[QUOTE=Blade Rx69;50666852]Where did you get this impromptu pricetag idea from? I've never seen evidence of Valve ballparking value of their virtual items. Yes, they have control over rarity. Rarity is essential to the existence of virtual economies. If everything was commonplace, the items would hold no value. What should determine rarity?
I see people saying that Valve should add regulations. What should these regulations be? What exactly do you want these regulations to accomplish? How will they enforce these regulations?
'Combat cancer' is incredibly vague and will take on many different meanings depending on who you ask. They can just say 'no more cancer allowed', but that won't do much at all.
How will they get rid of cancer? How do you determine if something is cancer? How many different types of cancer are there? How should each type be dealt with? How do you keep that cancer from coming back? How do you minimize impact to what is not cancer? How much will it cost to combat the cancer?[/QUOTE]
rarity=price. they control the pricetags because of the rarity. knives take an average of 200+ dollars to get through cases, so they are 200+ dollars on average if only because people will want their money back. the gambling is cancer, almost as much as betting (because of ddos'ing) because its in a grey area of legality, or illegal, and valve isnt doing anything about it.
[QUOTE=Makol;50666786]And so it begins, [URL]http://www.polygon.com/2016/7/7/12116902/csgo-lotto-and-owners-sued-over-illegal-gambling-allegations[/URL] only article I could find on this was Polygon.
Martin needs more dogs asap[/QUOTE]
ArsTechnica ran an article as well.
Edit: Oh, about the suing.
[QUOTE=Naught;50666034]valve does put an impromptu pricetag on skins because of rarity. if the rarity of knives, for instance, were the same as anything else, they wouldn't be nearly as expensive. but because of the rarities they put on everything, yes, they do make a ballpark pricetag on items, because they're making it so you have to open 100+ cases to get a knife in the first place (aka 250+ dollars) on average. valve is at fault because there arent any regulations in place, because they need to be putting in those regulations instead of sitting on their asses not doing anything whatsoever to combat this cancer growing in the community.[/QUOTE]
Rarity in and of itself doesn't give something value. Hence why some of the rarest skins are worth $5 (non-knives of course) and some are worth $4k+. So your assumption about "ballpark pricetags" doesn't hold up. It's the players making the pricetag, not Valve. Once CS:GO loses its players, so do the skins.
Valve is at fault because there aren't any regulations in place? How do they enforce these magical regulations?
Should they put a ESRB rating of M on their game? It has it.
Should they block these gambling sites from using their API? They can run without it.
Should they create obstacles to stop bots and gambling sites from high volume trading? They added 2 or 3 measures to hold items and stop scammers from quick trading but it's near impossible to implement these without harming the casual playerbase. Which it already is.
Should they ban all the bots/accounts holding all the skins invested into the gambling sites? Then the gamblers lose their money, not the gambling site.
Give an actual solution. Don't just point fingers at only Valve and pretend its only their problem. Laws need to be put in place so that Valve doesn't get sued by players trying to thwart the gambling.
Again, I'm not saying Valve isn't enjoying/profiting from this, but they have no solid solution that isn't temporary or harmful to the playerbase.
[QUOTE=Tacooo;50663849]He deleted it already...IT'S BEEN A DAY.
What a spineless twat[/QUOTE]
Due to the legal shit-hole this man has been digging himself by editing, deleting, and incessantly contradicting himself, I'd put good money (haha gambling) that the video was removed on the advice of a lawyer.
[QUOTE=RaxaHax;50667902]Due to the legal shit-hole this man has been digging himself by editing, deleting, and incessantly contradicting himself, I'd put good money (haha gambling) that the video was removed on the advice of a lawyer.[/QUOTE]
I'll put even more money on the idea that his lawyer is screaming at him to shut the fuck up.
Everytime he spouts more bullshit he only gives people more ammo to use against him.
[QUOTE=Solo Wing;50668035]I'll put even more money on the idea that his lawyer is screaming at him to shut the fuck up.[/QUOTE]
I did see something around earlier about his lawyer telling the press "no more public statements". If I can find the source I'll post it.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if there's more to this guy than just the CS:GO gambling shit. It's quite an underhanded industry, and I severely doubt that's all that's going on here. Are these guys actually counting the skins they sell towards their income and declaring it for example.
His lawyers are probably getting him to shut up so he can't incriminate himself any more than he already has.
