Happy New Year everyone! I’m super excited to finally get this video out to you guys. This video has been in the works for a couple of months now, and it contains a lot of ideas that I’ve scrapped from previous videos over the years. It’s pretty cool that these ideas are finally seeing the light of day! To clear up any potential confusion, this video addresses trading from the perspective of a profit trader - someone who trades in TF2 to obtain their dream items, cash out, or whatever ultimate goal they may have. As I mention in the video, one could argue that the current economy is actually pretty good for casual players. But for traders... well, it's a little more complicated. If you want to learn more about key inflation and trade bots, check out my older videos on the topics! Aside from the fact that keys were only 30 ref back when I recorded the key inflation videos, the videos are still relevant to this day! Series on key inflation: ua-cam.com/play/PLkF-LQyhMelLPY38cSINEnGa9e6hygQv7.html Video on trade bots: ua-cam.com/video/R2to2-VkgzA/v-deo.html See you guys in 2022!
As a kid I wanted to be a tf2 trader but as an adult id much rather just purchase the items I want to own with currency and enjoy them instead of dealing with the hassle of trading up.
I remember buying a ton of Scout cosmetics years ago and would go on servers selling them for 2 scraps higher. It was a fun experience being a trading nomad around the time Scrapbanking was very popular.
Is imposible these days with ton of specific hats or these party ruiners who yell in mic or chat THAT HAT COST LESS IN BP DONT BUY TO HIM like if you was going to kill or scam someone
Must've been a blast, i deadass joined tf2 in 2022 after knowing the game at the back of my mind for YEARS, just never decided to join, my friend just played and i never felt the urge to play it, now it's my main game.
What you fail to answer is who controls the bots, who makes those buy orders and profits off them? Who are the people jacking up the price of strange pans, strange pda, and other "stable" long running high value items? Over the years I have noticed a larger and larger consolidation of traders controlling more of the market I can't be the only one who is seeing this?
This is a great observation. I mentioned it briefly at the end of my video on trade bots, but yeah, it's a big issue. It's one that backpack.tf could actually do something about too, but has thus far has chosen not to.
@@TheVirtualEconomist they'll never do anything about it because they have a monopoly on the market. Trading is hard to do because the market is controlled by backpack.tf and their top traders. Their website has a monopoly over every item in the game- their rules and regulations control all of the prices. Not to mention they have item information put behind a paywall, meaning established traders with money can find and buy/shark items from players to then flip and inflate them. Plus their automated trading bots strengthen the iron grip of their price control. And let us not forget that you have no say in the pricing of an item unless your backpack value is above the value of said item being priced. It's immensely screwed up. The entry bar is being set higher and higher because it takes more and more keys to buy....anything. So smaller traders have zero hope in getting anything worthwhile thanks to the small handful of backpack.tf traders manipulating and controlling the entire market. It's a screwed up situation that can only be counteracted by the existence of alternative pricing centers aside from the community market and backpack.tf. So that monopoly is broken, and prices are set by the majority and not a handful of people. Would also be great for item information to not be put behind a paywall, so everyone has a chance to access the market, not just established traders that can abuse a system they built and regulate for themselves.
@@ZestyJesus Over the years, I've heard many crazy theories as to how backpack.tf has “ruined trading.” Quite simply, none of them, including yours, are true. To your point specifically: Sure, backpack.tf is behind most of the item prices, classifieds, etc. But isn’t that best for players? Backpack.tf is a trading platform that allows players to price, buy, and sell items, and it's simply much easier for players when there is only one trading platform rather than a couple dozen (think Spotify vs. Netflix/Hulu/Prime Video/HBO Max/Disney+, etc). Backpack.tf isn't selling any items themselves, so I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that backpack.tf somehow has a monopoly on the market. Backpack.tf, does, however, indirectly control what players have access to the most profit via their rules (or lack thereof). If backpack.tf closed their public classifieds API, proactively banned overcutting scripts, and enacted limits to the number of buy orders a single individual could create at a single time, then the market wouldn’t be quite so dominated by the same few traders/bots. Clearly, however, they’ve opted not to enact these restrictions in favor of a purely free market. And in a purely free market, just like in the real world, a small handful float to the top, and end up making the majority of the profits. So sure, I get your sentiment. But a most of what you’re saying doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
I also encountered something like that. I was trading for some not really popular cosmetic, it was priced on bp.tf at 1.55 while like the lowest seller was 2.22, it would stay like that for days until at the exact same time a swarm of bots (like 15 at once) all at once come and grossly overcut the original sellers by selling the item at something like 1.77 or 1.66, burying any non bot seller to the second page, it would stay like for a few hours to a few days where all the bots would remove their selling order probably because the item doesn't sell fast enough to justify it only to do that again a few days later. The most suspicious thing about that is how all the bots, (whilst most of them are unrelated to each other) all suddenly floods the sell orders and all disappeare at the same time to the minute.
We need something in the game that you can put your ref into that is actually desirable, not craft hats, just something otherwise keys will hit 100 ref and at the point the economy is done.
