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"I think I've lived long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike as we know it, kill itself." Summary of Richard Lewis' stream (Long)
I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to. Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547 I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can. I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts. Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T
Intro
"The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
"I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
"For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
"We're spread way too thin."
"If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
Widespread match fixing
The Pandemic
"People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
"People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
"To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
"Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
"People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
"It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.
CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association
"Who does this union really fucking serve?"
RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
"and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
"We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
"They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
"I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
"Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
"Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
"That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
He also says their rankings are a joke
"Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
"Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission
"They have been put in an impossible position."
RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
"ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
"Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
"Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
"They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
"They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
Also says more coaches being banned are coming
He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
"I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
"So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
"Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
Stream Sniping
"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"
RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
"Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
"ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
"All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?
Match Fixing
"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."
RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
"Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
"Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
"I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
"Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
"There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
"It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
"It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
"I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
"That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
"All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
"I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."
North America
"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."
RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
"was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."
Talent
"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."
RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."
Valve
"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"
Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
"It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
"Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
"People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."
Closing Statements
"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."
RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
"We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
"There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
"How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
"Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
"The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
"If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
"They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
"Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
"This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
"You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
"Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
"Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
"You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
"I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
"I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
"I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."
This is the first iteration of a new Newbie Guide to Investing in CSGO, covering most basic issues. Some subjects are in the work and will be added at a later date. Before we start, THIS is a fantastic overview of CSGO Market History (until April 2019) and a must-have, including timeframes for regular and operation drops, many important events and lots of useful info, made by steamfrag
Which items can be invested in?
Introductionary Note: Discontinued consumables (cases, stickers and basically all containers) are better items for long term investment than non-consumables, since consumables get deleted from the market when used, thus reducing their quantity over time, unlike skins which are only deleted if a user gets banned or if the skins are used in trade-up contracts. Specific skins/knives/gloves could be profitable to invest and to hold long term, if you know exactly what you are doing. But generally skins are better suited for frequent trading and not long term investing, or if you want skins to play with and more or less hold their value with some potential to go up in price. As an example, Here is a video from TDM HeyJesus from last year explaining what I mean. If you are more interested in trading with others, nice knives and gloves, etc. and not mid/long term investing, visit /GlobalOffensiveTrade
Discontinued Cases: You could buy 3 cent cases (or less, depending on your currency from steam market, or 1 to 2 cents from cashout sites) when they get discontinued from the active drop pool and are moved to rare drops. This usually happens when a new case is released, the oldest case from active drop pool moves to rare drops. Active drop pool usually consists of 5 cases. Be aware that cases with high volume on market will take a very long time to rise in price. You could also invest in cases at a later time, for instance after few years of being 3 cents, lower quantities on market and upwards price trend, you could jump in or even at an earlier stage when they are still as active drop but anticipated to be the next case to move to rare drops, if you're in it for the very long haul, and if you can get the cases for extremely cheap prices in bulk (1 cent or less). Some cases are much older and/or rarer than others and therefore cost more, for example Operation Bravo case. Sometimes unexpected things happen with cases, for instance Valve decided to make the Hydra Case a rare drop as soon as Operation Hydra ended, even though most people were expecting the Hydra Case to become a common drop after end of the operation and to become 3 cents for a long time. Instead, they went up in price very quickly and very high. So if you invested in hydra cases during the end of operation for 10 cents, you could have made a lot of money by now. But note that the more cases are released, the more options case openers have to chose from. Therefore the rise in price of cases might slow down during time and take longer, as more and more cases are released. This can only be countered by increasing number of players and case openers (natural demand). Last but not least, the popularity and prices of the skins in the cases will influence the price development of discontinued cases (and vice versa).
UPDATE: Lately Valve has done some weird things like dropping a large number of older cases such as Shadow cases, Chroma 2 cases, etc. for non prime accounts. So the old system isn't that reliable anymore
List of all CSGO Cases in Chronological Order:
Case Name
Release Date
Rare or Active Drop
CSGO Weapon Case
14. August 2013
Confirmed Rare
eSports 2013 Case
14. August 2013
Confirmed Rare
Operation Bravo Case
19. September 2013
Confirmed Rare
CSGO Weapon Case 2
08. November 2013
Confirmed Rare
eSports 2013 Winter Case
18. December 2013
Confirmed Rare
Winter Offensive Weapon Case
18. December 2013
Confirmed Rare
CSGO Weapon Case 3
12. February 2014
Confirmed Rare
Operation Phoenix Weapon Case
20. February 2014
Confirmed Rare
Huntsman Weapon Case
01. May 2014
Confirmed Rare
Operation Breakout Weapon Case
01. July 2014
Confirmed Rare
eSports 2014 Summer Case
10. July 2014
Confirmed Rare
Operation Vanguard Weapon Case
11. November 2014
Confirmed Rare
Chroma Case
08. January 2015
Confirmed Rare
Chroma 2 Case
15. April 2015
Confirmed Rare
Falchion Case
26. May 2015
Confirmed Rare
Shadow Case
17. September 2015
Confirmed Rare
Revolver Case
08. December 2015
Confirmed Rare
Operation Wildfire Case
17. February 2016
Confirmed Rare
Chroma 3 Case
20. April 2016
Confirmed Rare
Gamma Case
15. June 2016
Confirmed Rare
Gamma 2 Case
18. August 2016
Confirmed Rare
Glove Case
28. November 2016
Confirmed Rare
Spectrum Case
15. March 2017
Confirmed Rare
Operation Hydra Case
23. May 2017
Confirmed Rare
Spectrum 2 Case
14. September 2017
Active
Clutch Case
15. February 2018
Active
Horizon Case
02. August 2018
Possibly Rare (needs more data)
Danger Zone Case
06. December 2018
Active
Prisma Case
13. March 2019
Active
CS20 Case
18. October 2019
Active
Shattered Web Case
19. November 2019
Active
CSGO Major Stickers and Sticker Capsules: Usually at the end of each Tournament, Valve offers a sticker sale (between 50% and 75% off normal price) in-game store. You could buy stickers and capsules during that sale and either sell shortly after the sale ends, for a small quick profit (not guarantied but happened almost every time till now), or wait longer (usually over a year) for a possibly much larger profit. For instance if you bought Atlanta Legend Capsules 2 years ago, you would have 20x your money as of today! As more tournaments are being held and more stickers are released, it is difficult for most stickers to distinguish themselves among the huge mass of other stickers. Only invest and hold on to stickers that you think are promising. The profit from stickers depends on how nice they look, how popular they are, how well the teams perform in the future and how many people invested in them (basically a combination of all these factors). Sometimes teams disband, players quit or become successful, teams/players get banned, etc. which sometimes drive up the price of the related stickers.
Operation Pass: Sold by Valve in-game in order to get access to an operation. After the operation, all it does is give you access to a coin which you can display (which some players like to collect). You can buy passes during operation (or possibly during a sale of the pass at the end of the operation) then hold on to them and sell at a later date. There were few exceptional circumstances such as Vanguard pass which sold well as it didn't reach as low a discount as people were expecting and wasn't on sale for a long time, so not many were bought. Furthermore, Valve stopped selling the Vanguard Pass before the operation ended, which caused players who wanted to complete the missions to buy it from the market. Similar things happened to the Wildfire Pass. The Wildfire pass didn't even go on sale which caused its price to tripple in a single day when it got removed, then rose in price even more during time.
Viewer Pass: Introduced with the Katowice 2019 Major, a Viewer Pass was a purchasable in-game item which gave purchasers exclusive access to an upgradeable Event Coin, Souvenir Packages, The Major Pick'Em Challenge and Unlimited team graffiti for the duration of the Major. Similar to Operation Pass, all it does now is to give you a collectible coin. The Katowice 2019 Viewer Pass went on sale for 50% for few days during the last days of the major (before the sticker sale!). Some people bought them at 50% off but some people were expecting it to become even cheaper during the sticker sale (75% off), which didn't happen, instead it got removed, thus causing those investors to panic buy. I expect that Valve will use the Viewer Pass System in the next majors too (speculative opinion), as it was probably a big financial success and a lot of passes were sold in addition to a lot of major stickers.
Souvenir Packages: Drops in matches during majors. Research the different packages and their skins. Cobblestone is the most desirable due to the very desired and expensive Souvenir Dragon Lore. Also Cobblestone was removed from the map pool and replaced by Dust 2 in April 2018 and was not available in London 2018 and Katowice 2019 majors, thus increasing its price even more. Recently Vertigo replaced Cobblestone in March 2019. During the tournaments, the supply of souvenir packages will obviously be the highest, but also the interest in them is the highest. Try to buy them as cheap as possible and simply wait. Generating profit with souvenir packages might be a very slow process depending on the souvenir packages you have and the volume which was dropped in the majors. Note: as of Katowice 2019 major, only Viewer Pass owners were eligable to receive Souvenir Packages and Souvenir Packages no longer dropped during matches, but Pass owners could chose a match of their choice and get the Souvenir Package for it. This caused an equilibrium in prices, since most people chose the popular new 2018 Nuke and Inferno packages and the Overpass Package, causing their quantities to be much higher than other less popular packages in the major.
Sticker Capsules 1 and 2 and Community Sticker Capsule: These capsules were common drop for a long time, opened with sticker capsule keys and pretty much worthless (just like cheap cases), then they got discontinued and rose to high prices reaching a peak in May 2016. Probably with a June 2016 patch, they became rare drops which increased their quantity and crashed their prices (combined with the inevitable crash after the crown foil hype). However, after an initial crash they slowly rose in price again and sticker capsule 2 is at its all time high right now (as of May 2019). I assume its also just a hype correlated to the now second Crown Foil sticker hype which could crash back again. At these price levels, invest very cautiously. Also look at specific stickers in these capsules, such as Flammable foil, headhunter, crown foil, etc. At the right prices, these might be interesting items.
Gift Packages: Around christmas time Valve sold gift packages for $1. If you open a gift package on a server, it awards a random player a random regular skin drop. In the past players who opened the most packages were displayed on a leader-board in the beginning of every game of every Valve NA CSGO server. This has been exploited for advertising. In 2013, people didn't anticipate that the Gift Packages are limited to the Winter months and in the following year, CSGO exploded in popularity. This multiplied the price of these packages until they were sold again in 2014. In 2014, many people expected the same thing to happen, so the supply of Gift Packages increased. CSGO exploded again, but this time the price of gift packages increased much more because gambling sites started to boom and they competed for advertising. Fast forwards, Valve eventually removed the leaderboard feature a long time ago. For a long time gift packages were even below the in-game price. Recently though (since around end of 2018) the supply seams to dry up slowly and the price is climbing again (this time probably due to natural demand from people who actually just want to gift). We can see a similar trend with pallet of presents (which gives up to nine people in the user's match a random item). There is also the Audience Participation Parcel which drops up to 25 gifts randomly to viewers, but this item hasn't done anything interesting price wise yet.
Skins from Cases: Unlikely to be more profitable than consumables and it is more risky, unless you really know what you're doing. Sometimes Valve changes the design or details of a skin, which could also affect the prices. Also nerfs and buffs for a specific weapon tend to change the prices of skins for that gun (depending on how severe the buff/nerf is), for instance the AUG skins experienced a rise in price after Valve lowered the price (in game!) to $3.150 in Oct. 2018 and pro players used the AUG in the major. Skins which are used as trade up fodder tend to go up in price, whenever a new case or collection is released. There are a lot of other factors which determine the price development of skins which can't be all covered here
Skins from Collections Exclusive to Operations: skins which only drop during operations tend to rise when the operations end. However, the more operations they have been through, the higher the total supply on market and thus the longer it usually takes for them to go up in price during the breaks between operations. The following collections were dropped during the last 3 Operations (Bloodhound, Wildfire and Hydra). Operation Hydra was the last operation we had and it did end on November 13, 2017, which is more than a year ago! Note that these skins only dropped for those who owned the operation pass for the operation. Those who didn't own the pass, got their drops from the regular active collections.