[QUOTE=Naught;50666884]rarity=price. they control the pricetags because of the rarity. knives take an average of 200+ dollars to get through cases, so they are 200+ dollars on average if only because people will want their money back. the gambling is cancer, almost as much as betting (because of ddos'ing) because its in a grey area of legality, or illegal, and valve isnt doing anything about it.[/QUOTE]
[url=http://steamcommunity.com/market/search?q=&category_440_Type%5B%5D=any&category_440_Collection%5B%5D=tag_Invasion_collection_01&category_440_Quality%5B%5D=tag_Unique&category_440_Rarity%5B%5D=tag_Rarity_Ancient&appid=440]Two items with exactly the same rarity can have very different prices.[/url] Rarity has [i]influence[/i] on price. It does not dictate it. Valve cannot control what a person is willing to pay for an item.
People will DDOS whether or not there is profit. You can't stop people from DDOSing, but you can protect against it.
The legality of something does not always correspond with how ethical it is. I consider neither gambling nor betting, when done fairly, as unethical. They are simply games of chance. But I will agree that without proper oversight, these games can easily be rigged in various ways. In addition, some people are vulnerable to gambling addiction: they cannot resist the impulse to gamble despite severe consequences.
To rig a game or knowingly allow someone with a gambling addiction to gamble is unethical. These are what I would expect to be regulated. The question is: how?
Valve lacks the authority, reach, and manpower necessary to effectively regulate this international industry. Their attempts to police it would be about as effective as the war on drugs.
[QUOTE=hexpunK;50668078]I did see something around earlier about his lawyer telling the press "no more public statements". If I can find the source I'll post it.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Update: An attorney representing the CSGO Lotto site had this to say: "Given that there is litigation pending, no further public comments will be given on this matter. My comments will be contained in legal arguments to the court, at the appropriate time."[/QUOTE]
This?
[QUOTE=TreasoN.avi;50665538]Valve doesn't put a pricetag on the skins, the players do. Valve just says it's $2.50 to buy one.
About the keys, okay. You can call it slots, it certainly looks like it and plays like it. But there are so many other examples of the same thing. All of which has potential value from rarity. Some examples are the 25 cent gachapons, those mystery POP dolls, and even other games that have this same problem (just not at such a large scale).
Yes, it's a market that needs to be regulated. Though I don't see how Valve is at fault because there weren't any regulations already in place.
-These are not the first gambling sites to ever use virtual items with no regulation of age.
-The players give the skins their value, not Valve.
-The market needs to be regulated.
-The sites themselves are currently not illegal. (Arguable depending on which site and country I'm sure)
Now I wouldn't say Valve has nothing to do with it in the grand scheme of things. They clearly knew what they were doing once the skins started to pick up in price, but everyone is blaming them just because they don't know who else to blame.
I want to know some solid solutions people have for Valve to stop this. Instead of just saying "Don't let them use the API" since these sites would still exist with or without Valve's API.[/QUOTE]
it's like you have no idea that the availability and rarity of something dictates the price. look at oil, gold, diamonds. and in this case, the rarity is an artificial one literally imposed by valve. they control it.
it's also based on what the item does, and how it looks. two items of the same rarity, but one looks much nicer, or does better things, this also contributes to what people are willing to pay for it.
and don't forget. valve creates the items. they made one look better. they made one have better stats or whatever. they know exactly what they are doing. they're actually boosting the price of the better one by making the less 'cool' one.
TmarTn and ProSyndicate named in a lawsuit.
[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmzQp7LWYAAfVyl.jpg:large[/img]
[url=https://www.scribd.com/document/317712965/C-B-N-B-vs-Valve-Corporation-CSGO-Lotto-Trevor-Martin-and-Thomas-Cassell]C.B., On Behalf of Her Minor Son N.B., Individually And On Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated, vs VALVE CORPORATION, CSGOLOTTO INC.,TREVOR A. MARTIN, THOMAS CASSELL[/url]
,
Honestly everything is just a fucking parody of itself now I swear to god.
Fuck this kid, he's about the same age as me and has it all through petty shit like this. I only discovered this earlier due to TB's video (Which I thought was going to be about all that Keemstar bollocks, but turned out to be mostly about this) and I actually agreed with him on the point that these dudes should feel privileged that they are fairly young and are literally living a dream that many people wish to have. Youtube isn't necessarily my ultimate career path, and whilst I tried, as did many people to go through with the whole "lets play" phase; it led onto myself actually considering movie/video making as a viable career option given that I found its one of the few things I am genuinely passionate and have a slight talent for. That being said I just got my grades today for creative media production, in which I scored the highest grades in the class alongside 3 other people, mostly highlighting on film making and print production that tied in with social media and youtube content creation. Come september i'll be at uni studying film/television production.
