Some of you may be familiar with the popular video game, Counter Strike: Global Offensive.  Counter Strike: Global Offensive, better known as CSGO, is one of many games within the Counter Strike series but is currently the most popular.  At first glance, CSGO seems like the typical first person shooter video game, but from a first hand experience, I can say that there is much more to it.  On the flip side of a competitive 5v5 online multiplayer, CSGO offers a wide variety of weapon customizations known as skins. Due to the extreme popularity of this game, the demand for some of these so called skins has risen to beyond belief, autonomously creating a hidden world of gambling, trading, and even scamming.  

CSGO is a PC game run by an application called Steam.  Steam, owned by Valve, serves as an online marketplace where users can buy games, sell in-game items (like skins), and even trade items as well.  Within CSGO, items called cases can be either earned or bought for as little as three cents. The catch is that to open one of these cases, a key is needed.  And that’s right, you guessed it, keys can only be bought for a price of two dollars and fifty cents (keys cannot be earned). This case system within the game really is a form of undercover gambling.  This is because that in opening a case, the player can then either uncase a weapon skin of as little as three cents to twenty six thousand dollars. That’s right, 26,000 US dollars.

Now that I have established the risk and reward of buying/earning and opening cases, I can get into the third party portal some would call it.  Outside of CSGO itself, there are hundreds of gambling sites in which people (with no age verification) can gamble, buy, sell, and trade these items.  So, why would people use a third party site when its all incorporated in the game? This is because of a few reasons. First, in acquiring an item of high value within the game, selling that item will not only be taxed by Steam, but your profits will be held within your Steam balance (this means you can only use this money within the application whether it be on games, items, etc.).  Second, there are many more forms of gambling besides opening cases available on third party sites. These forms may include, coinflip (double or nothing for your inventory), jackpot (the more you put in, the higher your chances are in winning the pot of all participants’ items), and upgrade (the less the worth of the item that you wish to upgrade to, the higher percentage that you may get it or potentially lose it).  Third, although CSGO hosts a variety of trading servers within the game, it is sometimes hard to find a certain item in which you hope to acquire. Therefore, third party trading sites offer any item you would like to trade for, except you will always lose a few dollars which act as profit for the site. The last and final reason for the usage of a third party portal is to “cash out”. As I mentioned before, if one acquires an item with great value and plans to sell it on the Steam market, their profits will only be able to be used within Steam.  Third party buying/selling sites replace the Steam market and enable players to sell their items for PayPal through their site.

As you can see, the world of CSGO is beyond a first person shooter (fps).  Personally, I have spent hours buying, selling, and trading items to make a profit.  Over the course of one year after putting 100$ into the game, I came out with an inventory worth 8x that.  My 800$ inventory was sadly ripped away from me by a scammer. Although there are several scamming methods, I had never fallen for any of them within that year except one.  This technique was called keylogging. In a nutshell, keylogging is a scam in which someone acquires your username and password to your account, and then trades all your items to their own.  Hundreds of people are scammed for their money every day using scams like these. This sad truth brings me to my objective point in writing this article.

To combat this art of scamming, Valve has put in a new “feature” to better improve CSGO trading.  Users used to be able to trade items to whomever they choose infinite times per day. In place now is something called a trade cooldown.  Essentially what this does is that once you have completed a trade, the item that you have received becomes untradable for fifteen days. The reasoning behind this added regulation is to reduce the chance of being scammed by allowing Valve to inspect the trade for these 15 days.  As you could imagine, this update has completely put third party sites, as well as in game trade servers to a halt. As of now, the underworld of CSGO is under siege, and there is nothing anybody can do about it.

Because specific items rise and fall in popularity as well as rarity, the prices matching these items are always rising and falling.  This continuous cycle has created stock market types of websites. One of the most trusted and used websites among players is steamanalyst.com.  This particular website provides prices for all weapon skins and items within the game, as well as charts and price history that predict is fluctuating future.  The reason I brought up this trade cooldown topic in the last paragraph is to show how it has directly affected the prices of all items on the market (in and out of Steam).  The issuing of this update has caused the CSGO market to crash. Personally, in my own inventory, I have already lost 80$ due to the tanking.

A majority of players have decided to call it quits at this point and cash in what little value remains in their inventories.  I have looked at things in a different perspective. One thing I have learned about the real stock market is that when things go down, it is only smart to then buy those things in hopes of them resurging later down the road.  I have already invested 40$ in an item which was, previous to the crash, 70$ and had already come back up to the value of 58$. I, along with a chunk of other people from the community, believe that CSGO can be fixed. Patience is key, and I am sure that in time Valve will repeal their added regulation and Counter Strike will be back on its own two feet.  

Sign the petition to revert CSGO to its old trading rules!

https://www.change.org/p/valve-corporation-revert-to-old-cs-go-trading-rules                

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