Page 11 • The CSGO gambling story • Gaming • General Gaming • Eurogamer.net

SomaticSense 14 Oct 2016 10:38:45 15,062 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 15 years ago

If the Marketplace were to get shut down as a result of all this (I doubt it will) , the chodes pulling these gambling frauds will be entirely to blame.

I've not forgotten what they did, and neither should anyone else. I'm still pretty fucking angry that they seem to be getting away with it with no reprisal. What they did was about as immoral as we've seen in the video sharing and game industries, and the only reason they aren't already deep in shit is due to outdated laws.

Rivuzu 14 Oct 2016 10:40:03 18,417 posts
Seen 18 hours ago
Registered 14 years ago

I'm honestly not emotionally invested enough in this to give enough of a care to read that diatribe Mek.

Why do you feel so obviously offended by the goings on?

Mekanik 14 Oct 2016 14:32:19 4,726 posts
Seen 6 days ago
Registered 16 years ago

If you do not want to read what I have written, or what the legal disputes are all about, or even research WHY this is even an issue, then you should spend your time elsewhere and stop posting in here acting like Letsgo.

Skirlasvoud 14 Oct 2016 14:37:51 4,039 posts
Seen 2 years ago
Registered 10 years ago

@Rivuzu Because the goings on are offensive to a decent society's values?

I know modern internet has a lot of moaners and people like you might have become cynical and jaded enough that nothing matters anymore, but I count youtube celebrities doing barrel rolls to siphon the pocket change out of underaged teenagers as one of those causes we should all still be worked up about to make the world a somewhat better place.

Mekanik 14 Oct 2016 14:37:53 4,726 posts
Seen 6 days ago
Registered 16 years ago

@SomaticSense I do agree shutting down the Marketplace is probably the final straw type of thing, but with Valve being headquartered in Washington and now being chased by some pretty powerful regulatory powers in the US (Washington no less) their easiest solution could be to just shut down the Marketplace.

They could just remove trade bots completely, which would not be such a big impact but it would have a massive effect on in game trading between players (effectively stop it completely).

Valve make a lot of money, not just from CSGO, via the marketplace. Team (and player) stickers are sold prior to big CSGO majors, and this sticker money (a % of at least) goes directly to support the organisations and players.

This could have a big impact on esports in general, certainly from Valve's POV.

All because some youtubers thought it would be cool to rip off people to line their pockets, and some people cant see what the big deal is about...

Edited by Mekanik at 14:39:22 14-10-2016

Rivuzu 14 Oct 2016 14:48:24 18,417 posts
Seen 18 hours ago
Registered 14 years ago

@Skirlasvoud Does society hinge upon a video game cosmetic resellers market then?

I'm absolutely down for those who exploited the system, and then acted dishonestly, to have actions brought against them in either fiscal, civil, criminal, etc depending on how the different gaming commissions take a view.

But "offensive to a decent society's values" is a bit of an over reach. As was Mek's soapbox rant previous page.

And I'm not going to play the blame game, but despite their actions I do not believe these people are the be all grand evil that they're made out to be. They were enabled by people and got carried away with it.

This wont affect esports either. The Marketplace is a RESELLERS market. People will still be able to buy stickers/skins for their teams directly from valve, they just can't resell them if the marketplace is killed.

Mekanik 14 Oct 2016 14:57:28 4,726 posts
Seen 6 days ago
Registered 16 years ago

I think you dont fully understand how the marketplace is used and why prices are what they are for items.

Lots of people buy items for trade, certainly all the high volume traders. Counting on prices increasing at later dates (eg. iBP stickers are worth $000's as the team does not exist, M4 Howl/AWP DLore are worth thousands due to rarity). If items are only available via Valve, with no resell possibility, the interest, and prices, of the items will drop.

Not bad for the casual player, not much use when the funds are used for other purposes (Valve's 15% cut, support for teams/players).

Mekanik 14 Oct 2016 14:58:53 4,726 posts
Seen 6 days ago
Registered 16 years ago

Also, that wasnt even remotely a rant. You dont want to read my rants.

Rivuzu 14 Oct 2016 15:05:23 18,417 posts
Seen 18 hours ago
Registered 14 years ago

And aren't those people the problem?

Valve created a locked RMT arena with the Marketplace by making it an enclosed system, with no cash out. It's not like you can send your Steam wallet funds to your Paypal wallet. The community reacted much like economies do, and created a substantially high demand for goods that in real life hold no weight or standard. These same communities went on to over inflate these goods, begin sales outside of Steam (being a breach of it's ToS in doing so), which a couple of people greedily thought they could game to their advantage.

I really don't give a toss for how much "worth" is attributed to a Dragonlore or whatever, or an Alpine Ursa set, or whatever other unicorn you want to throw my way - they're not real things. They are a licensed string of code that you do not own, but rather "hold" for as long as Valve allows.

Valve needs to do away with RMT, and potentially revisit how it handles cosmetics entirely in my opinion. It has become far too grey and complex an issue - not by their own actions, but by how other people have acted to make the most out of it.

brokenkey 14 Oct 2016 15:06:55 10,729 posts
Seen 9 hours ago
Registered 19 years ago

Valve could keep the market open an make all this nastiness go away by making it so that any credit earned from marketplace sales can't be used for buying Steam Gifts.

Rhaegyr 14 Oct 2016 15:08:57 5,310 posts
Seen 10 hours ago
Registered 9 years ago

Riv shitting on an issue he doesn't really care about?

