Steam trading cards / badges / whatever

mrcheez · 02-09-2019 3:25pm #1

I keep getting these "things" added to my inventory on Steam.

I don't care about them, but I clicked one out of curiosity and it says it's worth €5.

So, erm... firstly why is it worth anything (as in what value do people get from it), and secondly how easy is it to sell on and get my hands on the filthy €5?

AlmightyCushion · 02-09-2019 3:27pm

It's worth that because people are paying it on the marketplace. It's pretty easy to sell those cards but you won't get all of the money (Valve take a big cut) and the money is stored in your steam wallet.

mrcheez · 02-09-2019 4:10pm

Says I need to have bought something in past 7 days before I can sell anything... guess I'll have to wait a bit.

What exactly do people gain by buying them?

Skerries · 02-09-2019 4:13pm

I use a program to farm my Steam library for cards and then use an extension to sell the cards en mass
most of the time after Steam take their cut you are only getting on average 2-3 cent each so it is a slow process to get anything so with something like 10k items sold on the market I have just made about €600

Spear · 02-09-2019 4:15pm

mrcheez wrote: »

Says I need to have bought something in past 7 days before I can sell anything... guess I'll have to wait a bit.

What exactly do people gain by buying them?

The first and central aspect of these cards is to know that it's a scam, just not one direct at you.

Valve and the game publisher both get a cut of the card sale, 10%. And since it's a minimum cut of 1c, a card selling for 3c, actually gives two thirds of the trade to Valve/the game publisher.

So a constant slice of any money spent on these cards is being removed from the pool and into their pockets, just so you can have some needless shiny thing.

Equally some publishers have added cards, yet given their games away for free, since the cards generate more income than the sales. Though Valve did nuke some of the more blatant ones for this.

That said, use this to extract the cards:

https://github.com/JonasNilson/idle_master_extended/releases

and then sell them anyway. The money goes to your steam account and can be spent on anything else on Steam.

Just don't add any cash of your own.

mrcheez · 02-09-2019 4:39pm

Spear wrote: »

The first and central aspect of these cards is to know that it's a scam, just not one direct at you.

Valve and the game publisher both get a cut of the card sale, 10%. And since it's a minimum cut of 1c, a card selling for 3c, actually gives two thirds of the trade to Valve/the game publisher.

So a constant slice of any money spent on these cards is being removed from the pool and into their pockets, just so you can have some needless shiny thing.

Equally some publishers have added cards, yet given their games away for free, since the cards generate more income than the sales. Though Valve did nuke some of the more blatant ones for this.

That said, use this to extract the cards:

https://github.com/JonasNilson/idle_master_extended/releases

and then sell them anyway. The money goes to your steam account and can be spent on anything else on Steam.

Just don't add any cash of your own.

cheers, though I'm only really interested in selling the one that's worth €5.

All the others are just a few cent.

So the €5 one I should get roughly €4.50 in steam credit?

Spear · 02-09-2019 4:45pm

mrcheez wrote: »

cheers, though I'm only really interested in selling the one that's worth €5.

All the others are just a few cent.

So the €5 one I should get roughly €4.50 in steam credit?

€4, since 20% is paid in charges.

What is this item for €5 though? Be warned that the price it shows is the price of the last one to sell, which is no guarantee you'll receive that price.

K.O.Kiki · 03-09-2019 12:26pm

Spear wrote: »

€4, since 20% is paid in charges.

What is this item for €5 though? Be warned that the price it shows is the price of the last one to sell, which is no guarantee you'll receive that price.

It's probably a foil card.
Think I've got 2 of them over the years, a nice €8 in my wallet from them.

pawrick · 03-09-2019 1:34pm

some people just like collecting stuff and like to complete sets, same with people who collect anything really + they can show them off on their home page on steam.

mrcheez · 03-09-2019 3:42pm

pawrick wrote: »

some people just like collecting stuff and like to complete sets, same with people who collect anything really + they can show them off on their home page on steam.

I guess... just seems rather strange.

I can understand people wanting to collect achievements and show them off for their gaming prowess, but this is essentially the same as buying achievements.

Yes it's a "foil" one (the only difference I can see if that the background is a different colour).

I got it for a game I paid €1 for as part of a Humble Bundle collection, so win win.

Robert ninja · 03-09-2019 11:43pm

mrcheez wrote: »

I can understand people wanting to collect achievements and show them off for their gaming prowess

I'd rather content I can trade for monetary value than some 'achievements', half of which you can get with no effort or skill + many of them are boring, arbitrary or just grind/collection stuff.

If you don't sell every card you get you can use them to increase your steam friend list by crafting badges... I think. I believe this also slightly increases the trustworthiness of your account. I've done it a few times but I've never spent a single cent on the system with my own money. Just sell a bunch of cards or make them into 'gems' and then craft booster packs of things I actually cared about. At one time I even made it profitable when anime games' booster packs were selling way higher than their net gem investment value. I generally don't bother with the system anymore and it has needed a huge UI and UX overhaul for years now.

Canis Lupus · 04-09-2019 3:50am

Is it better or no different to wait for a steam sale to sell them?

Canis Lupus · 04-09-2019 4:00am

Skerries wrote: »

I use a program to farm my Steam library for cards and then use an extension to sell the cards en mass
most of the time after Steam take their cut you are only getting on average 2-3 cent each so it is a slow process to get anything so with something like 10k items sold on the market I have just made about €600

What extension to sell do you use?

mrcheez · 04-09-2019 10:22am

Robert ninja wrote: »

I'd rather content I can trade for monetary value than some 'achievements', half of which you can get with no effort or skill + many of them are boring, arbitrary or just grind/collection stuff.

nah I'm talking about the people that WANT them... I don't see the point.

Guy 1: "Hey look I've got 1000 cards!"

Guy 2: "Cool, you earn them playing games?"

Guy 1: "No... I bought em"

Guy 2: ...

Robert ninja wrote: »

If you don't sell every card you get you can use them to increase your steam friend list by crafting badges... I think. I believe this also slightly increases the trustworthiness of your account.

How does manipulating cards make your account more trustworthy?

Robert ninja · 04-09-2019 1:15pm

mrcheez wrote: »

nah I'm talking about the people that WANT them... I don't see the point.

I guess it's just a collection thing. Plenty of comparable hobbies and many of them require much more financial investment or effort. Personally I've only crafted badges for games that I had some fondness of and like the "title" they award. But again you can get many of them if you have a large steam library without spending a cent on them directly so someone proud of their collection may not be a simple money flex.

mrcheez wrote: »

How does manipulating cards make your account more trustworthy?

It shows investment into the account. Financially is the quickest route but having badges crafted consumes the tradable value back into the void and increases your steam rank. This is something not typically done with throw-away, scammer or spam accounts. Valve has had a really bad history with abuse and manipulation of their trading system and given much more monetary incentive to hijack accounts. So the more natural an account looks, someone crafting a few badges here and there along with game purchases increases the liklihood that they're probably just there to use steam legit and so the system will ease up on some of the many restrictions it puts on fresh or zero invested accounts in terms of trading and communication with other players. Most people probably don't know but you can't even send friend invites if you make a new account... at least last time I checked anyway. You can accept them, though.

Skerries · 05-09-2019 5:24pm

Canis Lupus wrote: »

What extension to sell do you use?

https://steaminventoryhelper.com/

Steam trading cards / badges / whatever

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