The Cache Collection
The Chop Shop Collection
The Cobblestone Collection
The Gods and Monsters Collection
The Overpass Collection
The Rising Sun Collection
The Danger Zone Collection: the Danger Zone Collection was basically just one skin, the MP5 Lab Rats. Players could get the skin by reaching Prime Status after CSGO went F2P in December 2018. The skin was available for a few weeks. A lot of the CSGO playerbase got the skin, which makes it a questionable investment since there are probably a LOT out there and the gun/skin isn't that popular. Could be a long term investment nonetheless, if you start to see quantities lowering over time and some stable price action.
Skins from Inactive or Retired Collections: The following collections are either inactive for now or completely retired. But some of them could be reintroduced in the future.
The Assault Collection
The Aztec Collection
The Baggage Collection
The Dust Collection
The Inferno Collection (The Old One)
The Militia Collection
The Mirage Collection
The Nuke Collection (The Old One)
The Office Collection
The Vertigo Collection
Skins from Active Collections: The following collections are current active collections which drop skins in-game. Usually It is not recommanded to invest in any active collections (though some old skins which are suitable as fodder for certain trade-ups see occasional spikes whenever new cases and collections are released). Also the new Nuke and Inferno Collections are popular and people use skins from them to trade-up to better skins of these collections.
The 2018 Inferno Collection
The 2018 Nuke Collection
The Bank Collection
The Dust 2 Collection
The Italy Collection
The Lake Collection
The Safehouse Collection
The Train Collection
Knives: If you know what you're doing and are familiar with patterns, etc. you can make some profit. But as mentioned knives are better suited for frequent trading and simply as play skins, even though some knives like the Butterfly Knife experienced significant price rise in the past, it is usually not a good idea to use knives as investment items. For instance the same amount of money you paid for a knife 3 years ago spent in specific stickers, would have generated much more profit in the same timeframe.
Gloves: see knives
Graffitis: Since Valve offered free graffiti for the duration of the major (since Katowice 2019 major and now in Berlin 2019 major), but none for sale, it is an option to invest in all previous major graffitis. The quantities for some old team graffitis could go down significantly and thus increase the price (which it has already done).
CSGO Keys: CSGO keys have a fixed price in game of $2.50 and are used as currency amoung traders, and of course to open cases. Investing in keys is pointless, unless you want to park your money, or trade or cashout, or unless you can buy keys at a cheaper rate than one normally could (currency issues). There is a special situation going on with the Hydra key which crashed significantly in price after the Operation Hydra Case became a rare drop and became an expensive case. There are different opinions as how the Hydra Key price will develop in the future. Some say it will crash even more, some say it will more or less stablize at the current price levels (1 Euro), others even invest in it right now and say the price will go up again, as soon as the old supply is dried out. For this guide, I remain neutral and leave it up to you to make up your own mind about this specific key. Note: currently this key is not accepted by most traders. There are other keys tied to expensive cases such as Winter Offensive keys which are also not accepted by many traders, though they are low in supply and thus still hold a stable price on market.
IMPORTANT KEY UPDATE: Valve made newly bought keys in shop non marketable and non tradable as of Nov. 2019. Older existing keys are not affected and can still be traded and listed on steam market. Read more herehttps://blog.counter-strike.net/index.php/2019/10/26113/
Dual Berettas Retribution (removed due to artist ban)
P90 Desert Warfare (removed due to artist ban)
CZ75-Auto Poison Dart (removed due to artist ban)
MAC-10 Curse (removed due to artist ban)
USP-S Orion (removed due to artist ban)
Note: Some skins were banned from a case, but can be traded up to with trade-up contracts
Banned/Removed Stickers:
Sticker Howling Dawn (removed due to copyright violation)
Sticker King on the Field (removed due to artist ban)
Sticker Winged Defuser (removed due to artist ban)
Sticker Harp of War (Holo) (removed due to artist ban)
Removed and Reintroduced Stickers: there were a lot of other old stickers which were offered in the in-game shop of Valve and which were discontinued in the past and went up in price really high, but were reintroduced in 2016 to the in-game shop and remained there till today as random coupon offers, which caused their price crash back to around 1 Euro for normal stickers (more for the holos/foils). These sticker were the community series stickers (1,2,3,4 and 5) and the Halloween 2014 series. It is an option to buy these stickers in-game whenever you get a coupon offer and hope that some day they will be removed again, but this is a gamble. Also since these were available for a fixed price for so long in the shop, some investors might have had the same idea and stocked up on them. And the quantities might be too high for significant gains in the future. Also most of them aren't that popular anymore.
Current in-game Coupon Offers: each player has a coupon offer section with 4 slots with some items (sticker capsules, music kits, pin capsules, single stickers) offered. You could buy these items in-game and hold with the idea that at some point some of these items might get removed, but this is a gamble and impossible to predict and pretty much dead money until something happens. Note that whenever you buy an item from this section, the slot which you bought the item gets automatically refilled with another offer. This was not always the case. In the past after you bought all your 4 offers, you had to wait for new offers. But Valve always comes up with new ideas to make bank.
StatTrak™ Swap Tool: these tools are sold as a 2-pack in-game for a fixed price. People bought this, used one and sold the other one on the market. For the longest time these tools were around 10 cents on steam market which is quite a big difference to what they logically should be (half the price you pay in game). Recently they have gone up in price and reached that level. So right now, its pointless to do anything with them. If they ever go back down to those previous lows, you might want to consider them if you can get them very cheap. But keep in mind that there is max. cap of what they can rise up to obviously, and that there are better investment options out there
Other ways to profit on the market than long/mid term investing
Flipping Items in Coupon Section from in-game Store: You could buy stickers, sticker capsules, pins capsules and music kits when you get a coupon offer in-game. Check the price on steam market and if the price you pay in-game + steam tax is still lower than the lowest steam market price, then simply buy in-game and instantly sell on steam market for few cents quick profit. Mostly there is no or just a few cents to be made, but sometimes some offers give you better instant profit. Note: with the introduction of the EZ4ENCE music kits, Valve added a "new releases" category, which enabled users to buy as many of these music kits as they wanted as long as these were sold in this category. This means that potential investors could have stocked up on these items.
Trade-up Contracts: Determine if a certain skin can be traded up to profitably (consider Steam tax). If so, buy the lower level skins (either through buy orders at steam market, external cashout sites, or trading sites), and sell the traded-up skin on the market until it becomes unprofitable. This is already being done by bots and many other users. Note that the float value of the traded-up-to weapon is a function of the average float value of the traded-up-from skins. For more information and good trade-up contracts, visit the youtube channel of TDM Heyzeus. But remember that whenever a video is posted, a lot of people copy and paste the trade-ups shown in the videos making them unprofitable instantly, so it might be wise to revisit older trade-ups or come up with your own trade-up ideas. Use the trade-up calculator of csgo exchange to double check. Remember to switch the formula to calculate odds to new theory "based on outcome" (the old theory was incorrect).
Wide Daily Seasonality: Some items peak every day at around noon and tank after midnight (EST). If the difference tends to offset the Steam tax (15%), it can be taken advantage of. Usually, this requires a large volume to be reasonably profitable. If you engage in this technique, keep in mind that there is a scalability limit for the profitability.
Expansion and Contraction: After a popular game/operation/case/tournament/Steam-sale/market-bug is introduced, players try to dump their items on the market to buy whatever is hot. At the same time, buyers tend to also go for what's hot. Old investment supplies increase, and demand lessens. It is usually wise to do the opposite of the general market behavior and buy on these market crashes. When you want to sell something, it's usually best to wait until the market has fully recovered. Further, during some crashes, it might be better to wait until the end to buy-in as many investors try to buy in early.
Tournament Sticker Capsule Opening Arbitrage: During a period of time of some Major sticker sales, it was profitable to buy capsules from the market, open them, and then resell the stickers on the market (in the average case). Examine the EV carefully.
Wide Bid/Ask Spreads: take advantage if the daily bid/ask spread is larger than the Valve tax. Buy commodities that are being demanded at a much lower price than they are being listed at, then sell them back. Don't do this en masse before an expected downturn.
Grinding Weekly Drops: When a new case is released it can be worthwhile to accumulate in-game time in order to get the new highly-priced case.
Hunting for sub-variations of items: Some items on various markets have specific sub-patterns/properties that are more valuable than the usual ones (ex., 5-7 Case Hardened blue pattern and other desired knive patterns, specific signature Souvenir Packages, skins with expensive stickers, etc.) and they are sometimes undervalued (especially during market downturns).
Currency Arbitrage: If a particular conversion is highly skewed and Valve's adjustment is slow, it can become profitable for users in a certain country to buy items in the store or Community Market and resell them off the community market to another country. Note that using VPN to fake your place of residency is against Valve TOS and bannable
Listing High, Hoping for a Market Bug: List items for a higher price than their market value and hope that a Steam bug will occur where sellers temporarily won't be able to create new listings, while buyers can still buy the items, or hope that someone decides to buy heavily in one of your items and buys a lot at once
FAQ
How many items can I hold in my inventory? Officially, 1000. You can list excess items on the steam market (for high unrealistic prices) and basically use the steam market as extra space. Note that the price of your listed items on market + your steam wallet cannot exceed $2000 at any given time. You can increase the number of items in your inventory and the amount of steam wallet money through some tricks. It is however recommanded that instead you simply make extra accounts and prepare them for usage as extra space and as storage accounts, if you need more space. How much is the Tax/Fee on Steam Community Market? Approx. 13%-15% total for most. Here is one in Euro by donbernie and Here is one for items under $1 by HwanZike Yes, if you want to make Gaben really happy, sell for 3 cents and give him 2 What are some real-money marketplaces for CSGO items? Use all external sites at your own risk
www.bitskins.com (UPDATE: Bitskins seams to have new owners since Oct 2019, though still unknown who they are and how the site will develop from here)
I've personally used skinbaron and skinbay and had no problems so far. There are others out there like cs deals. Update (Oct 2019): I used Bitskins before they changed ownership in Oct. 2019. I am waiting to see who the new owners are (still unknown) and how the site develops, before using them again. Also note that the most popular one, OPSkins was BANNED by Valve in 2018. Do not use OPSkins if you want to cash out from or cash in to Steam anymore. Their so called VGO Skins aren't actual CSGO skins, even though they look similar. Update (Oct. 2019): OPSkins apparently made a comeback with a P2P system without using Bots. Proceed with caution, because Valve basically sent them a cease and desist letter in the past letting them know that they aren't allowed to be associated with CSGO and use any intellectual property of Valve on their websites at all anymore. What is the most efficient way to cash out? Sell the items directly at Bitskins, Skinbaron or another trustworthy site. Depending on the items, this can take a while. As an alternative you can exchange your investments into liquid items (popular skins for frequently used weapons, certain knives, case keys, sticker keys, nametags etc. - spend some time to determine which item gives you the best rate) and sell those liquid items on external cashout sites. The latter method will increase the speed at which you get money but will lose you a larger percentage. Keep in mind that BitSkins/Skinbaron take a percentage (5% to 15%), Paypal takes a percentage (~2%), and that the item values on external sites (real money value) are always lower than in the Steam Community Market. Also, every transaction on the Steam Community Market takes away 15% already. Occasionally the items on external sites are so cheap compared to SCM that it becomes worth it to sell them on SCM instead, buy keys from the in-game store, and then sell those keys on external sites again. When selling on SCM it almost always is correct to sell with an order that's higher than the highest buy order and higher than the lowest sell order if the lowest sell order is lower than recent trends display. What is the most efficient way to buy in? Buy items (not necessarily CSGO only) from trustworthy external cashout sites or from highly reputable sellers with high cash rep if they offer a better deal (you can find some on /GlobalOffensiveTrade) and sell the items on the Steam Community Market. Spend some time to determine which item gives you the best discount compared to Steam Market Price. Be aware that some items such as souvenir skins, certain Stattrak knives, etc. might have a very high discount, but are very very hard to resell back on steam market, avoid these items and stick to popular items. There is a reason why they have such a high discount. Also be aware that some items might be manipulated on steam market, thus showing a very high discount on 3rd party sites when compared, avoid these items and check their market history to be sure. http://csgo.steamanalyst.com/hotdeals is one of the tools that can help you with good deals, or the deals section at BitSkins. The general rule is also the cheaper the items, the higher the possible discount. For instance you could buy very cheap stickers for sometimes 50% off, and resell on steam market. But the downside is that it takes a lot of time and effort than a single expensive item, but gives you more steam wallet money at the end. Make sure that after steam tax, you always get more money than if you deposit the money directly to Steam, otherwise this whole process becomes completely pointless. What are the case opening odds?