Never seen that.

breakablepants 14 Oct 2016 15:13:53 1,099 posts
Seen 15 hours ago
Registered 6 years ago

Rhaegyr wrote:
Riv shitting on an issue he doesn't really care about?

Never seen that.

that made me laugh but I have to agree with Riv's last comment - the issue here is the ability to trade the items outside of the marketplace. Valve's defence of "it's not our fault, they were breaking the ToS" is such bollocks as they could easily make it a closed system with no real money transfer or value. Rarity would still give items cachet.

MrMattAdz 14 Oct 2016 15:14:16 3,671 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 7 years ago

Why does it matter what's being used as the trade item, what difference does it really make if it's plastic casino chip or if it's a cosmetic item in a game, it's still gambling involved. Yeah you can't withdraw the value of the skins directly from the site but you can trade it to someone who will in return give you money.

I don't think that the gambling itself is an issue, I think that the fact that it was unregulated and that people were lying to and deceiving people (with the target audience being kids) into using their sites is the big issue here. Even after being found out, they still lied and came up with excuses for not disclosing the fact that they literally owned the gambling website they were telling you to use. It's a massive breach of trust on a viewerbase made up of kids.

The only reason why you don't think that it's an issue is because it's to do with video games Rivuzu, you barely know what you're talking about but you think that it's all fine because it's just video games and the kids shouldn't be playing csgo anyway. If someone opened up a 'normal' gambling site without a license, didn't have any checks to prevent underage people from accessing the site, and actually encouraged kids to go on the site without disclosing that they owned it, then that person would most likely be in prison.

Edited by MrMattAdz at 15:17:24 14-10-2016

Mekanik 14 Oct 2016 15:15:48 4,726 posts
Seen 6 days ago
Registered 16 years ago

Rivuzu wrote:
And aren't those people the problem?

Which people? The players? The teams? Valve? Or the dodgy youtubers (amongst others) who chose to take advantage of Valve's attempts to provide the general player base with something cool (and a way for Valve to make money of course)?

Its against Valve's ToS. Yet, these rip off merchants chose to register their domains in places like Antigua, to avoid any legal ramifications. Their only mistake, was to allow people to log in from the US, where people are meant to be protected by properly regulated gambling.

Seriously, if you want to discuss this its fine, but at least do some reading up on the history of this gambling issue and the expected knock on effects it will have, legal and otherwise. The Richard Lewis channel I've linked multiple times has a LOT of the info and history, as he was one of the first (other than H3H3 productions) who broke this story.

brokenkey 6 Feb 2017 15:30:09 10,729 posts
Seen 9 hours ago
Registered 19 years ago

Here comes the smack....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38879969

breakablepants 6 Feb 2017 16:59:29 1,099 posts
Seen 15 hours ago
Registered 6 years ago

@brokenkey Interesting - let's see what the sentence is, and wether it's going to be significant enough to put other people off trying this kind of set-up.

the_milkybar_kid 7 Feb 2017 10:36:27 8,389 posts
Seen 1 day ago
Registered 7 years ago

To be honest, after seeing the replies on his twitter professing that they'll stand by him 'no matter what', the kids he's ripping off deserve everything they got. I can't remember being that gullible / impressionable at that age. Sad thing is, there's some twatty looking bearded, 20-something that clearly should know better saying the same thing.

Edit- and he's blocked me from telling him something similar. Not a bad morning's work.

Edited by the_milkybar_kid at 10:37:40 07-02-2017

Load_2.0 7 Feb 2017 10:55:50 32,507 posts
Seen 2 hours ago
Registered 18 years ago

I'm glad to see this.

It's misunderstood by people who don't see the scale of the damage done or the sheer deceitfulness.

Hopefully it won't be dismissed so readily moving forward.

Edited by Load_2.0 at 10:56:36 07-02-2017

the_milkybar_kid 7 Feb 2017 11:08:29 8,389 posts
Seen 1 day ago
Registered 7 years ago

I've reported several of his videos for child abuse. I don't expect anything to come of it, but I hope it makes the cunt's day that much harder.

SomaticSense 7 Feb 2017 11:59:46 15,062 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 15 years ago

the_milkybar_kid wrote:
To be honest, after seeing the replies on his twitter professing that they'll stand by him 'no matter what', the kids he's ripping off deserve everything they got. I can't remember being that gullible / impressionable at that age. Sad thing is, there's some twatty looking bearded, 20-something that clearly should know better saying the same thing.

Edit- and he's blocked me from telling him something similar. Not a bad morning's work.

It was the same kind of defense Tmartn and crew got. Blinkered young kids who can't see the damage being done. A mix of Stockholm Syndrome and moral naivety.

I guess those are the benefits you get when you target that kind of audience. It's on a totally different level obviously, but it seems to be similar to the same tribal emotions you see in videogame platform fanboyism, or defenders of the sportsmen and women who have done something reprehensible just because they represent their favoured team.

the_milkybar_kid 7 Feb 2017 12:12:11 8,389 posts
Seen 1 day ago
Registered 7 years ago

Yeah, that's the nature of the beast with having a following that young. But again my thought process when I was young, take Michael Jackson for example, when it started coming out in the news that he probably touched kids, that was sufficient enough information for me to think that it wasn't ok to send him letters saying that "I'm still with you bro".

Benno 7 Feb 2017 12:24:40 11,798 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 16 years ago

They just need to get rid of all these stupid micro-markets within video games, especially when they can be easily linked to real world dough. CSGO/LoL/Dota/BF etc are just an absolute mess with 'cargo' drops and cosmetics you can buy and trade etc. Its almost become bigger than the actual game itself. I just want to shoot people.

The CSGO gambling story • Page 11