"The Steam Community Market has opened in beta today, allowing Steam users to buy and sell in-game items, Valve announced.

Players can now use Steam Wallet funds in the purchase and sale of in-game items. Sale items can be listed on the Community Market page or on players' personal inventories.

All buyers are subject to a Steam Transaction Fee totaling 15 percent of the purchase. The fee is collected to protect against payment fraud and cover Market development costs. Team Fortress 2 also employs a game-specific fee to be determined by Valve.

"With over a half million trades made every week, the trading system has been very successful," said Valve software engineer Tony Paloma in a press release. "Extending game economies beyond trades and giving players a way to turn gameplay into funds for new items and games is a key component for moving that success forward.""

http://www.polygon.com/2012/12/12/3759584/steam-community-market-beta-now-live-supports-team-fortress-2

They're going to extend this to their MMO I'm sure.

Originally posted by Kothoses
Valve have an mmo?  How did I not know about this?

No but you can buy MMO through Valve, and their intention is to include non-Valve games, which would include 3rd party MMO probably down the line.

Originally posted by Agoden
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but this kind of sounds like Diablo 3's real money auction house but en masse o.0

right

It’s an interesting idea I can see a lot of game developers (particularly self publishers and those outside of EA or Activision) taking advantage of. I see Valve taking a cut but how much of that would go back to the game developers to make this possible? It’s more money into the game industry and even back into player pockets but I want to see how this is used and by whom before really forming an opinion. Talk about a new in for gold and loot farmers...

Originally posted by Agoden
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but this kind of sounds like Diablo 3's real money auction house but en masse o.0

Except they didn't build a game around it.

Originally posted by BizkitNL

Originally posted by Agoden
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but this kind of sounds like Diablo 3's real money auction house but en masse o.0

Except they didn't build a game around it.

Agreed. I don't have any problem with having a structured way to buy/sell items in games for real money; I do have a problem with a game built in such a way where it is almost a necessity to purchase items through the RMT in order to progress and/or be competitive.

An inevitable byproduct of the F2P movement (which isn't just restricted to MMOs).

MMO generally ban any trading of money, accounts or in0game items... so this wont work with most MMOs as steam would be in breaking T&Cs of that game if they allowed that..

I assume this will be mainly for their games, and any company that want to sign up to it.

Originally posted by Crazy_Stick

It’s an interesting idea I can see a lot of game developers (particularly self publishers and those outside of EA or Activision) taking advantage of. I see Valve taking a cut but how much of that would go back to the game developers to make this possible? It’s more money into the game industry and even back into player pockets but I want to see how this is used and by whom before really forming an opinion. Talk about a new in for gold and loot farmers...

It's crazy how fast the online gaming culture has been changed in the last few years... wasn't so long ago that RMT like this was seen as the last refuge for the lame and lazy and pretty much against what it was even to play games.

Still, cannot attack Steam for exploiting the current mindset. The damage has been done already and they would gain nothing by not tapping into this kind of trade at this point.

In all honesty though, I pity the people that work in jobs they hate to earn real money to trade for pretend pixels in a game that they will never own. Just seems a poor deal to me.

If is makes money in a game you will see it soon near you. It does not matter about T&C they can be changed if need be. Gaming companies made a tool called a cash shop to make money. We said it did not belong in MMO's, how many MMO's now do not have a cash shop?

This RMT cash-shop will slowly come in and in a few years time every game will have it.

Originally posted by Caldrin

MMO generally ban any trading of money, accounts or in0game items... so this wont work with most MMOs as steam would be in breaking T&Cs of that game if they allowed that..

 

I assume this will be mainly for their games, and any company that want to sign up to it.

To be honest, MMO didn't like it because it bypassed their revenue stream. Many MMO have no issues with selling cash shop items or currency as long as it's through them. The issue was never about game integrity, the issue is that the gold traders were making money on their game and the game company didn't get a piece of the pie.

Originally posted by Caldrin

MMO generally ban any trading of money, accounts or in0game items... so this wont work with most MMOs as steam would be in breaking T&Cs of that game if they allowed that..

 

I assume this will be mainly for their games, and any company that want to sign up to it.

