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[Jar of Jam]

Anyone with a general grasp of (financial) markets willing to speculate what will happen to the Trading Card prices in the near future ?

[Lectorog]

UP UP UP

I have a theoretic degree in marketing.

[Grakelin]

Economics 101 tells me that as more cards are produced and placed on the market, the price will continue to go down. But cards that can't be gained anymore will go up in price. The risk is that it's a fad, and fads die.

[Lectorog]

Economics 101 tells me that as more cards are produced and placed on the market, the price will continue to go down. But cards that can't be gained anymore will go up in price. The risk is that it's a fad, and fads die.

I don't see this fad dying anytime soon, unless Valve ends it for some reason. They get money from each marketplace transaction, which makes me believe they'll keep pushing the cards, adding them to as many games as they reasonably can as well as making them staples of seasonal sales.

Most cards will also hit an upper price limit where they stop selling. I don't see people paying $50 for a Steam Summer Sale 2013 foil card even in a card-popular 2015 where that's the lowest price.

I completely agree with everything else.

[Neonivek]

Honestly I still wish this was a trading card game.

That would have been outright epic. Trading cards of a multitude of games with strategies unfolding depending on the game.

[Greiger]

I play the TF2 Medic riding on the back of a Mount and Blade charger in defense mode in the terraria mushroom forest.

My defenses are astronomical, your silly G-Man can never defeat me!

[hemmingjay]

It's not in my best interest but here it is anyway. These are series 1 cards. Ideally, in about 2-4 weeks they will move on to series 2 and series 1 will no longer be attainable, thereby increasing their value. Also, when people use their cards to create badges, it should lower the number of cards in play, once again increasing the value. The problem is Valve doesn't really know how they want to handle it right now. They say that additional drops are locked until others craft badges, etc, to control the number of cards in play but that is being tweaked behind the scenes. The summer sale cards will be mostly worthless after the sale ends. Foils are probably going to end up carrying a $0.50 or so premium over their normal counterpart unless Valve seriously changes the rewards for crafting with foils.

This is speculative economics at best. I have been buying cards at 14-19 cents and foils that are under 0.75 because I have some money to play with and speculate. I am doing it as a hobby since there is no fast or easy way to sell a lot of cards and hence the profits are not going to be worth my time in any circumstances. Honestly, buying the cards in this current market isn't worth my time considering how many tries it takes to buy a card unless I overpay .03 over lowest market price. It's a headache.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Still trying to off load a KSP, a Football Manager, a Tomb Raider, and a Reus. Looking for a Bioshock, a Skyrim, and a Torchlight.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I find steam trading cards hilariously ridiculous, the fact that people would spend any amount of money on DIGITAL CARDS, things that normally have no value and now exist in a way so that there is no actual physical entity, boggles my mind. But whatever, I've decided to sell all of my cards for 400 dollars, which is apparently the max limit, I wanted to do one thousand, but I guess that was deemed too much!

[Jar of Jam]

Thanks for your detailed analysis, hemmingjay! I would argue that unless Steam blocks the ability to craft the Summer Badge, it'll still be good for getting experience and bonuses that go with crafting badges.

[Lectorog]

I find steam games hilariously ridiculous, the fact that people would spend any amount of money on DIGITAL GAMES, things that normally have no value and now exist in a way so that there is no actual physical entity, boggles my mind.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

well played sir, well played indeed.

[Rolan7]

Thanks for your detailed analysis, hemmingjay! I would argue that unless Steam blocks the ability to craft the Summer Badge, it'll still be good for getting experience and bonuses that go with crafting badges.

The Summer Getaway FAQ does say:

Will I be able to craft the Summer Getaway badge after the sale?

Yes, you’ll be able to collect the cards and craft the badge after the sale, but only with cards that have already dropped. When the sale ends, there will be no new Summer Getaway card drops.

As for the worth of the cards: Meh.  I'm selling most of my cards, but using those steambux to purchase cards for games that I feel strongly about (and craft the badges).  I'm essentially spending money on this frivolity, yeah, but it's a small amount of non-redeemable dollars and it's fun to do it with friends.