Normal
StatTrak
Knives and Gloves
0.26%
0.026%
Covert
0.64%
0.064%
Classified
3.20%
0.32%
Restricted
15.98%
1.598%
Mil-Spec
79.92%
7.992%
Why did item X increase/decrease in price? Possible reasons: CS:GO updates/balance changes/game changes/market changes (e.g., Tradeup Contract), new cases/operations (both short-term, due to opening frenzies, and long-term, due to increased supplies of skins), a famous streameyoutuber hypes an item, someone tries to manipulate the market, a AAA game is released, a tournament is taking place (CS:GO, DOta 2 etc.), a Steam-sale like Summer sale is going on, a market-bug is ongoing, the ingame drop rate was increased/decreased, legal issues about things related to the CSGO market (e.g., betting/gambling), etc. If I create a new Steam account, how do I transfer items to that account? How long does this take? Create a new account, log in (via the thick client), set up your profile, enable Steam Guard, wait 15 days, and transfer the items to the account from your main (double check that it is your account). If you intend to use the thin client (e.g., via Chrome), make sure that you log in from there as well because Steam will impose a 7 day trade restriction on your account when you attempt to create a new transaction from a new device (a device meaning a new browser). Also, if you do not have mobile authentication enabled on the alt account, there will be a 3 day delay for trades. You can use the same phone number & email address for many Steam accounts. Also, Gmail forwards emails addressed to your account even if dots (.) are added in between the username characters of your email address. If I create a new Steam account, how do I use the Community Market? How long does this take? Same steps as above, but you need to purchase a game that costs at least $5 or deposit $5 into your Steam wallet (and wait a month) before being able to use the Community Market. Keep in mind that using a new payment method will trigger a weeklong community market cooldown on your account. After buying a CSGO item from the Steam Community Market, how long do I have to wait until I can sell/trade it? They are sellable immediately on the Market. You need to wait 7 days until you can trade them to another account. Note that items from some other games, have the 7 days cool down both for trading AND steam market (like Rust). How do buy orders work? When you place a buy order, the market first looks for all the cheapest items that can fulfill your order. Then the oldest listing (i.e. the seller who has waited the longest) is selected and purchased. If the items are listed in multiple currencies, the amounts are first converted into your currency before being selected (i.e. a 0.03 RUB listing has no priority over a 0.03 USD listing). If multiple buy orders satisfy a new market listing, the oldest matching buy order will be selected. It used to be different in the past, but was changed in 2017. How do I create multiple listings at once on Steam Market? You could use one the addons listed in the "useful sites and tools" section of this guide down below. The current most secure way (since no external extensions are used) is a solution suggested by u/soldture . Simply copy this link: https://steamcommunity.com/market/multisell?appid=730&contextid=2&items[]=Falchion%20Case Change Falchion%20Case to your desired item name. This solution only works with commodity items. This also works with other games (you have to change the appid and replace it with the appid of that game, for instance Rust is 440. Item X hyped and is going to moon. Should I Buy? Usually parabolic moves are followed by a crash (not always but most of the time). It is almost never a good idea to buy when something is mooning because of a video, some news, manipulation, mass hysteria and hype or whatever else. Buy the rumour, sell the news. Item X is crashing hard. The Market is crashing. I am shaking and panicking. Should I Sell? Stay calm, take a deep breath and find out what is really going on and what you really think about it. As an example: there was a huge panic when gambling sites were being banned. Many people panicked and sold their items for ridiculously low prices. People were telling eachother that the skin market will crash and never recover if there is no gambling and the world is going to end. And here we are in 2019, and almost everything (including skins) is at its all time high. However, sometimes you just need to sell fast. Let's say you have a skin from a collection which was inactive for a long time, making the prices of the skins go very high, and then suddenly the collection became active again for whatever reason. Or Gaben officially tells us that he is going to do something crazy with the market which will inevitably crash everything. In that case yes, sell fast (just an example)
Useful sites and tools
Use all external sites, tools and addons at your own risk, some are risky to use, some old and not updated
Credits Helicobacter: FAQ 2.0 (huge shoutout, copied a lot of stuff from this FAQ, sometimes word by word) Steamfrag: Very useful graphs and market data Disclaimer:The information offered here is not financial advice. We, the mod team, are just a bunch of gamers and hobby investors. Do your own due dilligence before investing any real money in to a game and do it at your own risk! Use all external links, sites, tools, addons, etc. at your own risk! Any information in this thread may be outdated at any given time. You should be mentally prepared to lose everything invested in virtual items. Valve could change the rules affecting the market anytime. Third party cashout and trading sites and their BOTS could be banned anytime. External events such as successful lawsuits against Valve, new state laws, new country laws, etc. could also affect the market anytime by forcing Valve to take measures (for instance case opening is now restricted in Belgium and Netherlands, OPSkins got banned, Gambling sites were banned, etc.). Also note that all of your items legally belong to Valve, even if you paid for them. Suggestions and potential corrections to this guide are always welcomed and will be added if necessary and approved by the mod team. I will try to keep this guide updated. Last updated: Nov. 2019
[PSA] xCobalt's Complete Guide to Everything You Could Possibly Want to Know about CS:GO Trading
Hey everyone! This is a post that isn't just aimed towards newer players, but to everybody. I'm including a lot of information in this, and it is basically my guide to trading in general. It's a compilation of my past 2 years of trading combined with everything I've learned from other people, and I hope that it helps you all. I will be adding more on to this guide, but this has already taken me 4 hours to type, so I will be gradually adding on. If you have anything to contribute or suggest to me, then please feel free! I would also like to add that I'm doing my best to credit everyone who made x image, but some of the images were found on imgur or without parent posts, so if you could please tell me who made x image, I will happily update the post with credit to them. Edit: Fixed a lot of typos. Edit 2: Thanks for all of the support and feedback! Very glad to know that people will be using this guide :) Edit 3: If you guys want, I will go ahead and work on the video version I was considering making this week. It will be a fair amount of work, but It should be nice. Edit 4: More Grammar and spelling fixed Edit 5: Removed Katowice price Generalization Edit 6: Holy shit! This is now one of the top 6 highest ranking posts of all time on the subreddit! Thank you all so much for the love and support, and let's try to keep new traders always informed and aware! Index (Press CTRL+F To Find These on the Page) 1.0 The Basics
1.1 Getting Started
1.2 Who To Trust
1.3 Cashrep & Steamrep
1.4 Most Common Scams
1.5 Trading Etiquette
1.6 Trade Confirmations: What are they?
2.0 Patterns: What are they?
2.1 Slaughter
2.2 Crimson Web
2.3 Fade
2.4 Marble Fade
2.5 Electric Hive
2.6 Kami
2.7 Case Hardened
2.8 Doppler
2.9 Other
3.0 Float Values (Exteriors): What is Float Value/exterior?
3.1 All Knives
3.2 All Skins
4.0 Key Trading 101
4.1 Items over 130 Keys
4.2 Key Prices
5.0 Souvenir Items
5.1 Which Stickers Add Value?
6.0 Stickers on Guns
6.1 Calculating Sticker Value
7.0 Trading FAQs Without further stalling, let's get started! 1.0 - Trading Basics In late 2011, before CS:GO was even released, Valve introduced the ability to trade TF2 items in Steam. It was a phenomenon that nobody thought would become as big as it was, and it has only expanded over the last 5 years. With the Arms Deal update in CS:GO on the 14th of August, 2013, we were introduced to what would eventually become one of the largest and most sustained economies in gaming. A trade is when two steam users interact by moving items from accounts, and the safety and level of it has evolved since its release. Trades can be live, or they can be offers. An offer is when a user sends a non-live trade to another player, who can then spend time to think about it, and either decline or accept the offer. 1.1 - Getting Started Against what all of the nothing to knife videos would lead you to believe, trading is not something where you can get to a FN Dragon Lore from a Nova Sand mesh... well not within 2 weeks (Unless you are very fucking lucky.) The best way to start out trading is to invest $50+ and start from there. The more you invest, the easier it is to make profit, but there are more risks associated with some higher tier items. The least amount of money you should spend when getting into the game is $10, $5 is fine too, but honestly, it is worth spending the amount of money that you might spend on lunch to buy some skins that will last longer then said lunch. In order to get started with trading, you will need the following:
1. A Steam Account (And the Desktop Client, obviously)
2. Some Items
3. A Smartphone
4. The Steam Mobile App
5. Common Sense (This one is extremely important)
The rest is explained throughout this guide. 1.2 - Who to Trust Deciding on who to trust is simultaneously extremely easy and incredibly difficult. When you're doing a normal trade, there is next to nothing that the other person can do to scam you. Basically, as long as they or you send a trade offer with both items in the trade, you're golden. Never trade with people who do the following:
Ask for a middleman for an item to item trade. If they ask because you have two of the same item and want to make sure it isn't glitched, don't listen to them.
Accounts that claim to be CSGOLounge bots that need 'verification' or else your account will be banned. They're just bullshitting you.
People who will say that they will get you items later (i.e. offering 75 keys for an 80 key item, and they will give you their extra 5 tradable keys later.
People who offer you real cash for your items, especially if you didn't ask for cash. If you're asking for cash, then check their cashreps and do your research, this is explained in the next subchapter.
1.3 - Cashrep So what is cashrep? Cashrep is a Reputation thread that a user uses when they are doing trades for real money. If you're looking to start trading with real money yourself, the best thing to do is to small money trades with extremely reputable traders who have extensive cashrep, to start building your own. So what is steamrep? Steamrep (http://steamrep.com/) is a community run website that is aimed stopping scammers in their tracks. Always check a user's account before trading with them, regardless of whether they are doing a cash trade with you or not. This is important, because some people will go to extensive lengths just to get a bit of extra cash from you. I am also aware that everyone does not believe steamrep is necessary, but believe me when I say that it is actually a very useful tool that has saved me plenty of time with figuring out people who have tried to scam me out of real money. 1.4 - The Most Common Scams
The Middleman Scam: This is probably the most common scam. It is where the Scammer will tell the victim that they want to use a victim's friend as a middleman to trade the item to to make sure it isn't duped. They will then use one of their friends to impersonate your friend, and add you to a group chat with the fake friend, and then steal your item. Just simply don't trade with these people.
