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Also your argument about duping is invalid. It's not as easy as you make it sound like, especially since Valve implemented a new security layer that prevents hijackers from stealing any items. No stolen items -> no need to dupe items.
It will be good. Trust me.
Paladin out.
You and I don't know how to duplicate these items, but other people do, and people like to make money. Just as we see now with keys somewhere near $1.80, people aren't buying them from the Mann Co. Store, people are...
- Trading keys with people who
- Acquired them for $1.80, from people who
- Could've traded a buds to get the keys
- The former owner of the buds could have purchased the aforementioned via Paypal
- Paying someone for an item which may have been duped and therefore the devaluation of the TF2 currencies unfold.
If there is money to be made, it's inevitable. Proceeds from the purchase of TF2 keys from the Mann Co. Store don't go towards supporting TF2 in eSports, they go to Valve in support of whatever.
You understand that this discussion is simply about the eSports key, yes? What I'm saying is, every one of them needs to be purchased from Valve. That's why I'm asking that Outpost consider not allowing them to be traded on their website.
Finally, if you think $250,000 from just over a month's worth of transactions was funded by "negligible" amounts, you're delusional, and your misunderstanding of what I'm discussing is far more obvious now. Keep the skins, the crates, the trading cards, even the weapon case keys, just asking Outpost to forego the eSports keys. How anyone could argue against supporting CS:GO in eSports boggles my mind. Every eSports key needs to originate from Valve's Marketplace, after being paid for.
And even if we "forbid" these keys from being added to trade ads people would still trade them and use others sites to advertise their deals. It doesn't make any sense to do what you are asking as it will have no influence over its sales and probably will only hurt us at the end.
You were talking about keeping keys only purchasable from the Steam Market. If you believe they made $250000 a month just from that you are terribly misinformed. As we speak there are ~200 keys being sold on the market. An average of ~30 keys are bought each hour, that's 720 keys a day and 21600 keys a month. From market fees Valve gets 5% and 10% goes to the devs. That's $5000 a month from keys sold on the market alone, comparing that to your $250000 I can say it's negligible.
There is absolutely no harm done from bringing more exposure to these keys. Where do you think they come from? Traders don't have an infinite supply of keys, they have to be purchased from the store obviously. More exposure -> more people who want these keys -> more money spent in the store. It's not that hard to understand.
You don't know how to duplicate items, I do. Valve wouldn't remove duplicate items because Valve is the source of duplicate items. You are making baseless assumptions about things you don't know much about.
The only reason they'd remove any items is if they were purchased fraudulently. There's no definite way of preventing that though as there will always be people who use stolen credit cards and even if Valve bans them, they'll just continue doing it with a new account.
I know you made this suggestion with good intent but I'm afraid you didn't really put much thought in it. This wouldn't change much, if anything Valve would actually lose potential money that would be gained from advertising trades on Outpost that are visited by hundreds of thousands of users.
With that said, trading keys on Outpost will actually HELP e-Sports, not hinder it. Hear me out here, please, because thinking about how to encourage e-Sports and acquire sponsors is actually my primary activity with UGC. I have direct contact with both competitive leagues and corporate sponsors, so I have a bit of intimate knowledge where that is concerned.
Every key that is traded on Outpost is already "paid" for by the original purchaser. Even if it is resold, traded, duped, carded, etc. the original cut of the money has already been received by the supported e-Sports league. When items get duplicated, Valve is essentially the one who loses out- not the e-Sports league. The way that these relationships work is that for every item sold, the league gets the cut then. So any duplicates would come out of Valve's pocket- not the league's.
Where it comes to sponsorships, the sponsors are looking for two things: traffic & sustainability. They want to know how many people are going to see their product (because sponsorships are essentially advertising) vs. how much it is going to cost them- simple ROI (return on investment). By trading these comp items and getting the word out about them through third-party trading sites, it is actively assisting in building an economy and therefore a demand for these items. This in turn leads to greater visibility which in turn leads to greater traffic. For sustainability, it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that an economy is built around these items and that simply will not happen unless they are allowed to enter the free market- of which third-party trading sites are essential.
If you doubt how this translates to real sales, try talking to some of the popular community item creators and they will explain to you just how much their items being traded on third-party sites actually INCREASES their visibility and thus their sales in the store.
This is a Very Good Thing. We want to build an economy around these items. We want visibility increase the demand. We want to get the word out about competitive gaming and the only way to do that is to encourage its growth. Keeping it in the store will just stagnate it and it will eventually die.