You do realise that every time you sell something on the market valve gets a cut of the price payed right? So every time an item is sold the amount of credit that exists on steam goes down by a little, and the only way for that amount to go back up is by adding funds to steam, which costs real money.
The market is just a very clever, and kinda overly complicated, way of preventing funds from building up and insentivizing people to spend more. Sounds very capitalistic to me.
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Yes I know. But with this sale steam gave a lot to themselves(like you say) and a lot to the poor. The rich who paid the most into the steamsystem are the loser. There are a lot socialist(and other) systems in history which destroyed themselves on this way.
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The way steam works is a bit more indirect that traditional economics, they basically applied game logic to the whole market and social interactions inside the platform.
They learned from their years generating perceived value by introducing cosmetic items into their games that you can hook players into spending more money when they feel like their accounts have intrinsic value intead of seeing them as a collection of licenses that grant you access to the games and content you payed for. They know they can even motivate consumers to spend money on things they won't use, ever, as long as they pull certain psycological strings.
I don't think I'm capacited to explain this properly nor I'm sure that I actually understand it in its entirety (there's most likely a bunch of details that go right over my head) but I'm pretty confident that I have enough of a grasp of the basic internal logic to say that this system doesn't need to follow the rules of real currency because it exists inside a closed loop and can't really scape it without a portion of it being absorved by valve. If they want to get rid of a large chunk of gems for example they can simply organise a new event that consumes gems and watch them go down by the thousands by giving something of perceived value in exchange for them, even if said thing is just some nonsense cosmetic for users profiles there's gonna be a bunch of people willing to do the transaction if it's in the context of a timed exclusive. As I said, it follows game logic more closely than it does real life economics.
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Exactly, but not everyone sees steam in that way and I felt that just leaving it at one word might be confusing so I indulged in a more verborrhagic explanation.
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oh yea and I 100% agree; clear your explanation adds stuff as ingle word cannot always include, but that's the sense. I think they created something genial, looking at that aspect. That's why I think that it will take a long long time to demolish this monopoly, if ever it will really happen :(
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As they say: Valve used to make games, now they make money.
Still hoping for Portal 3 tho.
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Your evaluation is too simplistic. Socialism involves: infrastructure, education, healthcare, taxes, earnings, regulations, elections and so on.
Right now, all that happened was that there was an inflation, which devalued a currency. That has nothing to do with socialism.
Nothing was taken from you either. There was no "Gem tax" that went into programs where users without a lot of gems could get them as support or wage.
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+1
Steam is definitely capitalistic. Over the past twenty years or so, however, Socialism has been increasingly embraced as an ideology. The reason for that would seem to be tied to its adherents being mostly ignorant of its reality. They do not truly know what it is, nor do they understand it, but their enthusiasm is used to whitewash the actuality. Capitalism has its issues, certainly, but Socialism has even more issues, and more serious ones, at that. This is all a bit esoteric, however, and probably better suited to a Philosophy class than SteamGifts.
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You're even going too far into it, to be honest. The point here in the end is and always will be that inflation has nothing to do with political ideologies.
It's just devaluing of currency through introducing more currency into the system.
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Actually, I was going off on a tangent regarding the increased popularity of Socialism and the failings of Education. Granted, however, that inflation has nothing to do with political ideologies.
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True, but I wasn't talking about governments (or policies).
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I was talking about several things, one of which was Socialism, the ideology. That ideology is the basis for a form of government, established through the use of select policies, both of which are commonly referred to as "Socialism," so I can understand your confusion. I apologize for not being clear.
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I am not sure what you mean by "social elements." When Americans use that term, they are usually talking about distinct social groups within a given society (e.g. biker gangs, soccer moms, computer nerds). Perhaps you meant "socialist policies?" For my part, I was referring to particular ideologies rather than policies, but I would like to acknowledge one point you made. It is a fact that the human experience is not a binary one.
