Though still a rare occurrence, video games using real-life money as a form of in-game currency isn’t a new notion. The rarity of it all can be attributed to any number of factors but from somewhat obscure MMOs like Entropia Universe to juggernautslike Diablo III, real-money economies are out there. With Valve’s new Steam Community Market program, they could quickly become much more prevalent.
Valve launched the Steam Community Market beta this week, and with it gave gamers the ability to trade Team Fortress 2 items with other players for real money. Yes, when you “trade” money for an item, that’s colloquially known as “buying” it. TF2 is currently the only game included in the beta program, but the Market will open up to new games in the future.
The real-money purchase between players will not only get the seller some cash, but Valve will take a 5% anti-fraud transaction fee, as well as a 10% Team Fortress 2 fee. When the beta opens up to other games, the publishers of those games will take a small cut as well. So, one player transaction will net money for a player, Valve, and the game’s publisher. Not a bad scenario for any party involved.
Currently, the system tosses players’ money into their Steam Wallet, so they’ll only be able to use that money on Steam purchases, which is certainly a win for Valve. Another limitation on the service is that Valve only allows a $200 cap on the Steam Wallet, which means players can only charge a maximum of $200 per single item. Valve has also stated that during the beta, it will cap transactions at 200 per calendar year.
Now, as mentioned above, Valve isn’t breaking entirely new ground here, but it is evolving a payment structure that has been avoided by a majority of the gaming industry. Considering Valve all but cornered the vast openness of the PC gaming market with Steam, it wouldn’t be too surprising if the company could bring real-money trading to the forefront and make the real-money pricing play more accepted along the way.
When the program opens up to allow other games, one genre that could greatly benefit is the free-to-play MMO. The genre is already rife with cash shops, and if developers welcome Valve’s Community Market with open arms, players could flock to free games in an attempt to make money without spending any. Considering that Wallet pools money from different games together, players would be able to find schemes in certain games that more easily generate money, then turn around and spend it on other games. This ability to spend one game’s money outside of that title is the real gem here, and the one unique facet to Valve’s system.
Though being able to spend one game’s money on another game should be appealing, the Community Market does have one potentially major drawback in the eyes of gamers: the money stays within Steam. Whereas Diablo III‘s Real Money Auction House allows players to cash out and turn their in-game items into real-world money that can be spent on anything, the Community Market keeps the money in-house. Considering that the target demographic is people who play games heavily, this probably won’t be too much of an issue. However, Valve’s system won’t have those powerful stories you hear about every now and then — “Gamer makes enough money playing video games to afford comfortable, jobless life” — which is admittedly an enticing prospect.
Will Valve’s Market still have enough allure if it can’t offer that pipe dream? Currently, the Market has an enormous number of items for sale, and that’s only for the one game that is participating in the beta. If the Market can keep up this kind of pace, it would seem that gamers aren’t making any misconceptions about living a carefree life of gaming to pay the rent.
If successful, the Market could start a cycle of people playing games in order to buy more games, something we haven’t yet experienced. Like most betas, there’s no real way to tell how well the concept will do until the finished product lands. All we can do for now is sit back, watch, and perhaps make a few bucks in Team Fortress 2.
Valve’s Steam Community Market could change how we pay for – and play – video games
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