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Valve reveals what games made the most money on Steam in 2024
(www.neowin.net)
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this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2024
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The dark open secret here is that counterstrike (and potentially dota) made the most money due to being used as a vehicle for gambling
And the dark non-secret is that them and basically all the other top-grossing multiplayer games on the list are there because gambling is also their primary source of income.
I know you mean the general gambling of loot boxes, but no, I meant, literal gambling on 3rd party s(h)ites. CS2 skin gambling. Which iirc most other games are not doing.
What is that?
Basically, Valve's game, Counter Strike sells cosmetics for the game. They can be bought from through in-game lootboxes (a form of gambling itself, but not what's being refrenced here) or, notably, from other players in an open market. Valve provides the infrastructure for managing this, but doesn't charge players for its use or otherwise moderate it. For a comparison, when NFTs were popular and people were saying it was already a solved problem with fewer issues, markets like what Valve set up for Counter-Strike cosmetics were the existing, non-blockchain version.
Ultimately, as this is an open market, with free trading, this has significant benifits and significant downsides. On one hand, I can buy hundreds of $0.02 skins to use in the game without every touching the $3 lootboxes, or can trade items with friends or other players. On the other hand, this is an largely unregulated market. Valve controls the "wallets" but doesn't have direct say over trade negotiations, and governments are either ignorant or intentionally looking away. This means scams, money launderers and illeagal or sketchy casinos can use Counter Strike Cosmetics as a currency or intermediary without having to fear oversight or law enforcement.
These casinos are the gambling being refered to here. Because they have have effectively no oversight, they can use every scheme in the book to abuse their players from rigging results, to ignoring normal casino legal payout rates, to advertising to children, to using bureaucracy to make receaving payouts as slow and difficult as possible. The casions advertise aggressively and are able to make millions and millions off this.
The reason Counter Strike, and to a lesser extent DotA benifit from this is because the items being used in this, are cosmetics in their games. As the only practical way to use these cosmetics (besides selling them) is in-game this encourages players to play the game. For example, if a player wins a jackpot in the casino, they might play a round of Counter Strike to show off their valuable new cosmetic item before the sell it. This adds to the games population and acts to advertising the costmetics in-game.
Thanks, I'm familiar with the lootbox mechanics in valve's games, but had no idea this kind of gambling existed...
Here's a good start https://youtu.be/v6jhjjVy5Ls