My point is, really; theres a shit ton of us, slaving our asses off to get somewhere as far as this kid in a similar content creation pathway. as TB and H3H3 put it, this guy has shit tons of stuff that would seriously go well with a CV; and if the gambling site was actually monitored and safeguarded at first it would literally be a success for these guys, but nope.
I literally cringe at the bullshit he comes out with like "Its always been a passion of mine to create content". Your not making fucking content, you're literally advertising a fraudulent site in which you "coincidently" own. He does not deserve fuck all, and it really baffles me how anyone can still cling to this guy.
Im not going to prance about and say im not jelous, because to a degree I sure am, But I stick well and truly to my point that I have a right to be pissed and jealous of this kid. Some people really do not deserve the success they lead.
[sp] rant over, sorry for shitty post, its literally something that just makes my blood boil[/sp]
[editline]8th July 2016[/editline]
Also, just putting this out there. Youtube is literally flooded with shit like this, recent Keemstar controversy is the exact same. And there's plenty of other youtubers that have a similar, manipulative mannerism that I just find tatty and extremely blunt that it is all a "money over everything else" scenario. People really need to get their shit together and be professional about how they manage their content and publish.
[QUOTE=Snapster;50668415]TmarTn and ProSyndicate named in a lawsuit.
[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmzQp7LWYAAfVyl.jpg:large[/img]
[url=https://www.scribd.com/document/317712965/C-B-N-B-vs-Valve-Corporation-CSGO-Lotto-Trevor-Martin-and-Thomas-Cassell]C.B., On Behalf of Her Minor Son N.B., Individually And On Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated, vs VALVE CORPORATION, CSGOLOTTO INC.,TREVOR A. MARTIN, THOMAS CASSELL[/url]
,[/QUOTE]
What about JoshOG? He's one of the co-founders as well and did all the same shit they did.
[QUOTE=FlandersNed;50670370]What about JoshOG? He's one of the co-founders as well and did all the same shit they did.[/QUOTE]
I don't think he co-founded, I'm pretty sure he got equity as payment for his endorsement of the site.
[QUOTE=Rusty100;50668387]it's like you have no idea that the availability and rarity of something dictates the price. look at oil, gold, diamonds. and in this case, the rarity is an artificial one literally imposed by valve. they control it.[/QUOTE]
I don't think those are good examples to use in such an analogy. All of those items are rare, sure, but they actually have real purposes. Virtual skins are literally 3d models, you can simplify them down to the concept of just being pixels on a screen. Oil and gold have practical purposes and diamonds are unique and are still usable in other situations than just jewelry. Camouflages on guns don't have any purpose than to just be visually appealing.
[QUOTE=Rusty100;50668387]it's like you have no idea that the availability and rarity of something dictates the price. look at oil, gold, diamonds. [/QUOTE]
oil, gold, and diamonds all have functional purposes beyond aesthetics lmfao
of course they have value, admittedly for gold and diamond their primary high cost of said assets is because of purely aesthetic quality but even if people didn't like jewelry, gold and silver (high conductivity in regards to electronic current), or diamonds (their purpose as industrial tooling (used to coat sawblades and drillbits to allow them to cut through surfaces stronger than the base metal they're made out of)) they would still have inherent value to their target markets. virtual skins don't have any inherent value because they don't physically exist.
i would love to see tom cassell finally get taken out over this because hes such a smug piece of shit. this isn't the first shady deal he's been involved in.
right from the get go he was a lying piece of shit. i remember watching his nazi zombie videos back when black ops 1 came out, he claimed he was "the #1 zombies player in the world" despite being shit/average at it, and eventually being disproved by the leaderboards for the fucking game. the actually community for cod zombies hates this scumbag. he frequently used dumb terms such as "the syndicate rape train". he did breakdowns of the zombie trailers for maps coming out where he clearly showed how fucking stupid he is not being able to understand the difference between gameplay and a cinematic trailer. the one for callof the dead where the characters have their own weapons for the film they are shooting and cassell says "this looks epic, we're going to get to use akimbo sawn of shotguns and machetes and pitchforks".
his popularity exploded due to shoutouts and collabs with other cod youtubers. at this point he was using clickbait titles and thumbnails for all his videos as he was now partnered with machinima and making bank on ads. then as he started losing views he switched his game from cod zombies to minecraft lets plays just like everyone else at the time was doing. as his channel grew he started getting involved in dodgy business, in similar deals to this whole csgolotto scandal. he was involved in that recent drama where the artist made an intro for him:
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHt0NyFosPk[/media]
and apparently everyone has forgotten about this incident.
hes a fucking disgusting chav who managed to cheat his way to the top and exploit people to make a lot of money.