The Swap: Another very common scam where the person will have two of the same item, but with different stickers/conditions/patterns, and they will swap out the item you want with the shittier version. This one can be tricky, if the person has two or more of the item you want, get them to send a trade offer, and inspect the skin in the offer before accepting.
The Fake Bot: If you're livestreaming & gambling (or even not streaming sometimes), or you post a trade on lounge, always check the verification codes and the bot's pages to make sure that they are indeed the bot you think they are. This is pretty easy to avoid, as Lounge bots will never need to verify your account.
1.5 - Trading Etiquette Here is a list of the things that you should and shouldn't do just as general rules of thumb.
Don't be an asshole. You'll get more respect, better offers, and you'll probably make friends just by simply being more polite with people. Even when getting frustrated, attempt to keep your head screwed on and be polite.
Always check your item's prices before listing them. If you've had an item for a while, it may have gone up/down, and it's easier on everybody if you just doublecheck the price of your item so that people don't yell at you. Also, don't just overprice your items at all, unless they actually have the value for it.
Respect people of higher authority. Well-respected traders are well-respected for a reason, if you're talking with someone high up on the trading ladder, be sure to treat them well.
Don't beg for items. Pretty straightforward.
Don't argue with people's prices on items unless you are extremely experienced with them. If you legitimately believe someone is asking too much for an item (i.e. a case hardened), get someone who is experienced to take a look at it.
When you mention float values, don't only type the first digit after the 0 (i.e. Karambit Crimson Web 0.1 Float). This can be misleading, as items such as dragon lores vary extremely from 0.29 to 0.20 floats.
1.6 - Trade Confirmations: What Are They? Trade confirmations are done via a mobile device. They are pretty much forced upon players to make them do their best to keep their accounts secure. All that you need to do when trading is open your phone, click on the notification that the app gives you, and doublecheck and confirm the trade. 2.0 - Patterns: What Are They And Why are They Important? A pattern is an ID from 1-999 that is assigned to any item in one's inventory. Randomly generated skins (such as Electric Hive, Crimson Web, Case Hardened, Modern Hunter, Fade, etc.) will appear unique in every pattern. Don't be mistaken though, patterns do affect static skins (such as Dragon Lore, Fire Serpent, Howl, etc.) in a significant way as well. Each pattern also changed wear placement on the gun slightly (i.e. two different skins with the exact same float but different pattern IDs can have completely different scratches.) It is also noteworthy that every single skin on a given gun with a certain pattern ID will have the exact same wear placement, regardless of what skin it is. This is important. Note that on ALL of the DLC Knives (Butterfly, Huntsman, Falchion, Shadow Daggers, and the Bowie Knife), the patterns are mirrored. This means that any 'double sided xx' on these knives are lying, or just uninformed. 2.1 - Slaughter Patterns Slaughter has a wide variety of unique looks, but not all patterns that people claim are patterns are accepted by the community. The most commonly used patterns are listed here:
If a crimson web knife has a float of 0.23 or higher, then the Webs shouldn't add any value. The exception is karambits, where it may add a few keys.
On Factory New Crimson Webs (Knives only), a good webbing can increase the price by as much as 600 keys. The best example of this is again the Karambit, or the M9, as the M9s with 3 webs will usually sell for 500+ keys more then ones with no webs to one web.
Here is an album of 3 different factory new m9 crimson webs, each with different webs to illustrate my point. 2.3 - Fade Patterns Fade value varies from knife to knife. On the gut knife it is actually unaffected 95% of the time (110% 0.00x usually goes for 105% of market, but nothing else usually sells for much more.) Flip knives are actually sold equivalent to their fade percentage of SA Price (i.e. 90% fade for 90% of steamanalyst, and same for 110%). Meanwhile Karambits go as low as 190 and as high as 700. I will have to update the guide with more prices soon. Tip: You can use CSGOZone to check the fade percentages of most knives pretty acurately, but it isn't 100% accurate, so doublecheck with people to confirm the fade. Tip 2: Metjm has an amazing database to scroll through every fade pattern on a few of the knives. View Here.
If someone can link me a good Glock-18 Fade guide, it would help. I'm surprised that it is so difficult to find a proper guide.
2.4 - Marble Fade Patterns Marble fades are one of the most desirable knife finishes in the game, being quite popular in general. Against what some of the shittily made guides out there will have you to believe, you can only get True Fire & Ice with no yellow on the Karambit, Flip Knife, Gut Knife, and Bayonet. This means that you cannot get Fire and Ice on the M9 Bayonet. On The M9 Bayonet, the most desirable pattern is the Max Red tip, the least desirable is yellow, and the middle child is blue tips.
2.5 Electric Hive Patterns Electric hives are a skin with a wide pattern range, but many traders either ignore them or are even unaware of the pattern value ranges. I'm an Electric Hive enthusiast myself, and I'm speaking out of my own experience for this part. Similar to Case Hardeneds, Electric hives desirability peaks at Full Blue, followed by Full Orange hives. Other hives are generally considered to be nothing special, and sell ar market. The desirability of blue patterns is based NOT on the amount of blue/orange, but the solidity of the line itself. The ideal patterns are shown below, note where the purple line sits.
There is more to go into with these, will add more images when Metjm's buggy screenshots are updated. 2.6 - Kami Patterns Kamis are purely based on whatever the person is willing to pay for them. A Good example is the Vagina Kami, which from what I've heard has sold for more then 20 keys in the past.. Many patterns exist on the back of the 5-7 Kami, but there aren't that many solid guides for them. 2.7 - Case Hardened Patterns Case Hardened is simultaneously one of the most and least desired skin & knife finishes in the game. The prices of these items involve too many factors for me to go over, but the TL;DR version of it is that Blue = Sexy and Rust/Grey = Shit. Here are some examples of blue gems for each case hardened. Credit to acidaus for finding some of the METJMs and Alamer99 for 3 of the bowies:
2.8 - Doppler Doppler is extremely controversial because of some of the terms that certain people use to describe their knives. There are 7 different game files for the doppler, called Phases. The phases are as follows.
People use terms such as "Fake Black Pearl" and "Pink Galaxy" to describe their dopplers. Using terms that do not describe something that it isn't aren't allowed (i.e. a Phase 3 full black is just that, full black. Not a Fake Black Pearl. Phase 1 can arguably be fake black pearl since it has purple, not black.) This is the gray area of dopplers, and is up for debate. 2.9 - Other This section is for skins that some people may argue deserve to have pattern price differences, but in my experience don't matter. Icarus fells for example are very debatable. I've bought and sold almost all of the Phases of icarus fells for 85% of steamanalyst in keys (only float has mattered in my experience), but I know that some people find certain patterns more desirable. With items such as Icarus fells, it is purely the user's preference that matters. Other items that fall under this category are:
Blue Steel
Safari Mesh
Scorched
Sun in Leo
Dark Water (Same palette as slaughter)
Minotaur's Labyrinth
Blaze
3.0 - Float Values: What Are They? A float value (Or Floating Point) is a static numeric string used in programming to set a value for whatever purpose is correct in context. In the case of CS:GO, the float value of an item determines the amount of wear it has (relative to the pattern seed's wear placement.) Basically, higher float skins have worse wears (Battle-Scarred through Field-Tested) and lower float skins have better wears (Field-Tested through Factory New.) The Float ranges for items are as follows:
0.00x - 0.069 = Factory New
0.07 - 0.149 = Minimal Wear
0.15 - 0.379 = Field-Tested
0.38 - 0.449 = Well-Worn
0.45 - 1.00 = Battle-Scarred
3.1 - Float Values and Knives Float ranges vary on every skin in the game. It's noteworthy that on the Karambit, the pattern is just as important as the wear, as you can get 0.04 corners that look better then 0.000x ones. Many knives have a minimum float of 0.06, which makes Factory New extremely rare, since skins have a bell curve on condition (making Field-Tested much more common then Factory New and Very Battle-Scarred)
Stained, Damascus Steel, Case Hardened, Blue Steel: 0.00x - 1.00
Rust Coat: 0.40 - 1.00
Slaughter: 0.01 - 0.259
As you can see, most of the knives with Custom paint finishes all have a 0.06-0.80 float range, making FN equally rare on all of them. Fades are uncommon in minimal wear, but not as rare as a FN Crimson web. Rust coat and slaughter are the only knives that don't follow the trope. 3.2 - Float Values and Skins Skins float ranges are determined by their creators. The only skins that have 0.06 min floats are usually valve-made skins (such as fire serpent, safari mesh, etc.) and most other skins are usually 0.00x - 1.00. Notable exceptions are AWP/M4 Asiimov (0.18 - 1.00) and Galil Chatterbox (0.35 - 1.00.) 4.0 - Key Trading 101 Keys are the universal currency of the Counter-Strike economy. So how exactly do they work? If your item is regularly listed on the steam market (and doesn't have any special stickers/patterns), then the typical way to list it is to use SteamAnalyst's averages, and multiplying them by 0.80-0.90 depending on the item's desirability. 0.8 is 80%, which is usually considered a quicksell. 85%-90% are considered quicksells by some and normal prices by others. Note that no item should sell for 100% of steamanalyst if it has no special traits, unless the person wants the item very fast. 4.1 - High Tier Key Trading For items over 130 keys, the most common thing to do is to look on Reddit (or lounge, depending on your style) and find similarly listed items that actually sold at that price recently. These are the community's agreed prices on these items. If you're using items that are regularly listed on the steam community market to trade for high tier items, then you will need to use the 80-90% averages as explained above. 4.2 - Key Prices When buying keys with real cash, the price for you depends on several factors.
Where you're buying from or who you're buying from.
The method you're using.
The amount you're buying.
Your Reputation/Who You Are
The Price for keys varies depending on these factors. Basically, the more reputable you are, the easier it is to get cheaper keys (Via Bitcoin rates are usually $1.8-$2.0). This completely depends on the above factors though. 5.0 - Souvenir Items 101 Souvenir items are items that were dropped from Souvenir packages, which were dropped from Valve-Sponsored Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Majors. These are all of the majors that have happened so far:
2013 DreamHack Winter
2014 DreamHack Winter
2014 EMS One Katowice
2014 ESL One Cologne
2015 ESL One Katowice
2015 DreamHack Cluj-Napoca
2015 ESL One Cologne
5.1 - Which Stickers Add Value? This is a debatable subject. Stickers based on rarity (Rarest to Most common):
2013 DreamHack Winter
2014 EMS One Katowice
2014 DreamHack Winter
2014 ESL One Cologne
2015 ESL One Katowice
2015 ESL One Cologne
2015 DreamHack Cluj-Napoca
In the latest two 2015 tournaments, signature stickers were added, and some of these add significant value to guns. These are the stickers that add the most value.