[Itnetlolor]

Before I decide to sell my spares, I have at least 1 of every card except for Kerbal and Tomb Raider for the Summer Sale. (8 of 10)

Ones I have more than 1 of are: (Up to date)
2x Chivalry
2x Reus
2x Skyrim
2x Torchlight II

Ones I need:
Kerbal Space Program
Tomb Raider

Anyone needs those, I'm open to trading them.


UPDATE:
Sold one of my 3x each. Now 2x on both Skyrim and Torchlight II. I figure I might as well sell/buy market trade.

-1x Skyrim
-1x Torchlight II

EDIT:
It appears buying cards from the market is a whole lot harder than I thought. Either because I have a slower connection than the rest of the market, or people have bots working for them to auto-trade in miliseconds. Kinda reminds me of a plot in Ghost in the Shell where some major investment banker guy made such a program to work the stock market so well, he made millions even post-mortem to the point the public never even noticed he died in the first place (even Section 9 were surprised to see that they were after a dead guy (at least a good few weeks or months already decomposed when they found him in his bed), and the program was still running in full-force playing the system like an elite composer, making millions of yen in minutes.

But yeah, just as immediately as something pops up, I have literally less than a second (more like less than 500ms from how ridiculously fast I see them die at my fastest human speed) to click on the item, accept an agreement (no keyboard shortcut for that, like tab-space to check it off), and hit the buy button. The items are even sold on reload of the page. People must have bots, or at least one hell of a cooperative connection that runs at absurd speeds.

EDIT EDIT:
I think I found my problem. We're at peak connection time, so my chances are less than a quarter-second (approx. <250ms) or less than even that to succeed (and I'm getting approx. 1500ms-5000ms (my connection sucks) per reload, provided it even connects). Maybe when traffic eases up, I might have 750ms or better, and that's me being optimistic.

Considering my frustration with this, I'm glad I never took up such a hobby of collecting (at least things where money is involved). Things that you earned legitimately and require skill, those things I actually hold pride for.

Spoiler: My quickest Speedtest results (click to show/hide)

Many other scans were less than 2Mbps. I think the NSA latched onto my network like a facehugger, since the upload was many times higher than the download every other time; and at speeds I've never seen my network go before (well over 15 Mbps one time, whereas my download was less than 1. That's quite ph/fishy.). That, or my internet service provider sucks.

And now I definitely know my ISP is schizophrenic, or I'm being watched like a hawk:
Most recent:

Previous:


Most consistently, my upload rate has been the same, or better.

Other sites and servers are giving me a DL/UL ratio of 1:10. I'm wondering where the white unmarked vans and black SUVs are hiding (Always one or the other; I mean, they stick out like sore thumbs, they're so commonly used by such shady people. It's practically a trope.), and why I haven't been nabbed yet; or why there'd be any interest in useless/worthless old me (my "low profile" is my everyday lifestyle). I mean, my social status is utter crap. I have zero influence. I should not be of any value. I guess I can give them the run of their money and be annoying as all hell then and make them wonder what the hell they're dealing with. I need pranks that are within legal limitations, that can give them (FBI/NSA/CIA) complete hell, and get them off my back since they would conclude that they're not being paid enough to keep watch on me.

EDIT EDIT:
Paranoia fixer: Restart the damn Wifi unit once in awhile.

[Meta]

As for the worth of the cards: Meh.  I'm selling most of my cards, but using those steambux to purchase cards for games that I feel strongly about (and craft the badges).  I'm essentially spending money on this frivolity, yeah, but it's a small amount of non-redeemable dollars and it's fun to do it with friends.

I'm also doing this. Using the bucks I gain from selling cards from my other games, I buy cards and craft badges for games I care about, usually indies. And yes, I'm just doing all of this for some neat-looking sprites that I can apply in chat and on my profile.

At least, the trading cards got me to try and play some games of my library that I had forgotten about , like TF2, L4D2, Shogun2, SR3, etc...