I’ve had some good luck with killstreak kits/fabricators. Recently I bought a festive holy mackerel and a killstreak kit, I applied the killstreak kit, then sold it to a bot for 5 ref profit 😎.
Same, i just gave away a hat and metal with cases for 2 weapons. Why? Because 1)i needed the Brass Beast to complete my set, and 2)i wanted a bat outa Hell for a long time
I’m not a very experienced trader but I traded a few years ago, and I agree with the “too many items point” normally when buying quicksells you would have expected to sell it to a buyer that wants the item to keep and not to make profit. But now with a lot of items available, the odds that a non trader thinks your specific item is the best looking for the price are way lower. Before I would but quicksells and sell for full price but it seems like now the only way to trade is to buy quicksells and re quicksell it
I mean Unusual Skins can be very profitable to deal with even if it's time consuming especially because the market (aside from None Strange Merc grade) isn't really affected by a lot of the issues in the video, if Unusual skins got more popular there's a good chance that their more Unique nature would make it much more like trading back in the day due to how hard it can be to narrow in on accurate prices. But ofc the issue some people have is the complexity which just means a lot of people don't wish to engage with it unless they plan to buy it for keeping which is why it takes so long but can also be profitable and get you pure payment a lot of the time.
From my perspective and many others, the skins suck. Unlike many other games, there’s a tonne of weapons which you need, instead of csgo model where there’s 2-3 main weps, and 2 secondaries, in tf2 there’s 9 different Main weapons, 5-9 secondaries. The war paint loses a lot of value once applied, and will often sell very poorly, since no one is interested in your weapon. And the not so optimised backpack site doesn’t benefit this either. I know you love skins, but from most traders standpoint, skins as they are now, are just as illiquid as spells, and often have less demand except for a few outliers.
It really is and has become difficult to trade. Like for completely new players that want to start off obtaining a key at this time of year is going to be hard on them, also because of they're being too much items trying to find a seller for an item u want is way too expensive and trying to sell an item is beyond profitable. A few months back I tried to scrap-bank which was possible it just takes so long to do so
I used to be a TF2 trader from September-December 2019. I made about 27 dollars over the course of that time. It was an extremely painful process even 3 years ago. Hours could be spent for maybe 2 ref in profit, and key inflation being a factor made it harder every day to do low-tier trading. You're better off buying whatever you want with your own money from a job.
There is only one instance in which Cosmetics have an effect on gameplay. Scout can instantly K.O. Pyro if Pyro is wearing the Isolated Merc-specific cosmetic set with his melee weapon if Scout is wearing the Isolationist Pack. Pyro with the Isolated Merc does crit damage as default if the flames touch an Isolationist Pack Scout.
Players should never be forced to participate in money market. Games are a way to escape life and have fun, not feel stressed that you can lose money or earn it, casinos are unhealthy.
Best thing that’s happened to me in the past year trading was that I found a collector of a certain hat that was really lazy and would pay huge amounts for old Halloween effects. I simply had to check classifieds for the hat, buy the ones that came on the market, mark them up 50-75 keys and he’d buy them. I’ve made 400ish keys doing this
Trading hasn't become more difficult, obtaining big profits from trading has. For the people that just want to buy cool cosmetics and stuff it's great, for the people that want to just earn money at the expense of other's lack of knowledge it's bad, which is in my opinion, good, now everybody can actually agree on one price and it's less likely to get scammed
Honestly forgetting most of the unusuals and stranges, I'm able to deck out my classes with the exact cosmetics I want from Scrap.tf for only a few months worth of weapon smelting. For players like me, it's really nice to get the looks you want without paying much of anything, although I didn't really know how good it was like pre-2017 (before I started getting into trading things), so.
Before I watch further... I think with the first two points being Key inflation and bots... there is a third... And that is lack of anything new, hot stuff, new merchandise... trading frequency always goes haywire before new stuff drops and after and then is slowly drops till its very low again. Before it was better as updates were frequent, but now, not even new cosmetic chests...
I agree that new updates can be very profitable for traders, but I'd argue that is only the case for maybe the top 5-10% of traders who really know what they are doing... Everyone else has just as high of a chance of making a terrible trade and losing profit. Sorta how the economy was during it's first year or so.
I personally haven’t had a problem, my backpack has grown from $400 to around $11,000 now in 4-5 months. I believe if your willing to learn the current market and put the time and effort in, the sky is the limit.
I used to do my main trading in pubs because of #3. Just selling cheap items like stranges and hats cuz thats what casuals want. Good times.. made lots of friends too
Bots and people hoarding desired hats which can't be obtained anymore and artificially jacking up prices are the problems. The oversaturation with low quality workshop items is just the cherry on top.
For me - trading was always about the interaction. I have meet so many great and kind people just over trading and most of them keept being in touch with me over the years even when we never ever traded after that.
Hey! Great video, I appreciate the realness and positivity you always bring to the economy. It's nice to hear someone so down to earth and in touch with how everyone feels these days
I've never actually played the game, but when I came across the soundtrack I was blown away! I love the vibe, there are a couple of tracks that sound like Portal which is really cool!
