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[kleril]

Seeing as there's no thread up for this, I thought I may as well start this.

For anyone who holds an interest in trading virtual goods, what do you think about steam's ecosystem?
I've been starting to get into trading as a hobby that brings in a couple bucks on the side, and it turns out it's quite a lot of fun. Figuring out the nuances of where profit can be made is a fun little puzzle that results in a steady drip of low-effort income. Trading cards provides a nice high-volume, high-turnover, low-profit setup.

A couple things I've yet to learn: How best to convert goods into scrap metal, and how best to liquidate funds from a steam wallet (i.e. convert to money that isn't locked into valve's infrastructure).

[Frumple]

Seeing as there's no thread up for this, I thought I may as well start this.

There's a few threads related to steam trading over in Other Games, actually. Looks like one specifically for card trading, then a couple of other ones. Probably be best to move th'thread over there.

[kleril]

This isn't meant to be a trading post thread, but more a higher-level discussion of the markets. After doing a few searches, it looks like this is the only thread trying to do this.

[WealthyRadish]

The trading cards and stuff seems pretty pointless to me. It's nice to get $0.50-1.00 back on each purchase, I guess. What really surprises me is that there's a market at all for them.

What seems interesting is the idea of inter-game trading. Not enough games have the kind of persistent inventory to make trading over Steam significant, but I could see it being common in future. I'd say an inventory system is preferable to level-based progression the majority of the time, but few genres really lend themselves to it.

[Neonivek]

Honestly unless there is a GAME to go along with the TRADING CARD or the TRADING CARD is particularly interesting... it is pointless

So is there a steam trading card game? no...

Are the cards particularly interesting? Heck no.

[kleril]

What seems interesting is the idea of inter-game trading. Not enough games have the kind of persistent inventory to make trading over Steam significant, but I could see it being common in future. I'd say an inventory system is preferable to level-based progression the majority of the time, but few genres really lend themselves to it.

It's a horribly underused aspect of steam, if you ask me. Back when Spiral Knights got support for trading, I was expecting everything to gain support. Ah well.

Honestly unless there is a GAME to go along with the TRADING CARD or the TRADING CARD is particularly interesting... it is pointless

So is there a steam trading card game? no...

Are the cards particularly interesting? Heck no.

The cards themselves are boring, but they've got value. The cards may not come with a neat little .exe to let you play with them, but the market itself is a game.

[Sonlirain]

I just realized... what if steam made a TCG out od steam cards?
It would be both cool and totally assinine.
Cool because hey it's a game made out od games and 10 tons of ass because a good card everyone seeks might be only included in a game like Bad Rats or even worse.
It would be one hell of a tool to "direct" sales by buffing/nerfing cards.

[kleril]

I'd say that's unlikely. The business behind steam trading cards is that Valve gets a cut of every transaction in the market. If they gave you a reason to hold onto specific cards (i.e. something along the lines of a TCG), that goes against their whole business model. Clearly what steam trading cards needs is a digital version of hot potato.