Critically, Valve allows you to trade items. This results in a couple of downstream effects:
1. Items have real-world value because they can be traded for money outside of Steam. Multiple sites exist for people to convert items into real-world money (certain rare items have been sold for >$1m [0]).
2. As these items have value, they can serve as a surrogate for money in casinos, or for sports betting.
3. This can even lead to money laundering [1].
As such, skins should be considered money, but the sites running these services don't. Therefore, it is trivial for a child to walk into a game store, buy Steam credit, use that credit to buy skins, and then spend that money on literal gambling (as very few sites have KYC). I know because I've actively partaken in it as a child. Even cryptocurrency is harder: most legitimate exchanges attempt to do identity validation.
Some video resources that might be useful:
- Coffeezilla: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13eiDhuvM6Y
- People Make Games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMmNy11Mn7g
[0]: https://www.ign.com/articles/counter-strike-skin-sells-for-o...
Edit: this is a genuine question. What is the solution here?
The problem is, if you can no longer cash out the items for real money, they’re going to lose a lot (>95% I’d guess) of their value. Nobody wants $25k of steam wallet money, they want $25k, period. This would be terrible for valve, since it would severely diminish the value of all items (thus diminishing their cut of every on-platform sale), as well as cut the demand for unboxings (which they of course also make a cut on). Valve obviously cares more about their money printer than the fact that it facilities children gambling, so they do nothing.
It’s pretty easy to see why they allow this. They made over a billion dollars in 2023 on unboxings alone, ignoring the sale/trade fees. I doubt anything will change without a major US lawsuit, which I doubt will come any time soon if it hasn’t already.
Valve's enforcement was one round of C&Ds in 2016 (!), and then some technical measures [0] in 2024. For Valve to take heed the problem, they literally had to have a stage invasion at their esport event [1].
[0]: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/730/view/41856069942...
[1]: https://internettalk.xyz/blog/cults-vendettas-gambling-how-a... - article I published, Coffeezilla also has a video on this event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q58dLWjRTBE
You can wrangle that with words in any way you want, its gambling. Same for Team Fortress 2 and stuff like hats.
Most current monetization for cosmetics allows you to both (1) grind for items without paying anything and (2) if you want to pay, show you exactly what you are paying for.
Even games that still use lootboxes (i.e. don't follow #2) allow you to grind for items.
CS is one of the very few (or only current) game where you can't get a cosmetic without paying (must purchase keys to open lootboxes) and you don't know what you are getting (lootboxes).
It's bad and there is no excuse.
The trading mechanic, which adds a real world value to these cosmetics, and encourages players to pay for lootboxes makes it worse.
People sometimes hate on popular games like Fortnite and COD, but they have way better/more fair monetization practices.
You get dropped items through playtime which you can sell on the community market to gain steam wallet funds, which you can then use to purchase most other cosmetics or even games.