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TF2 Outpost by Fanbyte
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TF2 Outpost by Fanbyte
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eXce!!eNt 7 Oct, 2013 @ 4:00pm
CS:GO in the works for Outpost, but consider this...
I'd just like to throw my support behind this. BUT I think the admins of Outpost ought to be more considerate in CS:GO's case. Since the arms deal update on August 13, Valve is not simply making money off of the Steam Market transactions, they are also apportioning funds towards cash prizes, which in turn is enormously helping CS:GO break into the larger scene that is currently dominated by games such as League of Legends, Starcraft 2, Call of Duty, DotA 2, and etc.

Valve has already pledged $250,000 towards (and only) the CS:GO DreamHack Winter event (which features other games as well, with prize purses of their own) . Here's an excerpt from an article which explains it better:
"Valve announced today (Sep. 16) that the 2013 DreamHack Steelseries Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Championship taking place at DreamHack Winter will feature a $250,000 community-funded prize pool. The prize pool is the largest in Counter-Strike’s history.
The funds were generated from in game item purchases."

And here's an excerpt from Valve's own CS:GO blog to further explain:
"We also want The Arms Deal Update to give back to the community, which is why we’re happy to announce the eSports Weapon Case. A portion of the proceeds from sales of eSports Case Keys will go towards prize purses at CS:GO community competitive events."

With the recent return of the huge and legendary eSports organizations like Evil Geniuses (EG) and SK-Gaming, and over 30,000 viewers seen at once on a single Counter-Strike Twitch.tv stream, the community is primed and ready to grow.

What I am asking, almost pleading, is that TF2 Outpost does NOT allow the trading of eSports keys. That they remain only purchasable on the Steam Market. In the long run, you would be taking away from the game: defunding prize purses, causing sponsors to pull out of the game which in turn leads to professional players dropping off, the community shrinking, and maybe most important, hurting the already struggling and small *North American* CS:GO scene.

If you aren't already aware, there's been an initiative within the community to bring Counter-Strike back to life in North America, it's been named NA Revival (narevival.com). But for the first time in Counter-Strike history, Valve is financially backing tournaments through their profits. This is a huge step and much needed encouragement for especially North American players and teams.

Over $250,000 generated since Aug. 13 to Sep. 16 (the DreamHack announcement) simply from one of their two types of keys.

Consider the larger picture, and how much might be taken away if/when eSports keys were conveniently and safely tradable or purchasable outside of the Steam Market. They would get duped (Russians already duped them and put them on the Market, but Valve removed them all within a week or two), their value would go down, and CS:GO would take a big hit in so many ways. The weapons case keys, according to Valve, don't contribute towards community-funded prize pools, but please keep the eSports keys off Outpost. You'd be doing an enormous favor (larger than you may know) for eSports in general, and especially for CS:GO.

Thanks for reading this.

tl;dr Please don't allow the trading of specifically eSports keys since a part of their sale on the Steam Market goes towards funding tournament cash prizes. CS:GO needs to grow, and Outpost would largely be hindering that and all the further results, such as sponsors and eSports organizations dropping off, and big tournaments featuring CS:GO and large prize pools become fewer and out of reach for professional North American players.
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Showing 1-7 of 7 comments
norby89 7 Oct, 2013 @ 4:22pm 
Considering the keys are marketable (which basically means buying from another player) there would be absolutely no impact in allowing them to be traded on Outpost. People can already trade them if they wish, regardless if Outpost allows it or not. Yes the developers get a cut from every Key sold on the market, but that cut is so small it's negligible. It's actually cheaper to buy directly from the store than from the market. If anything Outpost will give greater exposure to CS:GO Keys and will actually boost sales as people will want to trade for them.

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.
Originally posted by norby89:
Considering the keys are marketable (which basically means buying from another player) there would be absolutely no impact in allowing them to be traded on Outpost. People can already trade them if they wish, regardless if Outpost allows it or not. Yes the developers get a cut from every Key sold on the market, but that cut is so small it's negligible. It's actually cheaper to buy directly from the store than from the market. If anything Outpost will give greater exposure to CS:GO Keys and will actually boost sales as people will want to trade for them.

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.
Just about everything I was going to say is typed right here.
I agree with Norby. More exposure to the Keys, and them being traded more frequently, opens the market to kids with Mommys credit card who want more keys to trade. I understand why you want to keep the keys pure, but I truly believe the "fame" they get from being on Outpost will boost their sales.

It will be good. Trust me.
Paladin out.:sticky:
eXce!!eNt 7 Oct, 2013 @ 5:48pm 
Keys were already duped and placed on the Steam market where their prices fell to somewhere close to $2.00. It is actually inevitable that this will happen, fortunately Valve was able to remove the duped keys off the Marketplace probably because they were on THEIR servers, heh. I think people misunderstand my post. I have no problem with trading CS:GO weapon skins, items, whatever, what I'm saying is that the eSports keys need to be purchased from Valve. Every form of currency in TF2 has been duped. To say an extra layer of security saves these items from that same result is to brush off this important matter.

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.
You should send this to Valve, not us. We don't control the trading market, i.e. we don't tell anyone what they can trade or not. That's Steam's job.

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.
Last edited by Blue Screen of Death; 7 Oct, 2013 @ 8:54pm
norby89 8 Oct, 2013 @ 6:18am 
Originally posted by eXce!!eNt:
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.
Let me quote you.
Originally posted by eXce!!eNt:
What I am asking, almost pleading, is that TF2 Outpost does NOT allow the trading of eSports keys. That they remain only purchasable on the Steam Market.
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.

Originally posted by eXce!!eNt:
You and I don't know how to duplicate these items, but other people do, and people like to make money.

It is actually inevitable that this will happen, fortunately Valve was able to remove the duped keys off the Marketplace probably because they were on THEIR servers, heh.
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.
Last edited by norby89; 8 Oct, 2013 @ 6:20am
I want to preface this by saying that not only am I huge supporter of e-Sports, I am a UGC admin as well and am actively trying to encourage not only competitive Dota 2 & TF2 but CS:GO as well. When it comes to supporting e-Sports and expanding the comp scene, I doubt you could find a more active and vocal cheerleader of it than myself. =D

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.
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Date Posted: 7 Oct, 2013 @ 4:00pm
Posts: 7