Most other signature stickers don't add significant value. These are just the most noteworthy ones. 6.0 - Stickers on Guns Up until mid 2015, stickers adding value to guns was considered to be a joke by the general trading community. Once the Katowice 2014 stickers skyrocketed, people realized that the look was actually worth paying for, and Kato 14 collectors started to grow. Now, stickers are considered to be an important part of the trading meta if their value is > 10 keys. 6.1 - Calculating Sticker Values Before anything else, check these factors:
The number of related stickers (i.e. 4 katowice 2014 stickers or just 1 katowice 2014)
The placement (If there is only one notable sticker, or the best one is in the worst position)
Are they scratched? (Even if it's just scratched once, the sticker loses all of its value immediately to a collector.)
Unfortunately, the price from stickers varies too greatly based on these factors as well as trivial things such as StatTrak and all of that, so I will not be adding back the general pricing. 7.0 - Trading FAQs Q. What are steam levels and why do they matter?
Steam levels are a level (ofc) that is determined based on the number of badges a user possesses. Each badge is worth 100 XP (with a few exceptions) and they cost money to craft (usually). High steam levels have spent considerable amounts of time & money, and usually don't want to risk their high level account as it is hard to replicate. This does not mean that someone with say a level 300 account isn't scamming, but it is much less likely for someone with a steam level > 200 to scam then someone with say a 50 level. (Though there are scammers and legit dealers at all levels.)
Q. I got scammed, what do I do?
Report it to Steam Support and on the Steamrep Forums & Partner communities. GoTrade itself is a great place to report scammers.
Q. Why are Katowice Stickers and some souvenirs so expensive?
Simply because of the fact that they are from a time when CS was newer and less popular, so there is a small supply of them.
Q. Why do traders pay so much just for a certain float or pattern?
Because of the rarity, uniqueness, and look.
Q. How do I get started on cash trading?
The best way to get started on cash trading is to deal with well known traders in small amounts to build a rep.
That's the end of the guide (For now). If there is anything that I should add to it, please let me know as I will be expanding it in the future. It took a considerable amount of time to make this, so I would very much appreciate your feedback!!
After watching this video youtube.com/watch?v=Ce5CDrq4dGg I was thinking that we need a microTX check website. Jim Sterling rightfully stated that publishers use gameplay and cosmetic microTX, pre-orders, lootboxes and 8 or 9 deluxe versions of the same games to create a fear of missing out among customers. In a world where IGN saying ‘believe the hype’ is a tagline for a game, in which PR controls the message, in which reviews are strictly monitored and not always trustworthy and in which pre-orders are pushed to the moon is it surprising that many people fail to make an informed choice? Soon consumers have to purchase a game, then have to subscribe to yearly payment scheme and then livestream the game on Twitch to have access to a lootbox, which in return reveal a consumable item which cannot be used without buying a day 1 DLC, after purchasing the DLC and using the consumable item in singleplayer the consumer will realize that the item will not be available for second playthrough. There is no guarantee in future ‘whales’ will not be called ‘victims’. PC gaming needs a content checker so people don’t have to suffer fear of missing out. There is microtransaction.zone, which has not been updated for a long time so it doesn't have any newer AAA or indie game. It has a search capability but limited. MicroTX check Steam curator is good but some game gets red card for having cosmetics others get yellow for cosmetic DLC, which is confusing. It has the limitation as it's just a curator page so word count and many other features are limited. A proper wiki should not only list microTX/lootboxes in a video game but also should list all the exclusive items in the game. Who should read this? People who want to know what are they missing out by not pre-ordering/purchasing microTX; journalists who want to investigate the situation but lost their minds reading about all these types of microTX; developers/publishers who are out of ideas to implement microTX in their games; in general, people who just want to buy any triple ayyy game these days as there is no way to avoid microTX/lootboxes. Even though this is a very thorough list of microTX mechanics I might have missed something as corporations are finding new ways to exploit customers. What did I miss? Somebody make this wiki already, heck I think there should be a kickstarter for this. (don’t PM me about this, unless you work for google fiber) Part A Tags/Factors the website have to monitor regarding microTX/DLC 1a- How does the game monetize itself? Does the game has microTX/advertisement/lootbox/donation system/subscription? Or is it purely paid/purely free game? B Whether microTX/paid DLC/lootbox are cosmetic only or gameplay changer? Singleplayemultiplayer which section has which type of microTX? If the game has crafting system how does it work? Does the crafting system encourage microTX? C Wiki should also mention paid DLC for singleplayers etc. d Which tag should the games with paid standalone extensions have? Many games have standalone extensions, they are to be considered seperate game, right? However some standalone extensions can give you more advantage in multiplayer, Age of Empires 2 had extensions which will give you more civilizations in multiplayer. E How many types of virtual currency is in the game and what are the ways to gain virtual currencies? How long will it take on average to gain virtual currency using each methods? F For games with paid DLC it has to mention how much is the total amount of DLC? There are games like train simulator which has 9000$ worth of DLC/microTX. G Some games obfuscate usage of real world money in multiple layers. The wiki should explain how a game obfuscating monetization. For example R6S has multiple virtual currencies and cosmetic lootboxes. Customer can never pay real world money to purchase lootbox. However if the customer purchase booster pack (which can only be bought with real money, even lootboxes don’t have any booster packs) to get more virtual currency, he can buy more lootboxes. 2a- How many versions are available to purchase and what types of pre-order exclusives does the game have? Most games have virtual currency/rare items as pre-order exclusives. For example- recent Assassin’s Creed titles have 8 or 9 different versions available for pre-order, some have more virtual currency some versions have collectibles. EA Access subscribers had the ability to play Anthem early and this made Anthem’s pre-order versions extremely confusing. B Whether the game has Bestbuy/Gamestop/Amazon/Burger King/Totino’s pizza or Steam/GOG/Epic Store purchase or pre-order exclusives. Many games have retailestore exclusives or pre-order-retailer exclusives so customers are always missing out something depending on which store they are buying/pre-ordering from. c What does the game/DLC/season pass/battle pass/year pass/premium/gold edition exactly cover? Many games have misleading advertisement to persuade people to purchase season passes which doesn’t cover all items in the season. The wiki should display prices of all the things each season pass does not cover. Many people thought Destiny expansion pass covered all the first year DLC, but actually it only covered first two DLC so the Taken King had to be purchases seperately. Evolve season pass was released with over hundreds of dollar worth of cosmetic/gameplay items which the season pass did not cover. D To make matters worse many games unexpectedly have multiple season passes. Steep has very confusing season passes and gold editions, they also changed many of the content policy in their editions long after they were released. Unless you are a Steep player, it’s not recommended that you try to understand how each versions of Steep works because it is literally as much difficult as rocket science. E Does the microTX/DLC/Premium edition divide playerbase? If DLCs divide playerbase it indicates that the multiplayer will probably die faster than expected. F Is it difficult to understand microTX policy. Many games have 1 paragraph long game mechanics guide and 10 pages long document to describe how different versions of the game work. For example- Mortal Kombat 11 has quite complicated grinding mechanics to encourage microTX, it even has a microTX to skip grinding matches. G Non-digital items are not the main concern here, so stuff like collector’s edition/steelbook/action figures are mostly not a part of the discussion here. However some things can be considered cosmetic items, like in-game music pack/background noise/ digital artbook which gives you information about map/weapons etc. Some games have ‘name in game’ DLC, some variant of this type of DLC can seem like a cosmetic items, because letting user change name is cosmetic. H Is the game available under a subscription system? If it is, what are the exclusive items available under subscription? Many games now have exclusive items when being played under Origin Access or Xbox Live subscription. What are the method of subscription? Do you need to bind your credit card to the account or subscription can deduct wallet balance? Does the subscription system support prepaid credit cards etc I How many microTX in the game needs reward points like Ubisoft club reward points, Origin points, Steam levels etc.? Many game has items which require reward points, but in order to gain reward points you have to buy more games inside the client, which creates a circle of spending. Some store’s customer care will prioritze people with high reward points. J How many Steam reward points/Ubisoft club points a game can generate? Store reward points like Steam badges or Steam account levels are not in-game cosmetic items themselves but many consumers actually use them as cosmetic items. People play lot of money to buy games with Steam achievements to rank up. K What are the kickstarter exclusives (if the game is crowdfunded)? Star citizen has a handful of crownfunding exclusive as it was the biggest crowdfunding event. This may give crowdfunders an advantage over new customers. L How many people pre-ordered the game? If a game has too many pre-orders they may rush the game out to either make DLCs or to create another game. 3a- The wiki should display how many months it took the developers to release/announce DLCs after they released the game? Late DLC may indicate the developers used most of their resources to develop the main game and not the DLC. B The wiki should have a tag for games which did not announce any free/paid DLC on release day. Witcher 3 did not announce any paid DLC on release day. Some games have option to pre-order DLC before release day i.e. Evolve. Some games even have DLC available to play on day 1. Battlefield 4 had launch day DLC on Xbox One. Evolve had the option to buy DLC on day 1 . Some games even have locked content on disk on day 1 which can be unlocked with DLC purchase. C Whether a paid game has paid DLC/microTX/lootbox in while in early access. This may indicate that the developers are taking resources from the main game to build the DLCs. Ark Survival have sold paid DLC while it was still in early access. Many battle royale games have microTX or even lootbox while they are still in beta. Can you pre-order micro transaction? This can give consumers a red flag about the game. 4a- The website should mention how many hours are needed to unlock all things behind paywall? And in order to unlock/progress how many hours do you have to play same boring mission over and over again (like Anthem)? Some games don’t even need to be played to do anything or to gain virtual currency, they just require you to keep the game on screen for a long time to complete mission. B The website should have a tag for games which doesn’t allow consumer to unlock everything just by playing the game. Many 60$ games won’t allow consumer to unlock every cosmetic microTX by playing, some paywall needs to be paid by real world money. In CSGO some items must be unlocked through lootbox purchases. 5a- The wiki should note whether you can see preview of the cosmetic items before you are buying/receiving. Some games have good preview option, they show how each items/animations in store goes with your existing character etc. Warframe had somewhat confusing preview system for an animal breeding system and people unknowingly changed the slider too many times and lost their money, so developers later fixed it. B Many cosmetic microTX can give you an advantage/disadvantage over other players in multiplayer. For example- dark clothing in first person shooters. c Some cosmetic items have hidden stat boost which can only be realised when tested. d How regularly will the game allow users to skip mission? Do the customers have to purchase microTX to skip mission? This may indicate that the game is too grindy and painful to be - ironically - played. E Pretty soon publishers will sell graphics settings like blood decal/motion blucell shaderain effects or other settings like footstep sound, subtitles, localization as microTX. Oh wait, Warhammer Total War sells blood decal for 2$ f Some games (like Garry’s Mod) allow community servers to introduce community microTX. This way you can spend money to community servers to help them and receive cosmetic/gameplay changing items. However it is technically possible for all multiplayer games that supports community servers to allow community microTX and this cannot be monitored. 