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lol..what has gabe's billions to do with the steam market system?
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Or rather, what has socialism got to do with the Steam market system?
See, it goes both ways. :P
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Weakening a currency is a redistribution from top to bottom. And when you redistribute in a big way from top to bottom, you usually call that something social and in the most extreme you call it socialism.
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Inflation (or hyperinflation) is not socialism. Weakening a currency makes everyone equally poorer (the $100 banknote of a millionaire is no different from a $100 banknote of a poor person).
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No thats not right. If I have one $100 banknote it hurts me not so much if I have 1000 $100 baanknotes.
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You can't tell the difference between personal value and real value.
No shit money has different personal values for everyone. $20 for me is a lot of money, but for others, that just might be chumpchange. But that's not the topic at hand.
Your gems were devalued through introducing copious amounts of extra currency into the system. That has nothing to do with socialism.
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Right. The first guy is hit way harder, then the last one, since he can not buy food anymore.
The point your example is missing, is that valve gave first 900$ to everyone and THAT was the reason for inflation.
If now the price drops by 50% the guy with 100$ now has 500$, while the guy with 100.000$ Now has 50.450$.
But anyways. It did not got distributed from top to down, it got distributed from everyone to russian botfarms.
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But that is the opposite of what you said earlier (weakening a currency hurts poor people more than rich people, thus is not a "redistribution from top to bottom"). If it makes the "working class" suffer more than "wealthy capitalists" it's not socialism.
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No, cause they just make the money back through selling cards on their platform, not to mention in the end it is almost valueless since it ends up being crafted into a badge and if ppl buy them with their money steam profits because you can buy in but cant buy out.
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Yes but they fucked up their best customers. I dont understand this. For what they do this? Need they these few dollars or what is the problem?
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Yes, they Need those Dollars or do you think they placed those Cards/Keys/Gems in first to give something for the community? What Valve does may have socialist effects for the market, but for selfish capitalism reasons. Oh and before I forget: Valve has stopped to care for their best customers long time ago (Remember stopping cross-region trading, or trying to make them pay for free mods?) All for capitalistic reasons (Now I see blacklists of fanboys incomming)
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I agree with you in all points but the socialist leader with big accounts in switzerland you call not capitalist or do you? :) Blcklistpoints are badge of honors and no shame.
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So we agree on that we mean the same and just name it in another way :)
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like think about it, they literally lose nothing and gain PR.
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Yeah the bad customers love them now but their good customers do not more. I understand something else under good PR.
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I think your logic is a little flawed. It really has more to do with simple supply and demand economics.
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lol...thx for your answer but I work with economics daily and my logic is ok :) They gave so many gems on market that we have a big
inflation and so these costomers lose which paid most on steam in the past(the rich ones^^). Please check the price for gems. I mean socialist as provocation but I think no one has understand this^^
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It happens at every Steam sale since gems were introduced. The supply increases and the price goes down. It's not socialism.
If you deal with economics daily, it seems pretty straightforward.
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Yeah thats right. But on this sale they gave away so many gems like never before to everyone. Perhaps you dont understand this. But what would you say when the USA generete on one day so many dollers like are in circulation and gave every person in the states the same amount.
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I don't know the exact term, but still, what you describe there still isn't socialism.
Plus, if a country were to do that, it would cause inflation, correct?
Which is exactly what happened to Gems.
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Except they did nothing even remotely close to your analogy - The drop in gems values is directly tied to the generation of extra gems, which in turn is a result of users being given emotes. Emotes are meant to be kept, but many users decided to turn them into gems which caused this whole chain reaction. Sure, you could argue that Valve should have expected this to happen, and it's possible they did, but the fact remains that the event was not explicitly meant to "give everyone free gems".
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Emotes have been around for years... not sure what timeline you're on?
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I do not think that the employees of Steam are stupid. If that had not been wanted, the conversion rate would have been set to 10 and not 100.