[QUOTE=t h e;50670797]I don't think those are good examples to use in such an analogy. All of those items are rare, sure, but they actually have real purposes. Virtual skins are literally 3d models, you can simplify them down to the concept of just being pixels on a screen. Oil and gold have practical purposes and diamonds are unique and are still usable in other situations than just jewelry. Camouflages on guns don't have any purpose than to just be visually appealing.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=MrBunneh;50670975]oil, gold, and diamonds all have functional purposes beyond aesthetics lmfao
of course they have value, admittedly for gold and diamond their primary high cost of said assets is because of purely aesthetic quality but even if people didn't like jewelry, gold and silver (high conductivity in regards to electronic current), or diamonds (their purpose as industrial tooling (used to coat sawblades and drillbits to allow them to cut through surfaces stronger than the base metal they're made out of)) they would still have inherent value to their target markets. virtual skins don't have any inherent value because they don't physically exist.[/QUOTE]
Jewellery is still a huge market regardless of gold and diamonds having practical purposes so I'm not sure why it matters. The quality of diamonds used for jewellery vs industry isn't the same so I don't think there's even an overlap there, those are two different markets (and gem-grade diamonds are way, way more expensive so really this has nothing to do with actual uses).
As for gold "the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry" according to Wikipedia, so again this isn't a market that's driven by industrial applications.
You guys using diamonds to try to discredit Rusty do know that diamonds are the epitome of artificial scarcity, right? Diamonds are not rare in the slightest, their rarity is created and controlled entirely by De Beers to make insane amounts of money. It's literally the exact same as weapon skins.
metaphors are lost on people when you compare a real item to a digital one apparently and like to argue the semantics instead of seeing the greater point
if you guys actually want a product that's price is over inflated in comparision to it's use/material value you should have picked printer ink :v: most expensive material in the world yall
tbh I'm not even sure why I've been arguing considering I don't like gambling and actually want these stupid csgo lotto sites to not exist, I guess I just liked the devils avacado.
[QUOTE=Rusty100;50668387]it's like you have no idea that the availability and rarity of something dictates the price. look at oil, gold, diamonds. and in this case, the rarity is an artificial one literally imposed by valve. they control it.
it's also based on what the item does, and how it looks. two items of the same rarity, but one looks much nicer, or does better things, this also contributes to what people are willing to pay for it.
and don't forget. valve creates the items. they made one look better. they made one have better stats or whatever. they know exactly what they are doing. they're actually boosting the price of the better one by making the less 'cool' one.[/QUOTE]
Are you daft? It's the law of Supply AND Demand. Not just supply. Nothing else needs to be said.
Also, the community votes for what skins they'd like to see from the workshop. They also have the exact same stats as default ones.
I'm curious if you even play CS:GO with the way you talk about how skins work.
[QUOTE=Blade Rx69;50668176][url=http://steamcommunity.com/market/search?q=&category_440_Type%5B%5D=any&category_440_Collection%5B%5D=tag_Invasion_collection_01&category_440_Quality%5B%5D=tag_Unique&category_440_Rarity%5B%5D=tag_Rarity_Ancient&appid=440]Two items with exactly the same rarity can have very different prices.[/url] Rarity has [i]influence[/i] on price. It does not dictate it. Valve cannot control what a person is willing to pay for an item.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=TreasoN.avi;50667105]Rarity in and of itself doesn't give something value. Hence why some of the rarest skins are worth $5 (non-knives of course) and some are worth $4k+. So your assumption about "ballpark pricetags" doesn't hold up. It's the players making the pricetag, not Valve. Once CS:GO loses its players, so do the skins.
[/QUOTE]
in csgo, rarity does dictate prices, because of the usage of weapons. in the game, there are 4 extremely popular weapons: the m4, the m4-s, the awp, and the ak. these are all going to have the most expensive skins, and the most skins, valve does this on purpose. the most expensive skins in the game are all going to belong to those weapons, and they know this.
[editline]9th July 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=TreasoN.avi;50676463]
Also, the community votes for what skins they'd like to see from the workshop.
