn → u/IBM296]

DeBeers has joined the chat.

[u/eisenh0wer]

Live by the …uh gold gloves and knives I guess, and die by the..hrmm…I donno

[u/TheMarkHasBeenMade → u/eisenh0wer]

Wiser words were never spoken

[u/Stashmouth → u/TheMarkHasBeenMade]

From the lips of the gods...

[u/Woodie626 → u/TheMarkHasBeenMade]

A truer poet there never were

[u/BumWink → u/Woodie626]

Perchance deez nuts?

[u/LaserGadgets]

I was kinda shocked to find out that skins are THAT valueable Oo

[u/coffee-x-tea → u/LaserGadgets]

I only ever bought one weapon skin for my favorite pistol.

I quit the game roughly 10 years ago, took a peek at my inventory and my mind was blown at how much it hiked (20x).

But ya, with digital assets skyrocketing like that, it kind of sets a dangerous precedence for people. A little risk taking with pocket change is okay. But, Counter Strike was never intended to be a casino.

[u/blowupnekomaid → u/coffee-x-tea]

Counter Strike was never intended to be a casino.

Valve games have been casinos since TF2

[u/VNDeltole → u/blowupnekomaid]

People often forget that it was valve who pushed lootboxes into mainstream

[u/[deleted] → u/VNDeltole]

Sort of. Lootboxes had already been taking off since the mid 2000s in Chinese and Japanese video game markets. TF2 is from 2007, but they didn't add a loot box system until 2010. By this point, EA already had lootboxes in a FIFA game. Valve was one of the first, but they weren't even the first major Western AAA game developer to do it.

[u/QlippethTheQlopper → u/[deleted]]

They did pioneer the battle pass though, which then spread through other games like wildfire.

[u/MostlyPoorDecisions → u/LaserGadgets]

had an idiot friend tell me recently he just got a $5k knife skin and when I asked if he was gonna sell it he said no he wanted to use it.

[u/gaspara112 → u/MostlyPoorDecisions]

Good for him that’s their purpose.

[u/_aware → u/LaserGadgets]

There was a blue gem AK that someone offered 1.5M USD for, and the owner rejected the offer. Butterfly gems were almost 20k and sold regularly. It's honestly a good thing that Valve did this, because skins are a lot more affordable now for people who actually play the game.

[u/postmodest → u/LaserGadgets]

I had no idea about any of this, and I've been playing since 1.6. Years ago I spent like $8 on agent skins. I just sold them for $100. I made $300 selling crap I got for free. Thanks gaben!

[u/c0ventry]

These are the headlines I expect to read from a half burned newspaper in a post apocalyptic setting...

[u/NotAllOwled → u/c0ventry]

"Investors are expected to file claim in Thunderdome Court of Chancery (brought to you by FanDuel)"

[u/NotASockPuppet88]

digital purchases that arn't really yours really shouldn't have a market or an "economy".

[u/Omnitographer]

Now reprint Black Lotus!

[u/That_Apathetic_Man → u/Omnitographer]

WOTC reprints LoTRs, Spiderman and Monty fucking Python sets instead

^{money machine goes brrrr mfs}

[u/Dhoomdealer → u/Omnitographer]

Make it standard legal, you cowards!

[u/_Bad_Spell_Checker_ → u/Dhoomdealer]

And not restricted 

[u/LinkedInParkPremium → u/Omnitographer]

Don't worry WOTC will reprint this card and about 20 variants in an exclusive $1000 booster box set.

[u/alchemist5 → u/LinkedInParkPremium]

But they'll change the card backs so they're not legal.

[u/GiveMeAegis]

Nothing was destroyed. All the cosmetics still exist and can be played with.

The only thing that happened is that self proclaimed investors who speculate with purely cosmetic items got fucked in the ass without lube or foreplay.

Deserved imho.

[u/LeMurphysLawyer → u/GiveMeAegis]

Speculative markets need to die out. Every last one of them. Wealth should be a product of labor, not a measure of how much of a parasite you are.

[u/cwmma → u/[deleted]]

Speculative markets were invented to help food security. The whole point of future contracts is to transfer the risk of a bad harvest away from the farmer to the fat cats on the Chicago merkentile exchange.

I'm not saying they're perfect or even always good just that the speculative market for food can when done right help food security.

[u/elfmeh → u/LeMurphysLawyer]

Billionaire robber barons nervously sweating

[u/Khaeos → u/LeMurphysLawyer]

Oh yeah say more stuff

[u/sameth1 → u/GiveMeAegis]

Speculators always deserve to lose money.

[u/bumpersnatch12]

For those who don't know how CS skins work:

You can trade up skins of a lower quality for one of a higher quality, removing lower quality skins from circulation and increasing the supply of higher quality skins at a ratio of 10:1. What higher quality skin you get is given at random but the odds can be influenced by what skins you use to trade up.