You could not be more wrong, this is a new thing sure and it will be a while before its potential will be realized (older games joining in)  but this is every f2p publishers wet dream.  a gaming platform were users can download the game using a external user/password management security system (no savety system development cost and no PR disasters whit hacks) were users can use forums and other media (they can drop their own forums and only need a basic website/social media maintenance cost) and users can buy all f2p items the publisher will put in the market ( at no cost for the publisher but 15% extra  cost for the buyer) coz there will undoubtedly be games were only publishers can use the market system to sell and not the general users.

Valve is quite smart at building their "little" empire of everyone can use our services at low cost. Everyone..that a lot of business and people.

MMORPGs + RMT = profit

Single-/Multiplayer-Games + RMT = profit (see Diablo3)

Valve made the logical conclusion:

Everything digital + RMT = profit

Time to buy valve stocks. Oh wait.

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by Caldrin

MMO generally ban any trading of money, accounts or in0game items... so this wont work with most MMOs as steam would be in breaking T&Cs of that game if they allowed that..

I assume this will be mainly for their games, and any company that want to sign up to it.

To be honest, MMO didn't like it because it bypassed their revenue stream. Many MMO have no issues with selling cash shop items or currency as long as it's through them. The issue was never about game integrity, the issue is that the gold traders were making money on their game and the game company didn't get a piece of the pie.

I would argue that once for many involved in the industry it actually was.

Sadly though, as MMORPGs broke the mainstream the general mindset tipped into what you describe.

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by Caldrin

MMO generally ban any trading of money, accounts or in0game items... so this wont work with most MMOs as steam would be in breaking T&Cs of that game if they allowed that..

I assume this will be mainly for their games, and any company that want to sign up to it.

To be honest, MMO didn't like it because it bypassed their revenue stream. Many MMO have no issues with selling cash shop items or currency as long as it's through them. The issue was never about game integrity, the issue is that the gold traders were making money on their game and the game company didn't get a piece of the pie.

 

I would argue that once for many involved in the industry it actually was.

Sadly though, as MMORPGs broke the mainstream the general mindset tipped into what you describe.

For the developers I agree, I know at least one EQ1 developer who's reason for leaving was partly motivated by the change in business model at SoE. For the company itself though, they really couldn't care less.

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by Caldrin

MMO generally ban any trading of money, accounts or in0game items... so this wont work with most MMOs as steam would be in breaking T&Cs of that game if they allowed that..

I assume this will be mainly for their games, and any company that want to sign up to it.

To be honest, MMO didn't like it because it bypassed their revenue stream. Many MMO have no issues with selling cash shop items or currency as long as it's through them. The issue was never about game integrity, the issue is that the gold traders were making money on their game and the game company didn't get a piece of the pie.

 I would argue that once for many involved in the industry it actually was.

Sadly though, as MMORPGs broke the mainstream the general mindset tipped into what you describe.

For the developers I agree, I know at least one EQ1 developer who's reason for leaving was partly motivated by the change in business model at SoE. For the company itself though, they really couldn't care less.

oh yeah, agreed for sure. Once Smed smelt the cash he wanted it all, game be damned, no argument.

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by Crazy_Stick

It’s an interesting idea I can see a lot of game developers (particularly self publishers and those outside of EA or Activision) taking advantage of. I see Valve taking a cut but how much of that would go back to the game developers to make this possible? It’s more money into the game industry and even back into player pockets but I want to see how this is used and by whom before really forming an opinion. Talk about a new in for gold and loot farmers...

 

It's crazy how fast the online gaming culture has been changed in the last few years... wasn't so long ago that RMT like this was seen as the last refuge for the lame and lazy and pretty much against what it was even to play games.

Then again, multiple accounts were once seen the same way.  When's the last time you saw a "multi-account cheaters rawr!" OP?

Ethics is a tricky business.  The sacred cows just get tipped one by one.

(Hmm, remind you of real society any?)

Originally posted by Caldrin

MMO generally ban any trading of money, accounts or in0game items... so this wont work with most MMOs as steam would be in breaking T&Cs of that game if they allowed that..

I assume this will be mainly for their games, and any company that want to sign up to it.

Steam wouldn't be violating anything if they are allowing the purchase of points or whatever the in-game virtual goods currency is.