Counter-Strike Microtransactions Overwhelmed by Fraud.

[Princess Luna]

'Nearly All' Counter-Strike Microtransactions Are Being Used for Money Laundering

"Worldwide fraud networks have recently shifted to using CS:GO keys to liquidate their gains. At this point, nearly all key purchases that end up being traded or sold on the marketplace are believed to be fraud-sourced," VALVe says.

 

Quote

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players will no longer be able to trade container keys between accounts because the trade was part of a massive worldwide fraud network. Players earned cases in Counter-Strike containing weapons and cosmetic upgrades, but had to purchase the keys to open the boxes. Developer Valve runs an internal marketplace on Steam where it allowed players to trade the boxes and the keys. Valve patched the game on October 28 and explained the problem in its patch notes.

 

“In the past, most key trades we observed were between legitimate customers,” the statement said. “However, worldwide fraud networks have recently shifted to using CS:GO keys to liquidate their gains. At this point, nearly all key purchases that end up being traded or sold on the marketplace are believed to be fraud-sourced.”

 

This likely doesn't sound so surprising to some, we have had lots of stories about how VALVe's infrastructure could be used for sketchy practices, for instance Venezuela Organized Crime was said to be buying highly expensive skins as a form to save money in a way it wouldn't deteriorate due to the low value of the national currency and high inflation.

 

 What is surprising is VALVe themselves validate these findings and take such measures like making keys no longer be traded or transacted on the Steam Community Market.

 

Is this subject interesting? Give the Source a look and write down your thoughts!

 

[Leviathan-]

I'm not surprised. Dragon Lore Awp skins going for $600 in a game, come on now. 

[williamcll]

Well it should slow down the gambling as well.

[rcmaehl]

TF2 is gonna suffer the same fate, but also

When the key-conomy finally crashes due to Valve changes and your pile of buds is worth something again.

[jiyeon]

2 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

TF2 is gonna suffer the same fate, but also

Please God no. Not gonna lie when I, as a Team Fortress 2 player, am worried about the fate of Mann Co. Keys after the recent news of CSGO keys & crates.

[PlayStation 2]

The only reason I couldn't see this happening to Team Fortress 2 keys is simple: they aren't strictly used for trading on SCM. A lot of key trading happens for items within the game and Valve isn't stupid enough to make TF2 keys worthless.

[ravenshrike]

8 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

This likely doesn't sound so surprising to some, we have had lots of stories about how VALVe's infrastructure could be used for sketchy practices, for instance Venezuela Organized Crime was said to be buying highly expensive skins as a form to save money in a way it wouldn't deteriorate due to the low value of the national currency and high inflation.

Any citizen of Venezuela would have been smart to do that given the shitshow that is their government.

[Flying Sausages]

6 hours ago, Leviathan- said:

I'm not surprised. Dragon Lore Awp skins going for $600 in a game, come on now. 

You must be a rich person to spend $600 on a pixel item. Me over here struggle to afford a $60 game.

[jiyeon]

13 minutes ago, Tegos said:

Did TF2's economy ever recover from that crash due to exploits? If it did, I'm sure it can withstand anything else.

I believe it did, the Unusuals that were unboxed are now unmarketable and untradedable, so they're forever stuck in their owners' inventories.

 

The Mann Co. Key which is TF2's currency next to metals has raised in price considerably though. I recall it used to be less than 45 refined metal for a key, but as of recently, it's been as high as 53 refined metal for a key. When you convert metal to keys, this adds up a lot for the more high-end unusuals which cost hundreds of keys per cosmetic.

[Doobeedoo]

It's so ridiculous. To also think so many people care about skins in this game too. 

[CarlBar]

10 hours ago, Tegos said:

I always thought that a huge monolith of a company like Volvo would be able to stop these things from happening...

But given Steam's current quality control standards for games on their platform, I'm not 100% surprised

 

That would require the law enforcement connections to find out weather data associated with a given financial account is suspect and connections on the financials side to get said information. The sort of people doing this aren't stupid, (for the most part), they're not going to register themselves as McFraudsters'rUs, or anything similar. Without some kind of profiling data there's no way to pick them out from the crowd and the data on the actual fraudsters needed to do that isn't somthing a company like Valve can really get ready access to, and a lot of the most obvious information that would mark them as part of the fraudster crowd is doubtless obscured in such a way as to make it difficult for anyone but law enforcement to get their hands on.

[Herman Mcpootis]

10 hours ago, sowon said:

I believe it did, the Unusuals that were unboxed are now unmarketable and untradedable, so they're forever stuck in their owners' inventories.

 

The Mann Co. Key which is TF2's currency next to metals has raised in price considerably though. I recall it used to be less than 45 refined metal for a key, but as of recently, it's been as high as 53 refined metal for a key. When you convert metal to keys, this adds up a lot for the more high-end unusuals which cost hundreds of keys per cosmetic.

Pretty sure that's just the usual inflation for keys, they usually steadily rise in ref. Valve only made the first tradable so there's a lot less that are tradable now.