6a- On which platforms/online stores is the game available? In future what other stores will sell the game? B What is the store’s refund policy regarding microTX/ unused lootbox? C What is the region locking policy on DLC/microTX/lootbox etc? D Whether the store requires credit cards/paypal and acquire your personal info that way, whether it supports third party cdkeys or wallet codes (Although some cdkey resellers are themselves shady). E What are the payment methods? Does the store allow prepaid credit cards? F Whether or not by default the store will forget your credit card and personal info. If the store forgets your credit card info it can’t charge you for accidental microTX purchases. This is particularly useful for mobile purchases as children sometimes accidentally purchase microTX using parents mobile, however a few PC stores this can be a problem too. This may also protect against credit card theft or database breach. G Whether the store has family sharing option/gifting feature. H From where the microTX have to be purchases? Some games are sold in online stores but their microTX/lootboxes are sold from game server. I Some stores deduct account balance if customer doesn’t login regularly j GDPR compliance. K What types of data is the store saving? How easy is for the consumer to look at his data which is saved in the database? L Does the store save consumer telemetry data? Many stores save consumer’s telemetry data secretly. M Ability to delete user data from the database and AI n Which company owns the store? Who can have access to user data? In which server a particular user’s data located(because different countries have different data policy/privacy policy)? Will the store let users know if their data leave servers of one country to another country? O Data sharing policy with third parties/data brokers. Many stores/games sell data to data brokers so data brokers can track all the users and sell information to other game developers/advertisement agencies etc. p What type of artificial intelligence are using customer data? Is the recommendation system AI opt-in or opt-out? Can you browse games in ‘private mode’ without the store tracking your browsing activity? Q How many data breaches have the company suffered from? Do they protect from stolen credit cards? R How many types of 2-factor authentication does the store support? S How exactly the advertisement system work within the store? Do they advertise games by pushing them into your game library screen instead of keeping them in store page? T Do they sell misleading content without proper warning? Some stores don’t warn users that DLC/Expansion won’t work without original game. Some stores don’t warn if online features of a game is shut down. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 had always online DRM. Couple of months after release online features were turned off then it was on sale on playstation store misleading millions of PS4 users. 7a Same questions for game website, some games are not sold in stores instead they are directly sold through their own website. What are the refund policy regarding microTX/currency? Whether the game website forgets your credit card info by default data etc. How does the family sharing work with microTX items? B Does the game have multiple save slot? Some games deny replayability by charging for additional savegame slots. Metal Gear Survive requires 10$ to unlock additional save slots. Not only multiple persons can’t enjoy the game from a single machine, one consumer can’t create multiple savegame to replay the game without paying money. C Some games have virtual currency which will expire if left unused for a long time. For example- Metal Gear Solid 5 D What is their Data policy? 8a- Some microTX are consumable microTX like Destiny 2 shaders and camos. This means microTX will be like buying gems in mobile games, they will expire after certain number of usage. Deus Ex Mankind Divided has lots of consumable items. Skins in CSGO are not consumables but pastes are. Many free to play games have premium ammos which are obviously consumables. Some things in PUBG Royale Pass are consumables/temporarily available. B Some games have animal breeding system, users can breed cats/pandas to create biggemore beautiful cats/pandas. If one cat is to be bred limited number of times it should be considered consumables. C The wiki should mention how actually the consumables work and savegames work, whether it supports second playthrough or a second family member playing the same game. Many consumables in singleplayer games are strictly one playthrough only. This means in many games users have to be extremely careful, have to save their games manually and have to use their savegame files in a complex way to use consumables in multiple playthroughs. Examples are Deus EX Mankind Divided and Borderlands franchise. (Well there is a reason why 60$ games don’t have cheatcodes anymore) 9-Some advertisement based games require you/give you option to watch ads in order to save progress/gain additional save slots etc. Street Fighter V has in-game advertisements as a way to earn in game money which can be used to purchase gameplay enchancing microTX. B Whether advertisements in a game occupies part of the screen and hinder gameplay. 10- Dynamic pricing in most countries is not illegal itself if it is based on spending habit/credit card balance etc. However if a game has dynamic pricing the consumers need to know that to compare prices with other consumers. Example of dynamic pricing- Star Citizen will show you an option to purchase almost all ships in the game with 27000$, only if you have already spent 1000$ in microTX in the game. Instead of dynamic pricing some games have dynamic discount. 11 - What are the types of lootboxes in the game? Any mechanic/cosmetic item which depends on virtual currency can be considered lootbox if acquiring the item depends on a random number generator. By this definition lootboxes and random card decks are the same. Even looting of corpses and similar mechanics can be considered lootbox if looting depends on RNG in the game. Assassin’s Creed Unity had random collector edition pre-order reward depending on result of a spinning wheel, this can be considered lootbox. However not all types of lootboxes can be considered gambling. Firstly, gambling laws differ from country to country. Secondly, random sticker decks like Panini football stickers are not considered gambling at any country as number of stickers for each players are equal and it does not have a normal,rare,premium tiers like Fifa Ultimate Pack has. B Do the lootboxes in the game only have cosmetic items or gameplay mechanics? C paid or free lootbox? CSGO lootboxes have to be considered paid because you must use keys for lootboxes and those keys muse be bought. Battlefield battlepacks can be earned or bought. D The wiki has to show what are the exact probability of finding each item inside lootbox? E If lootbox has a drop probability what is that, exactly? Exact is the keyword here, many companies publish rough estimate of lootbox probability but never reveal the definite probability. F Whether the lootboxes in the game has dynamic probability for items. Many games have dynamic probability, in first week of a lootbox system the game will drop many lootboxes but after the game hooked people on Twitch, the droprate/item rate will be decreased. G Can a consumer easily see all lootboxes he used in the past in chronological (and other sort) order? By default EA doesn’t show how many Fifa Ultimate Packs a customer has bought unless they deliberately request that information through GDPR or other regulations. Even with GDPR they don’t usually show what lootbox revealed which player cards in game and other relevent information. H Do the lootboxes in the game guarantee that there will be no duplicate item reveal? If no, then in case there is a duplicate what type of rewards the consumer will receive? Will the game return portion of the money the consumer paid to acquire the lootbox? 12- Some games have marketplace/auction house to trade microTX or lootbox items. There have to be specific tags for marketplace enabled videogames. Even though marketplace can be good for a video game, many parents don’t want their children to be exposed to marketplace because they believe it can encourage gambling. For example- CSGO/Rust/TF2/Payday 2 and many other games have Steam market. Diablo 3 had auction house which was later disabled. B Does the game/store have third party API for login? Steam used to allow third party sites to use Steam API and that lead to young people gambling items on the internet. 13a - Does the lootbox system in the game guarantee that no lootbox item will need a DLC purchase if the consumer who revealed the lootbox did not have that DLC beforehand? Many lootbox items in many games are attachments of weapons/characters which are not available by default and must be/can be unlocked with real world money. B Whether the game has microTX for microTX. Yes, it is a thing now. The Sims 4 has microTX which only works if you have already purchased a DLC. Black ops 4 season pass requires Black ops 4 Special editions, standard black ops 4 can’t work with season pass. To make matters worse, some DLCs can’t be played without season pass. C How often game UI promotes virtual currency or item purchase. Most games will hit players face with microTX options and annoy them. D How often an in-game mission promotes paid DLC content? Some games mentions DLC endings to pursue consumer to buy the DLCs to see all the endings. E What are the marketing policy of the game? Some games deliberately market themselves to children/teenagers, then try to push microTX or lootboxes to them. 14- The wiki should also show which countries have banned the game/part of the game. Many European countries are banning lootboxes, like Belgium banned lootbox from Fifa and Destiny 2. 15- Some games have anti-consumer-consumer mechanics for pre-order or microTX. For example- Deus ex mankind divided wanted people to influence their friends to pre-order the game(they changed the policy later). This type of crowd pre-order is not technically pyramid schemes, because kickstarters work in the same way. However it’s still shady. B Some coop focused games/battle royale games can influence people to purchase microTX to save teammates. C What type of AI and matchmaking are the developers using? Some developers i.e. Call of Duty franchise have matchmaking system that can make a consumer think that the microTX they purchased are more effective than they actually are. They do it by placing a player in a multplayer match where the microTX is useful just after they bought it/got it from a lootbox. Some companies also using dynamic difficulty in singleplayer to force a player to lose a game or win a game whenever the company desires. D Some games have fundamental social features that will promote lootbox/pre-orders. Example- Lootboxes used in Call of Duty WWII matchmaking area will be visible to other players in the team (even those who are not inside customer's friendlist). It even gives players rewards to watch other players’ lootbox openings. Activision and EA are creating mechanics to integrate microTX promotions in replay system/livestream. E Some ‘Twitch plays video game’ games also have mechanics that will promote microTX/lootbox purchase among livestream viewers. F Many e-sports games and fighting games have heroes/mechanics behind DLC/lootbox/pre-order, that way if people are to be good with the game they have to pay more. G Some games have e-sports ticket pass/invitational pass as microTX or lootbox. This way they create pressure on fans to increase prize money for the tournament champions. To make matters worse many e-sportsman have to request fans to purchase more microTX to increase the prizes etc. H Some games create direct stress in consumer’s mind to instigate a panic. Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery will choke a kid to death if a user don’t pay money to save him. 16A- The wiki should note how many times developers changed DLC/microTX/lootbox policy in the game. Many games nowadays changing XP gain/currency gain post release as that will help them get good reviews on metacritic while still earning revenues from microTX. Example- Mortal Kombat 11, Fallout 76 etc. Destiny 2 also blocked many levels behind DLC purchase which was previously allowed to be accessed by standard edition buyers. They did it through a DLC rank lock. Steep editions were already very confusing, to make matters worse Ubisoft changed lots of content of Steep standard and gold editions. There are many editions of Steep and some of them have swapped content, sometimes even secretly. It’s rocket science. B In some cases developers actually change policy which was previously promised. For example- Payday 2 introduced gameplay changing lootbox even though developers previously promised no lootboxes. Fallout 76 added non-cosmetic microTX. 17A- This is getting quite common lately. Developers secretly change XP gain/lootbox mechanics to encourage purchase of microTX/lootbox. Most of time people have to listen to what publishers are not telling them rather than what they are saying. Example- Destiny 2 and Fallout 76. Bungie later apologized for secretly decreasing XP gains and changed it back. B It is possible when developers/publishers get sued for lying to customer about dynamic pricing/dynamic reward system etc. they will just blame their AI and neural network instead of their corporate practices. 18 What type of DRM the game uses? Online only DRM can leave game unplayable if DRM server is down. Many games use 3rd party DRM so if the DRM service goes out of business it will make the game unplayable so consumer investments on microTX will be wasted. B Does the DRM breach privacy? Many 3rd party DRM also compromise privacy by monitoring and storing information about applications running in the computer. The wiki should mention whether consumer can delete personal info from DRM servers. C Whether the multiplayer has LAN feature. If developers of a multiplayer only game shut down server the consumer will lose all microTX/lootbox spent on the game, but LAN feature can keep the game alive. D The website has to show how many open source mods are available for SP/MP. Modding can allow consumers to be non-dependent on microTX and guarantee more content. Modding friendly means game either has a modtoolkit or even for a amateur programmar it’s possible to alter simple stuff such as swords or weapon props. Some game developers are calling microTX as mods, which are not actually true. E Does the game have cheatcodes? Many singleplayer games have killed cheatcodes to sell microTX or even lootbox in singleplayer games. F Whether the game requires/ has the option to rate the game within the game. G Whether game will ban you from online servers if you rate the game low on store. H Whether the game will ban you from online servers if you simply mention that the developers broke promise or mention some game bugs in their forum. I What type of anti-cheat service the game uses? Does the anti-cheat service compromise privacy/security by monitoring activities? Will the anti-cheat falsely ban people from a game they have invested money in? A rogue PUBG employee was secretly selling cheating data and player information to Chinese hackers and were later fired from his job from Bluehole Studio. J Some games have rather confusing anti-cheat policy, and they will not engage the banned players with all the details of the alleged crimes they have committed. For example PUBG bans people for alleged stream sniping even though streamers can always delay their streams by 10 or 20 minutes. GTA 5 will ban user if they ever possesed any hacked currency, even though it’s pretty common to pickup in game money from a deadbody. K Some games have Redshell and other spywares to track and sell all user data on the computer. Although most games removed Redshell lately. According to Jim Sterling, while game is online, Deus Ex Mankind Divided spies on every in-game clicks a user does to optimize microTX even more. Some game softwares/clients require permission which can possibly breach privacy. War Thunder used to require special permissions. (Although many hardware manufacturers and operating system developers are themselves using telemetry/keyloggers these days) Additional suggestions regarding game reviews etc 19 Maybe the website should mention how many DMCA takedowns a publisher have claimed over youtube videos? If a publisher is claiming copyright after release of a game it may indicate either they are immature or they don’t want microTX policy to become public. Same thing goes for Nintedo Creator Program. 