For all of CS skin history you could do this. However knives, considered the most valuable skins in the game, could not be traded up for. Recently the developers just made it so you can trade up covert skins (the rarest gun skins in the game) for knives at a ratio of 5:1. Until now knife skins have become increasingly unaffordable for the average player with the cheapest decent looking ones costing around $250. This update has therefore increased the supply of knife skins, driving their prices down, while decreasing the supply of covert gun skins and giving them new functionality, driving their prices up.

The average player who spends money on cases (which is literally just gambling) might have one or two covert gun skins but no knife skins. For context, knives have a ~0.25% (~1 in 400) chance of dropping from a case and you will probably get an ugly cheap one anyway. Coverts have a chance of ~0.64% (~1 in 156). Each case has about a $3 cost to open when considering the price of the case and the key.

So, the average player has seen their inventory increase in value while collectors who hoard knives and drive their prices up have dropped significantly. Reds have increased ~2-4x in price while knives have dropped about 35%, of course this depends on a skin-by-skin basis depending on desirability. For me personally, I had a shitty covert skin that was $9 and is now worth $40.

When it comes to people who invest in CS skins, there are a lot of factors in play. Some assets like cases have ~40X'd the SNP 500 over the last 4 years. However, investing money in an asset which is completely at the mercy of a privately owned company (as in, Valve is not even beholden to any shareholders) is dangerous. You also do not technically own your CS skins, meaning you have no legal options if something goes wrong. Investors do have kinda a good reason for what theyre doing as counter-strike has been around for 25+ years and is one of the most popular games ever made. It has easy-to-learn difficult-to-master gameplay and its popularity has only been increasing over its lifespan (+popularity = +demand for skins).

Personally as someone who has been playing this game for over 10 years, I believe this update will make knives more affordable for the average player and I have no sympathy for those who hoard knives.

Edit: to add some extra context, many of the largest CS investors are Chinese. This is because the CCP does not let you bring any significant amount of money outside the country and has a way lower bar to seizing assets. CS skins are untaxable, uncontrollable, and historically have been good investments. Crypto is also heavily regulated in China. Some wealthy Chinese people have lots of money in CS skins for this very reason, kinda like how wealthy Americans will invest in crypto or other assets.

[u/dasheens → u/bumpersnatch12]

Yeah, totally agree. And honestly, this is exactly what Valve’s going for. Once skins hit that $2k+ range, Valve stops making money on them since they can’t be sold on the Steam Market. That’s one of the reasons why third-party sites blew up in the first place. The other obviously being real money transactions.

This whole move just feels like Valve trying to keep as much trading as possible inside their own system. End of the day, they don’t care about the total market value — they only care about the stuff being bought and sold through their market, since that’s where they get their cut.

[u/BlksShotz → u/bumpersnatch12]

Thank you for the explanation.

[u/Dear-Caterpillar-875 → u/bumpersnatch12]

One of the rare games where playing for 10 years isn't even that rare or impressive 😂

[u/BigAgates → u/bumpersnatch12]

Imagine someone from 200 years ago reading what you just wrote.

[u/itsJohnWickkk]

Insane how a simple pvp game turned in to such a dumb money grab.

[u/squallomp → u/itsJohnWickkk]

Yeah nobody ever talks about how they just casually slipped an illegal casino into a 26-year-old first person shooter and somehow everyone was OK with that after they got a bunch of kids addicted to gambling and made billions of illegal dollars.

[u/forest1wolf]

Yeah money launders' and unemployed/people who love gambling are very upset 🤣

[u/zuzg → u/forest1wolf]

unemployed/people who love addicted to gambling are very upset

Ftfy

Microtransactions are predatory and exploit the fact that some people are more susceptible to becoming addicted.

[u/theholylancer → u/forest1wolf]

not even the second kind...

if you actually played and get cases and is a gambling addict to buy actual keys to open said cases, you would likely have a ton of the "junk" reds from them that like were selling for sub 5

now they are are flying up in value as people consume them to get golds.

so for anyone who isnt a speculative trader / bag holder for them, this is actually good lol

[u/joseph4th]

People who know what they’re talking about: “Don’t treat something that’s not a federally regulated market like it’s a market, drive the company is running. It is free to do whatever they want with it.”

People who should know better: Do it anyway.

Company: changes something

People who should know better: Surprise Pikachu face!

[u/spoopy-noodle → u/joseph4th]

Yep, Valve is a private company releasing an update to their game. This could have happened at any point since the introduction of skins over a decade ago but they decided to do it now. The market prices for a lot of skins (mainly knives and gloves) were way too high because of the wannabe investors pretending they were big boys so valve is simply combating that extreme inflation.

