It's fascinating really. See, the funny thing is, people aren't spending real money to buy cards--they're spending the equivalent of Monopoly money. There's no real merchandise and no real money changing hands and yet, Steam is somehow making real money off the transactions.

A big clown hit me.

Don't panic!

I'm pretty sure that was John Wayne...

People are actually using real money to buy cards.

For example, you can sell cards your games have dropped and those funds are only added to your Steam Wallet. Then you can use those funds to buy games. But if you don't use the proceeds from selling cards to buy games, Steam does indeed make money off of you when you turn around and buy more cards. That's scenario one...

Scenario two is when you add real funds to your Steam Wallet and then use those real funds to buy cards. Steam makes money off of you directly instead of indirectly with scenario one.

Does that make sense?

The cat started talking back to me.

:)

There is a tax Steam charges whenever you sell something. That's when they make money. Whether you do something with the money you got or not, Steam already had their cut of the deal. Using that money any further means only more money to them.

This has shaken up what was a simple existential quandary I assure you.

long as you didnt eat the ice cream! o___o

Mostly harmless... :)

“The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

It really blows my mind this whole trading card phenomenon. I've got many friends who have used Steam for as long as 9 years or so who are completely and totally unaware of what the trading cards are, how they work, the marketplace, other items in the inventory etc. If they get any of that stuff while playing their games they're either oblivious that it's there or they just don't care. :) I had some friends over a couple of nights ago and was explaining how it all works to them and they were mind boggled about the whole concept and I got some statements like "WHYYYYYY?????" etc. :) I showed my buddy some special bayonette item for some game in the marketplace selling for $400 and he shook his head in disbelief thinking that was some kind of pretend game money. When I told him it was real US dollars his mouth literally opened and eyes bulged out in shock and disbelief. ;oP

I just experimented a slight bit with the sale promo cards and whatnot to understand how it works and to be eligible for the free game giveaways that Valve was doing, but other than that I don't care about any of that stuff personally. I took a bunch of the promo cards including some foil cards and just threw it all on the market and made about $15 for pretty much doing nothing. It seems like if you just sell all of the cards as soon as you get them on those promos you get the best price there is to offer as the price declines slowly the longer the promo goes on and doesn't raise back up much at the end. I also sold all the other emoticons and wallpaper and crap they give that's practically worthless.

It's kind of a bizarre thing to me, but if they want to drop that stuff in my account for free and I can turn around and sell it right away and make a few bucks to buy some deep discount games with in the future, I don't mind letting someone else's addiction to pixelated collector items fuel my game shelf growth. ;oP

Anyone want to buy a Football 2014 Steam background wallpaper thingie? I'll make you a really good deal! LOL



Perhaps the best evidence of that too, is DRM! ;oP

I'm trying to decode Sachy's posts because the Voynich manuscript looks too easy.

I'm here because I'm currently playing Advance Wars 2 on Game Boy SP and Mario Kart 7 on my 3DS and I'm afraid that adding a computer game to the mix will steal what little time I have left. :) That being said, I did get some cool stuff during the sale, so as soon as I am done with Advance Wars 2 I'll start something up on the PC! (Bravely Default is next in line on my 3DS.)