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The Steam values for the sale events are always 100 - look at previous years.
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Yes but they spam these on this sale. Two every day to everyone for free.
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I don't think this is the sort of spam you should be worried about :)
And they didn't spam them, you still had to take part in the event.
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Steam emotes are always valued at 100 gems.
I think the idea that Valve would be a "socialist company" is absolutely ridiculous to me all things considered (especially since you're basing that assumption on a single, rather meaningless event) but that's just my humble opinion, as you've asked in the OP. I've nothing much to add to the thread for now, cheers.
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Yes but they spam these on this sale. Two every day to everyone for free.
Lol it was a provocation to start a discuss. Please do not hang me.
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it was a provocation to start a discuss. Please do not hang me.
Not sure I understand what you're saying. Hang? What?
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The Hang (German pronunciation: [haŋ]; plural form: Hanghang) is a musical instrument in the idiophone class created by Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer in Bern, Switzerland.
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I read everything Marx, Engels(in original German) wrote and a lot of Trotzki, Lenin and a little bit from Stalin and Mao. But perhaps you can teach me anything? But I know that no one understand the provocation. Sorry for that.
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Marx, Engels, Trotzki, Stalin, Mao
Is it common in Switzerland?
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You should read them more, because you're too rich )
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I know, I'm very lucky to be born in one of the wealthiest regions in the whole Europe, but still when I embark on my frequent trips to Zamosc and Lviv they all prefer to talk about other kind of authors =P
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Frequent trips to Ukraine, huh, mmmmm, how interesting, to Lviv. Probably to see the medieval central square once again, huh? )
I've been to Ukraine several times too, Lviv included, and my only goal was sex. But since Swiss people read a lot, as we know from this thread, I bet you travelled to discuss the literature of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch with the scientists of Lviv State University.
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no, and by the way I'm asexual - I go every year to spend time in Lviv (through Slovakia) since I've got lots of Ukrainian friends who work here, we helped them (a family in particular, of a woman (Maria) who worked so many years with my grandma and who has three children) to build a three-stores house in the mountains west of Lviv and they are always extremely friendly with me and my family, I use to say Lviv since it's the airport location, they actually live in Slavske although they have a big family and we often stay in Lviv.. neither for university duties nor for sex (which is quite a disgusting topic for me, I've been asexual since I was a teenager and started realizing I wasn't interested in anyone unlike my pals), but when we talk about literature and politics they have way different views although of course one can't even compare their wealth to ours =P oh by the way their political views don't match the authors you mentioned as you may have imagined ahah
anyways you got something right - I've got a Ph. D in medieval history and genealogy so I'm definitely interested in the Ukrainian monuments and squares =P I've also got an awesome tattoo in Ukrainian on my right arm =D
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In Western Ukraine I saw huge posters of Shukhevych and Bandera, people were telling weird stories about national supremacy, so I think their favorite books are nationalistic - Dmitry Dontsov etc. I came to this conslusion long before the whole story with Crimea and Donbass started. See, I am not a fan of Ukraine, and not a fan of far-right ideas.
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lol why should it be luckily that the people do not read so much?
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
The Art of War. Also a book that can be helpful.
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"To read" and "to understand" - two different things. And if you connect Stalin, Lenin and Trotzkiy with socialism, that means you are REALLY DO NOT know what socialism is. NUFF SAID.
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The Engels and Mao goes great with strawberry jam.
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that's a weird way to waste weeks of one's lives..
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Oh you know the meaning of life? If not how can you know what is wasting time? Perhaps is the meaning of life to look out of a window the whole day. I think only god can answer this.
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More like Keynesian economists. Economy is stagnating? Let's print a lot of liquidity and throw to them.
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Bait. Why the title is even a question when obviously OP just wants to flex.
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valve took nothing from "rich people". they gave the same amount of items to everyone.
if some items lost value, it happened to both "poor" and "rich" users.
i think it's fine like this.
better than getting 1 emoticon+card+background per sale. yes, that would be really nice. make all these useless items cost $50 dollars in the market because demand is ultra-high.