20 How many times the developer tried suing journalists over leaked information? Example- Take Two threatened to sue journalists over leaked information claiming they were stolen. 21 Did the game have review embargo? How long before the game launched did the reviews show up in review sites? Some developers misuse review embargo to censor game’s bugs. Assassin’s Creed Unity pulled their review embargo 6 hours after the game was released, obviously that game was a bug infested den. 22 Some games allegedly break price gouging laws. Website should be able to monitor that. However not all types of price hikes are unlawful. 23 Asset flipping- Some indie games buys cheap assets from Unity marketplace then sell it as game/DLC. Asset flipping is relative, not all usage of marketplace assets are asset flipping. 24 If the website has a review section it should compare E3 screenshots/video demos with actual games. Famously Watch Dogs, Colonial Marines and many other AAA games lied with their screenshots/E3 demos. Watch dogs secretly disabled many textures and Colonial Marines did not actually develop a game. Even Witcher 3 announcement trailer had misleading graphics which was not possible for them to release in full game. 24 b- It should also compare features announced and released. No man’s sky. 25- Whether the Steam forum/subreddit is controlled and curated by developers Many games’ reddit community is controlled by developer and they delete criticism of their policy. 26- Some game publishers promise free cdkeys or other incentive to fans if they help them get approved/greenlit in stores by upvoting etc. Part B Website suggestions 1- The website has to have tags/factors to seperate games. Whether microTX/paid DLC are cosmetic only or gameplay changer? Singleplayemultiplayer which section has which type of microTX? 2- It has to be a website so it is searchable for a game’s tag/rank and other information. The wiki can work as an aggregate site like metacritic. Many of the suggested features are difficult to implement without hiring actual journalists. So having a aggregate review/news section will help consumers. 3- It’s better to have a factual wiki, not subjective one, but it’s difficult to stick to only facts. Some things have to be subjective. For example there is no proper distinction between DLC and microTX. For a gameplay based DLC, you can say microTX will give you gameplay advantage over other players while DLC will give you/other players more content. However for cosmetic DLC, you can’t easily differentiate between DLC and microTX. That’s why many stores like Steam doesn’t differentiate between DLC and microTX. However for most part it is possible to stick with facts. Facts like whether or not the game had day 1 DLC or how many hours neeeded to unlock each items in game etc. Let the game reviewers give opinion about microTX policy in each game. 4- It should have a rank system, A+ for older games like doom series/elder scrolls which had no microTX or paid DLC. A for games like witcher 3, B for R6S which solds mostly cosmetic microTX and you can earn most of them by playing (it also has cosmetic lootbox). Rank system will be highly argumentative, of course. Rank is supposed to be a summary of all information, so it can be misleading. It’s always better to read whole microTX wiki. 5- It has to be updated regularly otherwise it will die. Game devs often update their game to include microTX as many games are early access games. Each game’s wiki have to show when the wiki was last updated. 6- It may have a subreddit or forum so people can express their own microTX feedback for games. 7 The wiki should be properly searchable by tags/factors. It should even be searchable by developer or publisher name. So if a user clicks on a publisher they can see all other games they have made and what type of monetization those games had. User can easily see if the company previously secretly changed XP gain to lure people to the game etc. For example- Many company sells pre-order exlcusives 1 year after release, this can indicate that in future they will do this again, so better to be patient. 8 The website may have a section for comparison and recommendation. B It should show prices of microTX compared to previous games of the same franchise. Some game sells microTX items which were free in previous games in franchise. Solitaire was free for 3 decades then Microsoft released subscription based Solitaire for Windows 10, priced 10$ yearly. Minesweeper is also subscription based now, both games have advertisement based free to play versions. Call of duty black ops 4 sells red dot on screen for 1$, previously things like this were free in call of duty franchise. C Some remastered games have paid DLCs which were free DLCs in original game. Wiki will compare prices of original and remastered DLCs/microTX. For example Modern warfare remastered was a DLC of infinite warfare. Remastered had it’s own DLC which was priced at 15$, which is 5$ more than the original DLC for call of duty 4. D The wiki may have a recommendation system, when you are browsing a first person shooter which promotes lootboxes by showing your lootbox purchases in multiplayer lobby, the wiki will show other fps games coming out this year which doesn’t have lootboxes. E How differently does the microTX/currency system work compared to other games/previous games? For example- Destiny 1 and 2 microTX works completely differently. Destiny 2 cosmetics are almost always one time use. This led to people losing their money in the game. F The silliest example of microTX from the game and maybe the best example too.
[PSA] Updated - An Advanced Guide in the World of Trading
This is quite long, so if you find it easier feel free to read the guide here
Introduction
Hey guys, my name is Transfer also know as the_only_luke. After a long long time of gathering information I have finally decided it is time to release my new guide - a more in depth guide on how to trade in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Hopefully I will cover every possible aspect of the trading life, from entrepreneurial skills all the way on how not to get scammed. I will post my recommendations and simple ways in order to become a successful trader.
A little about me
My name is Luke and I have been trading for over 1 year. I have managed to turn over an enormous profit and continuing to do so . I'm 18 year of age and live in the UK. After a couple of weeks of playing CS:GO I quite liked it and bought my very first skin, an AK-47 Redline FT. I had no intention in trading it or making tons of profit (or even knew i could trade), I just wanted it to have a cooler ak. My friend introduced me to a betting site called csgolounge, that I found out (after a couple days) that you can trade on it. My first post was just a joke really, it was my ak redline for any m4 asiimov (BS/WW/FT). I then waited for over a week and eventually traded it for a m4 asiimov ww then traded the m4 for a gut safari mesh and traded all the way up to where I am now (feel free to check out my inv). I have previously made a basic guide on how to trade but finally I have got around to writing an in depth one. Some of you may know me for the team wallpapers I made on reddit:
If you have any questions feel free to comment below. If you would like to speak to me personally feel free to add me on steam (be sure to comment on my profile before adding me).
What is an Entrepreneur?
Let us begin with a definition "An entrepreneur is a person who sets up a business, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit" Some people think of entrepreneurs as people who are willing to take risks that other people are not. Others define them as people who start and build successful businesses. Taking the first of the two, the risk would be the money invested or the items that you have traded for. Taking the second of the two, success is measured by profit. Regardless of how you define an "entrepreneur," one thing is certain: becoming a successful entrepreneur isn't easy... and hopefully this guide will help increase your chances of success.
Entrepreneurial Skills
I am able to identify the skills I believe are necessary in order to become successful. You may not need all these skills, however the more you have probably the easier it will be to turn over a profit.
Resilience - The ability to weather the ups and downs of any business since it never goes exactly as expected. This skill enables a trader to keep going when the outlook is bleak.
Learn - Successful traders realise they don’t know everything and the market is constantly changing. They stay up to date on new systems, technology, and industry trends.
Risk - The ability to take risks, and make decisions when facts are uncertain.
Initiative - The power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do.
Management skills - The ability to manage time and people (both oneself and others) successfully.
Recognizing Opportunities - Do you recognize opportunities when they present themselves? Can you spot a trend? And are you able to create a plan to take advantage of the opportunities you identify?
Setting a Goal
Before entering the trading scene it would be a good idea to determine your goal. A goal is something that you hope to achieve by the end of trading. It could be a specific item or loadout, make money, or to just have fun and meet new people. No option is wrong, and no option is the best; it just comes down to you.
Common Websites
CSGOLounge - Although know for it's toxic community, csgolounge is undeniably the most popular website used for trading and betting.
csgo.exchange - An overall easy to use website to gather information about: float values, previous owners, phase, fade percentage (coming soon), and other search functions.
Steam Analyst - Loved by some, hated by other. Steam Analyst can be a great website for finding the average prices of items worth below the market cap ($400), a very useful feature for those new to trading. They have also recently added the ability to check float values of items.
CSGOZone - Another alternative website to check float values, inventory value and also fade percentage (work in progress)
CSGOStash - A useful website to view all the different skins.
SteamREP - The most useful of websites, SteamREP allows people to check if someone is a Scammer, it can also be used to: find someones csgolounge url, view historical data or their banned friends.
Reddit - Reached high tier items? This is the place to be. Home of the Big Traders, this is the place you will make big money.
Investment
First things first, we are going to need to determine an investment. An investment is an item that is purchased with the hope that it will generate income or appreciate in the future. In an economic sense, an investment is the purchase of goods that are not consumed today but are used in the future to create wealth. In finance, an investment is a monetary asset purchased with the idea that the asset will provide income in the future or appreciate and be sold at a higher price. Obviously the more money you invest the easier it will to generate a reasonable profit. If you are one of few people who were lucky to unbox something worth a lot then you can skip this step. Once you have decided how much you want to invest you will need to decide what you will buy with the money. You can buy keys for $2.1 from people using paypal, or you can just decide to buy a starting skin/knife.
Useful Definitions
Quicksell - Buying/Selling something lower than it's market price (cash or keys).
B/O or Buyout -The asking price that you would instantly trade your item for.
C/O or Current Offer -The best offer you have received for your item.
Pure - Price in Keys
SS - Screenshot
PS - Playside
BS -Backside
FN - Factory New
MW - Minimal Wear
FT - Field-Tested
WW - Well-Worn
BS - Battle-Scarred
Lowball - A very low offer.
Highball - When a seller prices his item ridiculously high.
Blue Gem - A Case Hardened knife with a lot of blue on it.
CH - Case Hardened
CW - Crimson Web
TT - Tiger Tooth
BTA - Better than average
WTA - Worse than average
Trading
Buying - A good way to begin making profit it to buy items at quicksell prices. Quicksell means buying something for less than it's market value. Try to avoid paying the market price for any item unless it is a particular pattern on a knife. Don’t be impatient and keep your cool. If a seller won’t negotiate, shop around for other sellers of the same items. Usually people will quicksell items if your offering in pure keys. To determine the price of an item in keys simply divide it's market value by the price of keys in currency. For example, if an AWP Asiimov FT costs £28 and keys cost £1.7 then the market price of an AWP would be 16.5 Keys. Selling - Try to sell your items around 1-5 keys more than you bought it for. Remember, if you attempt to sell for too much then you’re less likely to attract a buyer, especially if there’s a lot of the items you’re selling. If you struggle to sell an item reduce the selling price gradually down.
