HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
there are people with higher levels, it is impressive how people like to play the trading card game
... I don't know what's more terrifying: this thread or the one about the guy with two dicks.
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Guy spent (still going) ~$3,000 on Steam Winter Sale Badges
- Thread starter alr1ght
- Start date
... I don't know what's more terrifying: this thread or the one about the guy with two dicks.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Level 1700?! Jesus Christ..
I did some quick math using the data from the marketplace listings of the sale cards. They made about one million from their cut.
May you show us the Maths?
Sure. I'll walk through one example.
Take #8 for example.
steamcommunity.com/market/listings/753/267420-Snow Globe #8
If you view the page source, you'll find a line that begins "var line1=". That's a javascript array of (Date, median price, # of sales) tuples.
If you add up all of the sales, and trust that the average is roughly the price of the median you get:
Code:
as of a few hours ago:
total sold: 706910
total spent in cents: 15688818.0Valve takes a 5% cut, but rounds up. Considering each hour's worth of sales as all having the same average price, Valve gets something like $10249.44 for globe #8. The other cards had similar numbers, so something on the order of one million in total.
Professor Lich
Member
I find it crazier that there are pictures for levels this high. Unless if I missed something and the images are cycling.
If the former, I don't see how Valve could of anticipated this.
If the former, I don't see how Valve could of anticipated this.
That's insane.
To be fair, it's better than having 30,000 sale cards sitting on the market with no one buying them like the summer sale.
Virtual trading cards; who would have thought of that?
Such a shame you can't get a better look at your badges.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
The whole way these cards are implemented is pretty disgusting. i think that if it were a different company doing this they wouldnt get as much as a pass.
MightyKAC
Member
What's wrong with the implementation of this and how exactly is it disgusting?
they don't even do anything, why give a shit?
I find it amazing people spend money and time on this
Rollo Lawson
Banned
It ain't trickin if you got it
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
Its completely manipulative? Its designed to take advantage of compulsion. In a game this is fine because you get a reward that has an effect in-game. You level up your characters you get stronger.. you level up your Cenarion Circle reputation and you get access to items in-game.. etc. Steam cards though? They exist to pump more money into Steam with no tangible reward from doing so. Valve does not just take a 1% fee. Once the money goes into Steam there is no way to cash this money out right? If you make $10 selling every card you get, you get nothing more than store credit.
Now you can only get 1/2 of the cards by playing the games right? Other than purchasing them the only way to get the other half of the cards to complete a single set (out of five different levels of sets) you have to either get a booster pack or trade them. To get a booster pack its a random chance but your chances are increased if your Steam level is higher. How do you get a higher Steam level? Completing card collections. People can trade surplus cards but to get surplus cards they need booster packs with duplicates or extra cards from collections they wont complete (which effects Steam level).
If this were any other company (Microsoft for example)i have a feeling there would be an absolute shit fit and rightly so. Since its Valve and Steam using manipulative psychological ploys to get peoples money its pretty much a-ok.
Thats a really good reason to give a shit.
Lostconfused
Member
Maybe the majority doesn't feel that compulsion and simply see it as free money. Of course it's not coming out of Valve's pocket and in the end they are potentially praying on other individuals that are victim to this kind of compulsion. But when you don't really know where that money is coming from it's hard to care I guess.
Noble Neckbeard
Banned
The new generation of filthy rich people will be created by the previous generation of filthy rich people spending all of their money on dumb ass shit.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
His mom is going to be pissed when those credit card statements come in.
Well, yeah.
The reason why many people don't give a shit is that none of Valve's crazy compulsive marketplace schemes give a competitive advantage in any of their games. It's all for silly cosmetic garbage. I'd rather they didn't bother with badges but it's not a big deal either way.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Is it manipulative when Amazon offers a pay-it-forward store credit with your purchase that has to be used within a month and only works on select titles (all of which are more expensive than the credit, which can't be stacked)?
Lostconfused
Member
To some degree yes. Applying mail in rebates to the list price of a product is also manipulative. The question is how much morally tolerable is it for Valve to profit by placing a minor and potentially intangible burden on their client base.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
im not familiar with this since i dont use Amazon but it sounds manipulative, yes. Steam cards are a whole different beast. You can only complete half a set by actually playing games. The rest is RNG.. where the frequency of the RNG is incresed the more sets you complete? Are you likening this to a coupon or am i missing something?
edit: Anyway.. work calls so i wont respond for another 10 hours or so.
you can gift other people using that store credit and they pay you outside of Steam.
i believe the Russians are doing a lot of arbitrage (taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets) using cards and TF2 keys.
Haarasilimanila
Neo Member
Game: Find top level friend in your friend list and by clicking on every top level friend they have you go till you reach PalmDesert, it took me 2 friends.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
Took me five.
Scrooge McDuck
Member
It just loops between three of my friends.
One of the strangest necrobumps I've seen
Haarasilimanila
Neo Member
3 lol.
crimsonheadGCN
Banned
Intheflorsh
Banned
One!
It took me 4. Jesus.
old manatee
Banned
nm