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well, they, more or less, did take from "rich" people.
Before the sale a sack of gems cost around 0,40€ and was used as a currency beside TF2 and CSgo Keys.
Now, after the "inflation" a sack of gems is only 0,20€ worth. Same goes for a lot of cards and boosterpacks.
So "massive traders" lost nearly 50% of there "monetary reserve".
I don't feel bad for the traders but, it's something like competitive devaluation and should be illegal.
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Gaben is a regular Democratic party donor, so of course it is. /s
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You have no idea what socialism is. Read a book or two.
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They destroyed the market years ago with the auto-buy/sell features. Prices used to be at >15 cents per booster, and cheap cards were 5 cents, now its <10 cents per booster and many cards go below the 3 cent threshold.
I don't get your logic, or the use of the term socialist, or your "I work with economics daily and my logic is ok"...
I eat cheese daily, I know f*** all about cheese. :P
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Gems and card value already lost with the Greenlight shitshow. There used to be times event cards where 30c at start. They drop yearly far before Valve did this.
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My local supermarket must also be socialist, they regularly send out money-off vouchers to everybody, regardless of previous purchases...
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Yes, the company that loves to brag about having the highest profit rate/employee in the entire tech sector while not having any investors to pay dividends to, is totally basing itself on socialist values and tenets.
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Sure. You are on a good way. But free to play games are a little bit other. They trigger the game addicts and take their money.
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Big deal. So you can't sell your precious gems for $666 anymore. Move on with it. Or even better yet. Get a job so you can buy your games.
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Petition to change the name of this site to Socialistgifts™.
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Sorry I tried it. But the answers show me that the education level is too low for understanding economic interrelations. And sorry for the provocation with socialism. That triggers the living room Che Guevaras and Champagne socialists
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lol, so let us test your German, Turkish or Chinese. I do not want shock you but there are other countries on the planet.
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English is a de facto international language that is taught at an early age. Rest of the languages not so much.
Also "dollars" is not a word that is hard to spell and spellcheckers are also very common.
"intellectuals" as yourself shouldn't make such basic mistakes.
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Sorry but I do not need english in my life. Only use it for steam. I have the luck to life in a linguistic region where the most has been and is translated.
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You expressed a flawed idea poorly, then became extremely defensive when you successfully provoked a discussion, in the process being sure to boast about the frequency of your work "with economics" and the breadth of your reading by communist authors, and utterly failing to engage with any of the ideas or rebuttals presented in any meaningful way.
Clearly, you are an astute paragon in a room full of simpletons.
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OK, you tried to start a debate, it didn't pan out the way you wanted (because most people disagreed with you, which is of course absolutely the worst thing that can happen in a debate).
So you have to call everybody stupid as you give up and storm out of the discussion? How absurdly juvenile. It reflects much more poorly on you than the clumsy way you presented your ideas throughout the thread.
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My mistake was to set elementary economics knowledge in advance. Next time I start the debate with a basic economics course.
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Several times throughout you've said you only mentioned socialism to be provocative and start a debate.
Yet, at the same time, you've rigidly stuck to the attitude that only an idiot could disagree with you, and you've clearly been very frustrated that most people have tried to debate your ideas.
Genuinely, I have no idea what you wanted when you made this post.
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On wintersale steam gives so many gems to everyone that anything on market that is related to gems(cards, emoticons, background and gems) lost its value. They take it from the rich(big inventories) and gave it to the poor(small inventories)[edit: and take a lot for themselves^^]. What do you think?
[Edit2:Sorry I tried it. But the answers show me that the education level is too low for understanding economic interrelations. And sorry for the provocation with socialism. That triggers the living room Che Guevaras and Champagne socialists. For one it was good: A lot of new blavklistpoints for me :)]
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