Where there is demand, there’s money ready to change hands. And boy is there a lot of money changing hands over Counter-Strike.
Mike Rose has a great piece up over on Gamasutra that looks at this scene, which at times can get a little shady.
There’s gambling, rorts, bots and addiction. Perhaps most interesting, though, is a common thread running through many of his responses from those involved in CS arms trading.
In all of this, it’s worth remembering that Valve is making a serious amount of cash through the marketplace. Multiple items are bought and sold every single second, and with the company’s 15 per cent take on each transaction, you have to wonder just how much money the marketplace is bringing in.
When I was talking to my various gunrunner sources, I asked each of them the question, “Who are the biggest arms dealers of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive?”
The most prominent answer I received back? “Valve.”
Lords of War: The gunrunners of Counter Strike: Global Offensive [Gamasutra]
Comments
2 responses to “Running Guns For Cash In Counter-Strike”
You could find/replace every mention of CS:GO with “TF2” or “DOTA” and it would have been identical to hundreds of articles already written (referring to the Gamasutra article here).
It’s not new at all, especially for Valve games, just new to CS. Not playing it myself, I wonder how the old (pre 1.6 etc) players are liking the hattifying of their game…
Yeah the market placr is good. Im waiting for my genuine robotic sandvitch to go up in price
to sell it. 80$ virtual sandwitch wtf.