[/QUOTE]
valve chooses the skins, ultimately. a skin might be voted up extremely high but might never make it into the game, while a skin that wasnt voted much at all can still make it into the game.
Is betting on matches like CSGO Lounge any different from, say, betting on horse races? To me it is not.
[QUOTE=TreasoN.avi;50676463]Are you daft? It's the law of Supply AND Demand. Not just supply. Nothing else needs to be said.
Also, the community votes for what skins they'd like to see from the workshop. They also have the exact same stats as default ones.
I'm curious if you even play CS:GO with the way you talk about how skins work.[/QUOTE]
:chillout:
not every rare skin is valuable, but if a skin is 50% likely to drop from a 2.50 key, noone in their right fuckin minds is gonna pay thousands for it
Edit:
wait Wrong h3h3 thread, ment to post it in another thread.
[url]https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1506818&p=50682717&viewfull=1#post50682717[/url]
[QUOTE=Wii60;50682681][t]http://i.imgur.com/SjTTgcp.jpg[/t]
video ver on snapchat[/QUOTE]
The cycle is complete.
Peace. Peace upon all mankind.
Rusty et. all, this thread is starting to become more or less an echo chamber when it comes to Valve and the opinions of how much they actually are liable for in this situation.
I think the bottom line is Valve has not broken any technicalities, but has definitely set a precedent going forward, and Valve's lawyers will have a way to work around everything when it comes to the illegal gambling situation. Steam bucks aren't technically real bucks, and their value is subject to how valve's terms of service define the value of steam bucks, your library, and your inventory, which as far as im aware is all subject to Valve's interpretation as you don't technically own your games, etc etc. However, and this is the big thing, someone mentioned that Valve has a limit on who can play CS:GO due to it's rating. It's actually one of the few Valve games that doesn't have a rating. [URL="http://www.esrb.org/ratings/Synopsis.aspx?Certificate=100491&Title=Counter-Strike%3a+Global+Offensive"]The ESRB only has a rating for the console version,[/URL] and the age gate that shows up for some games on steam doesn't show up for CS:GO. And since it is possible to purchase stuff via Steam Cards which are all ages, unless there's a thing hidden in the terms of service that disallows usage of the marketplace under 18+, you'd have a case.
HOWEVER, going back to the echo chamber, Valve doesn't assign value to the guns. you can preach all you want about how Valve controls the market by rarities, but Valve has constantly said that any payments for guns outside of the Steam Marketplace is strictly on the terms of the end user, and Valve has no involvement with trades like that (which is why support will almost never give you back your skins if a trade goes bad.) Valve is not required by law to control those kinds of deals, and furthermore has fought against them as much as they can. The whole rarity thing is completely controlled by the end user and the whole crate system has no value put into it. The ONLY way you'd have a case then is via Steam Bucks, but again the value of those are suspect because even though they use dollar amounts, they aren't technically USD as they cannot be exchanged back for cash. there is nothing on steam you can purchase that you can later exchange for cash EXCEPT the few physical trinkets like the steam controller.
valve has a legal excuse around every corner due to the value being determined pretty much by the end user. it's all technicalities but the fact still remains this is pretty fucked up and it was stupid of Valve to let this happen.
now the youtubers in question [I]have[/I] broken laws for a. non-disclosure of association with the company and b. having a website that minors are legally allowed to access that allows them to gamble. if they had set up their site so that it was 18+ from the start, they would be in the clear of that charge, since even though they marketed it to children, they wouldn't be allowing children to access that website (similar to how underage kids are able look at porn and shit like that on the internet, but the legality of it falls on the children and parents since they usually have the warning for people under 18. liability is transferred to the end user after that button is clicked.) again, it's a technicality but it's how all of these shitty economies run on the internet, and if you were to remove one you'd end up fucking everything up. i mean, it'd be really cool if we got rid of the corrupt porn industry, the corrupt e-gambling and gambling industries, etc etc. but if you do that, you end up with prohibition-era bullshit, except on the internet and more widespread than ever. it'd be absolute chaos.
there's no good answer to any of this until the federal government steps in and says something about it. we're stuck here until the government takes a stand over this case, and i'm hoping this case goes far enough where it actually makes a difference. [URL="http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2016/07/08/the-counter-strike-go-gambling-scandal-is-beyond-contempt/#c9ce55961ad5"]hell, it made it to forbes so we'll see.[/URL] but until then, it's way too early to play pretend lawyer.
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