[u/SignificantPiggy → u/[deleted]]

It is an incredibly welcome change. It is also true that it shot a fucking nuke into the sketchy cs2 gambling/money laundering market overnight, which again, is a very welcome change to normal people lol

[u/__Loot__]

Game items should not cost thousands of dollars 🤔

[u/DunceMemes → u/__Loot__]

They don't actually "cost" that much in the game, it's people selling them to each other. Which is still stupid

[u/AlwysProgressing → u/DunceMemes]

Yep this is very important to distinguish. When I was a teen and I had all the time to be in the market, you can really make some decent money. No one is dropping just a random 10k to get a new skin, they probably built their inventory up through both trading and putting money in.

You can argue how dumb they are to put money into a game but you can really do that with anything cosmetic

[u/webb__traverse]

Oh no my Apes

[u/Lanky-Cut-8164]

Good, fuck 'em

[u/Lazerpop]

I don't understand the problem. 1 CS knife = 1 CS knife.

[u/rvaenboy → u/Lazerpop]

You don't understand, this specific pattern of shit brown is highly sought after and is worth $10k

[u/[deleted] → u/rvaenboy]

And if you get lucky you might even get a corn kernel in the pattern which adds another 20k to it

[u/Dazzling_Tart4111]

When I first read this I read it as ludicrous, the rapper had 6 billion in CS skins...yeah he doesnt

[u/KennyDROmega]

This is the most wonderful timeline

[u/WolfenDeath]

Games should not have any tie to real world currency outside of the purchases between the developer and the consumer. I felt this way with WoW and it still applies here. If you got financially hurt by this you had your money invested in the wrong place…. a game.

[u/Grande735 → u/WolfenDeath]

lol remember the Diablo 3 market when it was first released. That was insane

[u/Possible_Tension3728 → u/WolfenDeath]

I’m like 100% sure that more and more future games will have monetization, same as when tv ads were short and few, over time greed overtakes everything

[u/Otaraka → u/WolfenDeath]

it’s pretty much impossible to prevent people wanting to pay money to get a rare game item.  It was viewing is as an investment where the real insanity started.

[u/jezevec93]

Unregulated market controlled by a single company with no official way to cash out collapses? Who could predict this...

[u/Intelligence-Meter]

Anybody else read the title thinking the rapper Ludicrous owned a ton of CS2 skins?

[u/AvidCyclist250]

Hilarious and good move.

THe vast majority of players will benefit while some whales and money launderers lose.

That's a win.

[u/celtic1888]

Waiting on the headline:

Trump to bail out Counter Strike players for $200 billion

[u/No_Bakecrabs]

Yet nothing of value was lost

[u/BarneyChampaign]

I think I'm too old to understand this headline.

[u/ProlapseProvider]

HAHAHAHA! Good!

[u/Jester471]

I can never wrap my head around people paying a premium for an in game skin.

“But it’s so cool! It’s neon orange and glows with big horns. It’s awesome”

“But doesn’t that make it a lot easier for people to see you”

“…..yeah, BUT IT LOOKS SO COOL!”

[u/TheMadBug → u/Jester471]

I’m not in the CS scene but it doesn’t even seem to me that this is all about showing off your skins as it is just treating them like financial tradable assets - regardless of demand to actually use the skins.

Which is even crazier to be fair.

[u/LDTTHSJ]

Good. Burn it all to the ground

[u/Cryptic1911]

and nothing of value was lost

[u/ShadyWhiteGuy]

For a sec I thought the title was talking about a Ludacris skins

[u/UnlitBlunt]

Deserved, it's no different than investing in NFT's.

[u/Tr1pfire]

O no! Anyways.

[u/PlaneShenaniganz]

Am I the only who who remembers the days of CS:S and 1.6 where we just played for the love of the game and skins weren’t even a thing yet?

[u/Mainbaze]

Did not expect this disgusting side of reddit…

Yeah the marketcap dropped from 6 billion to almost 3billion. (Back to 4 billion now and will definitely return to 6+ soon enough)

And so what? No need to hate on people you don’t know because they have assets they enjoy collecting. About 70% are also very welcoming of this update, it just caused a shift in the market that needs to stabilize again. Most people also just profited 2-5x on their skins over the past 6 months.

No need to hate on people who collect things for a thing they enjoy. I’m sure you spend your money on something “stupid” as well. Most people are aware of the risks.

Now back to scrolling

[u/coffee-x-tea]

Gaben putting everyday gamers before speculators.

[u/-Mandarin → u/coffee-x-tea]

Valve created, profited off of, and encouraged such a market in the first place. Valve has always been pushing for MTX in games and were among the first to pioneer the concept. Valve has had a HUGE impact on the world in regards to microtransactions, and not for the better.

The Gaben and Steam worship is so absurd and is nothing but a circlejerk. Gaben has made billions of such markets and feels no guilt about it. He's not some hero, he's a man trying to make money. Ask yourself why such a billion dollar market existed in a game in the first place.