CSGOLounge
CS:GO Lounge is undeniably the most popular source for trading & betting. Setting Up First things first, we are going to have to log in. Csgolounge uses your steam login in order to gather your steamid, trade url, and current skins. To log in simply the "sign in through steam" button To check that you are logging into the correct website & not a phishing link, just look up at the url and if it begins with HTTPS and/or contains a little padlock icon then you will be signing in securely through steam. like so Once logged in, we will need to connect our "Steam Trade URL". We can do this by going to the "My Profile" tab and pressing "Steam Trade URL". We then need to copy & paste our Trade URL into the designated section and press "Add URL" Let's Begin Trading Now that we have logged in it's time to begin trading. First we will need to choose an item we want to trade and then find items we want. We can do this simply by searching for items worth a little more than the market price of the item we want to trade. In this tutorial I will be trading my USP-S Orion FN ST. To quickly check the value of an item I would recommend Steam Inventory Helper. It allows you to check the price of your item, or anyone else's directly from the inventory section. Looking at the USP we can see it is worth £49.86 and I have used a Key worth £1.70 as a vector. A vector shows how much an item is worth in terms of another. By pressing the price, Steam Inventory Helper will link you to the item's steam market page. Here we can view the Sales Graph in order to determine whether or not our item is stable. Taking a look at the graph we can see that our item has a steady price ranging between £45-£50. It is worth noting that stattrak items, and BS/WW items usually have an unstable price due to their demand being lower than their better wears. We then have to find items that we would like to trade our USP for. We can do this by ordering the csgo market by the lowest price and finding the USP in the list. An easy way to change the page is to edit the url. Simply change the "1" in "p1" to a higher number. Once we have found the USP we just need to simply pick items worth a slightly higher amount Now that we have found the items we want, we can head back over to csgolounge. By pressing the "Add Trade" tab we can now select our item and use the search bar on the right to find the items we want. As you can see I have added a description to my trade. I have stated my B/O. Different people have different ways to determine their B/O, I tend to look at the market price and take a key or two away. In order to see the price of the items, I am using an add on called Lounge Destroyer Remember to bump your trades every 30 minutes or donate to csgolounge to unlock autobump (recommended) Searching Now that we have posted our trade(s) we can search for the items we want an offer people our item. Simply press the "Search" tab and select an item you are looking for, then press search and you will find people looking to trade their item. For a more specific search you can also add your item to find people looking to trade for your item.
Quickselling
There is a lot of miscommunication with the term "quickselling" and hopefully I will try to clear it up. Most people believe a quicksell is determined by how low an item is priced below market price, usually believed to be 85%. If i reduce the price of an item enough so that demand will rise, then I am quickselling. You don't need to make something 85% to be a quicksell, aslong as it is below the price that the usual consumer is usually willing to pay then it will sell very fast. A good example is the AWP Asiimov FT, a very popular weapon. The AWP costs £29 and keys cost £1.7 then the market price of an AWP would be 16.5 Keys, however the usual asking price is 16k since that is the price the consumers are willing to pay. If someone were to sell the AWP for any lower then it will more than likely sell instantly. Search up Price Elasticity if you want some more details.
Patience
When trading don't get attached to an item, always make profit. Constantly check market for fluctuations in prices that you can take advantage of. Patience, patience & more patience don't worry about having the same item for almost a week, good things come to those who wait. What really makes or breaks a trader is how long he is willing to wait for a deal. Some items may take time to sell, and that’s the hard truth.
Reputation
"Your reputation is vital for trading. Maybe not so much when you’re starting up but an absolute necessity when trading for higher value items. Don’t be afraid to ask for ‘+rep’ when you’ve completed a trade. Bear this in mind for the future if you’re starting out. Experienced traders will know this only too well. Be polite with fellow traders and stay on good terms regardless of the outcome of your trade. You never know if might meet the trader again and good friends are a major advantage when it comes to trading. Build up your reputation on your Steam Profile page comment section." copiedfromthistf2guide
Common Scams & How to Stay Safe
Scams A scam is when a Steam user convinces another user to make a deal (trade, gift or market transaction) under false pretenses. Scams usually involve deception in order to convince a user that they are getting a good or fair deal when in fact they are not. For more information on scams read the Steam Scam FAQ The most Common Scams are:
Phishing Bots
Paypal/Steam Wallet Scams
Impersonation Scams
Trade Offer Scams
Easiest Ways to Avoid Getting Scammed
Ignore pressure and do not rush the trade. A common tactic by scammers is to force you to trade quickly so they can change items/gifts in the trade without you noticing.
Ignore pressure to trust the other user. If you are trading with a user who insists that you trust them, they are probably attempting to scam you. Please note that +Rep comments can be generated easily by malicious groups.
Mouse over every item to ensure that the item/gift properties are correct. Information about the item/gift will be stated here including the quality, name, description and any effects. Pay attention to the trade log while making the trade. All changes, additions, removals and actions will be recorded in this box. You may also use it to communicate with the trader.
Do not trade items outside of the trade window. If another user requests that you do, they will likely scam you. Always insist to trade within the trade window in Steam. Wallet credit and money cannot be traded or added to the trade window.
Ensure that you are trading with the correct user. Scammers may try to impersonate your friends and other trusted traders. It is your responsibility to know who you are trading with.
You can check if someone is a marked scammer on SteamREP
Stay Safe
How to avoid Phishing Bots When someone adds you you should check their profile is private, or if they have CSGO installed. If the profile is private, level between 0 to 3, or if it doesn't have CSGO, they are most probably a bot trying to steal your items and you should ignore/block it. These bots will usually send phishing links or try to get you to play in a tournament with them. Steam Inventory Helper has an awesome feature to ignore/block invites below a certain level Voice Comm Software / Join Our Tournament Team (Malware) A user convinces you to install malware hidden in a voice communication, anti-cheat, or other type of software by claiming that they need you to install it so that you can play in a tournament. Fake Steam Website (Malware) A user wants to trade with you or wants you to be on their competitive team and sends you a link to a website that looks just like Steam. After you log in (providing the hijacker with your login name and password), you are either prompted to install malware disguised as a Steam update or malware is automatically installed onto your computer. Like previously stated, to check that you are logging into the correct website & not a phishing link, just look up at the url and if it begins with HTTPS and/or contains a little padlock icon then you will be signing in securely through steam. like so Paypal/Steam Wallet Scams Bots offer "Steam Wallet" funds for your items via a trade offer. There is no possible way to transfer Steam Wallet Money between users and this is 100% a scam. Secure your Steam Account "Ensure you have a strong complicated password securing your Steam Account and ensure it’s Steam Guard Enabled. Check your Steam Account Settings. An additional safeguard is to use an alternate email account from your day to day personal email. Create a new email account if necessary for use with your Steam Account and keep it private. Don’t use your real name or your gaming nickname for this account and again ensure you use a strong complicated password. Do not make this email address public especially within your Steam Profile or other gaming forums. In many cases hackers gain access to the email account associated with the Steam Account to change the account password so keeping your email account secret and secure is vitally important." copiedfromthistf2guide If you suspect there is a problem with your Steam account contact Steam Support immediately.
High Tier Items & Float Values
Determining the value of an item worth more than the market max ($400) can be tricky and time consuming. Here are common ways you can determine the value of your item:
Get it Price Checked - A simple way to find an items price is to get it price checked. You can do this on Reddit. Price checking is not a very fast method but is good to gather information about an item from someone with previous knowledge
Primary Research - In order to find the price of an item you can search for what people are currently selling them for or have sold them for. You can use Reddit or CSGOLounge[csgolounge.com].
Ask a Friend - asking a friend who has more knowledge with trading can be a very fast way to gain the price of an item.
High Tier Knives tend to have special Patterns that can change the value drastically. A very useful guide would be this one created by titaniumsack
Float Values
The Float Value is a number, mostly in decimals but sometimes in percentages. This number is from 0-1 / 0%-100%. This number tells you how good your weapon looks, if it has many scratches or not.
Float
Wear
0.45 – 1.00
Battle-Scarred
0.37 – 0.45
Well-Worn
0.15 – 0.37
Field Tested
0.07 – 0.15
Minimal Wear
0.00 – 0.07
Factory New
The closer to 0 the better. A really useful website used by almost every single trader is csgoexchange. If used correctly you will be able to determine the float and phase of an item. You are also able to see previous owners of an item and locate specific float skins.
Screenshots
In order to advertise your item, you will need to take screenshots. Screenshots enable a buyer to see what the item looks like ingame. A growing fashion is the use of 4k Screenshots to show more detail in the images. You can take 4k screenshots with an Nvidia GPU by following these steps:
You can take 4k screenshots with an AMD GPU by following these steps:
STEP 1 - Start CRU
STEP 2 - Add a detailed resolution (note that the first detailed resolution will be your monitors standard resolution)
STEP 3 - Set timing to Automatic - Best for LCD (if you have an LCD of course)
STEP 4 - Enter your custom resolution and refresh rate
STEP 5 - Press OK
STEP 6 - Press OK again to apply your changes and exit CRU
STEP 7 - Reboot
And simply copy-paste the images onto photoshop or any other photo editing software and mess around with the lighting, vibrance, blur etc. Asofnowyoudie made an awesome guide how to work with photoshop here If you enjoyed the Guide then feel free to give it a Thumbs Up, Favourite & Share it with your friends. If you think I have missed anything, feel free to comment and I will try to add it in. Comes to just under 3,500 words sooo yeah if you read it all, give yourself a pat on the back. Transfer. EDIT: added more information about scam attemps EDIT 2: WOW, reddit gold?!?! What can I do with this stuff :O
best website to sell csgo skins for real money reddit video
Ask for money through paypal and post it on reddit or facebook. I know lots of people who sell skins on facebook. CPU: ... There are some new sites out that let you sell CSGO Skins for money. The best one right now is ... Is there a website to sell CS GO skins for real money. Theme . Day Theme (Default) Night Theme . These websites usually take around 5-10% commission per trade and are a much better option compared to opening cases or the steam market. Some of the best CSGO trading sites are csmoney, loot farm, and swap.gg. If you are looking to trade other games skins like Rust skins please check Rust Skins Trade Bots listing. Hey, so I'm planning to sell my knife + skins for actual cash money. I would like to know the best way to go about this. I have no knowledge on this stuff so if its obvious, sorry xD. CatSaysLol <3. EDIT: For everyone wondering, I have purchased a premium opskins account and put my knife up on there. :3 Ty all for the help Skins.Cash is a global market for instant in-game skins sales, providing immediate and secure cash-out to gamers worldwide.. A CS:GO player gets a unique chance to get all sorts of things. The drop system is designed to give every player some skins CSGO every week. Skinwallet is a mass-deposit website that allows you to sell CSGO skins in huge numbers in mere minutes. We are the highest paying website of that sort available on the market. To use Skinwallet you need to connect your Steam account and set your inventory to public visibility. Unlike marketplaces, these sites will buy skins that fit their criteria from you. The price will be lower than those on mutual trade market, but an instant cashout site is the best place to sell CSGO skins for real money fast. There are multiple sites that offer such services and Skinwallet is one of them. Here's the list of the Best Sites to Buy or Sell CS:GO Skins in 2021. They offer best prices, instant delivery and biggest selection of CSGO Skins to buy from. Looking to sell some items for real money via paypal/card, are there any legit sites that work? i've listed some items on bit skins but it's quite slow and also i'd lose too much value if i were to sell on bitskins (losing up to 50% value on some items) Marketplace, Instant Sell: CS.MONEY Visit CS.MONEY: 7%: 2% reduced commission if you add cs.money to your Steam profile name. 30% bonus if you top up cash (rather than skins or keys). Keys, Skins, Credit/Debit Cards, G2A Pay, Skrill, iDeal, QIWI, WebMoney, UnionPay: Keys, Skins: None (can only cash out skins) Trading Bot, Instant Sell
best website to sell csgo skins for real money reddit top