That means nothing?

Its a parenting skill issue.

Addiction is a disease. No amount of parenting can prevent it. You know what could? Regulating corporations

The fact that the skins don’t affect gameplay is really nice, but you can’t ignore that the lootbox system is just a slot machine and that they allow skins to be gambled on the web.

Also their moderation is fucking awful

I mean, this is just cosmetic stuff and you can see what you’re getting before you buy, plus you can sell the stuff for real world money. This is the least scummy way to do it.

They shot themselves in the foot in my opinion. I just won’t play video games that have that gambling aspect to them. I already spend enough on trading cards for that thrill

You get to see what you’re paying for before you pay.

Yes, for the first box. The box after is not shown. So its basically just „hey, if I open this Box, it could very well be that the next box will be a legendary knife”

So you are just betting for what comes after that

Exactly! They should start by banning porn games. Then lgbtq games that corrupts our children. Then any political opposition. Only then will we live in a free and safe society. /s

Porn and lgbtq games are not the same as gambling. You’ve used a false equivalency fallacy

It’s just cosmetics is the excuse companies have given since the very first days of horse armor and look at where we are now…

Who is buying these skins. I feel like such an alien sometimes. I just can’t understand wanting to spend any money at all on a cosmetic skin

Before this shit existed (like back when the hottest shit was Quake), I thought it might be cool to get a professionally made skin everyone in the game could see for like $0.25-$0.50. A dollar, at most.

The first iteration of a system that could have potentially made that a reality, the things you’d actually wanna buy were $25-50. Like who the fuck workshopped these ridiculous prices?

Previously, loot box’s gain is a probability distribution over (market price - fixed box price). Now it’s (market price - rarity price according to Valve).

I think in the end the market will take the Valve price (fixed or with rarity) into account since it’s known and the same to everyone. Then it’s again just playing against the probability distribution of items.

and you’re allowed to sell on items for real money of you want.

Just to be real: You can sell them for Steam Wallet funds, which is not “real money” since it can only be used on Steam.

I think being able to see the item and having the option to purchase is much better than opening a random box that you have no idea what you’ll get.

Oh so it’s loot boxes mixed with a limited time store multiplied by FOMO. Very cool.

Not!

Also: “At what point do they become macro transactions?” IMO at $2. That’s the micro/macro cutoff for me.

The new case doesn’t have legendaries.

You can sell them on hundreds of third-party marketplaces that let you withdraw to your bank account or crypto wallet.

You can do that, but you’re not allowed to do that.

I wouldn’t spend money on skins in most games but Counter Strike is different. You can buy a skin, use it for years, and then sell it for more than you paid. In fact, skins are actually a very good investment that have historically had less volatility and better returns than stock indexes like the S&P 500.