Seems to me that the best way to trade now is to have a bot with a lot of keys taking buy orders and another storage bot making sell orders. The process could be heavily automated. With a small amount of oversight it would provide a decent passive income source
ngl the opening part of the video reminded me when I TRIED to get into trading I got some decent a decent unusual at a bit of eh price(which was a green energy pyro beanie I bought for 39 keys and was selling i think for 41 or 42) and i remember when i tried to sell it to people IT WAS BASICALLY IMPOSSABLE i ended up getting scammed twice with trading and all i can say was it was stressful as hell. I still trade every once in a while just because its kind of a necessity if your buying some hats to know how to trade but god dam i am still paranode as hell when trading cause it just felt it was impossible
I stopped trading when trade holds came out. Making any trades got way harder and my trades slowed to a crawl. Pretty sure all steam trading took a big hit from that update.
Man I haven’t touched trading in years. Loved watching scrap to unusual sand did it myself. Started from nothing and got all the way to a 10 key unusual and left after achieving that. The inflation issue was the biggest pain for me even though I didn’t have it as bad. It was around 30 refined for a key back then for me but having to constantly check the increase was always frustrating. I had my fun back then, and hope it will somehow get better even if the future seems bleak.
Someone wanted my 2 CSGO crates for 2 keys until I looked up the crates marketplace value and found out they were $10 each. I find traders always sketchy.
Extremely well done. As a person who just wants to buy items that I like, the bots are great for me! The only thing I dislike about the new trading ecosystem is the decline of trading servers. They were fun
I cashed out a good bit ago but I still really enjoy your videos. Trading has been a chore for years due to weird inflations (I still remember when keys were 2.40 ref and Buds were heavily used to trade unusuals) I decided one day somewhere around a year and a half ago that I was done and cashed out. 8 years worth of trading and I can happily say it’s been fun and thanks to a video game I profited $2,000 from virtual items. Edit: Keep in mind, I 100% know during my cash out that when I sold my backpack as a whole, I lost on roughly 300$ but didn’t feel like negotiating because I was so tired of how picky people can get. I settled with it and glad I left the trading scene and tf2 as a whole.
Player(s) placing a large amount of low buy orders in order to drop an items price also makes it very difficult to trade certain items. This is an example of the bigger problem that is market manipulation.
I remember when I started doing rags to riches years ago and made my way up from one key into a Frenchman's Beret | Cauldron Bubbles. Nowadays trading isn't fun at all due to the lack of communication.
Over the years, more and more traders I tried trading with wanted me to overpay more and more for the sake of "profit". As someone who just wanted the item, I wasn't wanting to overpay constantly when I was just paying for the listed price. It was like they were taxing me for their own gain. Back when I used to trade, a Key was worth 2.33 Ref, which was very reasonable back then. Now it's in the 50's and nobody can afford that kind of worth. Keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor.
I am pretty sure that the point of trading was trying to exchange weapons and cosmetics with people who wanted one thing but had another, not a damn economics class And here i am, not even knowing what a damn refined is
But isn't it cool how a concept as innocuous as "exchanging weapons and cosmetics" could end up being so reflective of real world economics? That's what's awesome to me.
It's not more difficult per se it's just more traders almost never take a lost and move on and hold onto items they can't sell if there isn't an offer for profit. In short, all the traders are getting more wise but have no experience. They know their goal but lack experience to reach it. And they can't get experience if they're too stubborn to take risks and losses.
I Remember trading back when keys were 3 refined and buds were actually a currency. back then I could actually trade from a key to a pretty decent unusual pretty quickly.
Long retired trader here, just wanted to let you know that your videos have been watched many times over by me, and helped me a lot. Had a lot of fun trading spelled max heads and I couldn’t have done it without all the knowledge I got from your content. Hope you’re doing good.
After watching this video I decided to start doing the "Keys to ritches" formula, starting with 10 keys pure. I started this in mid Feb like 3 weeks ago and...idk, I feel that trade is still good. For now I was able to get 10+ keys since I started and I feel that trading can still be fun if you want to negociate with people.
Holy shit , I remember a key used to be 2 .33 when I used to trade. Traded myself up to some buds and a couple bills's then quit the game after cashing out. Good days back in 2012 .
Just recently, I was wanting to sell a bunch of some stuff someone was asking for on backpacktf, and sent them an offer, even making a great deal for them, and what did they do? They decided to report my backpacktf account saying that the stuff wasnt what they wanted, even though their offer was simple asking for the items i had, and I've been on the trading site since 2013 or so, but i guess that -1 trust was worth it to them. I even said out loud after this, "This is why I trade with bots," but then after this video, I remember when I was just starting out, I got scammed out of my team captain I just got from the mann co store, as I fell for the cheap, 'we need to inspect this item as there might be some issues with it' and then didn't want to trade, until a year later when I started unboxing, which got me back into it. Great point though, many factors play into an economy, especially an old game like TF2, and we gotta make some better ways to make the economy what it was before, or something of that nature.
Ultimately trading was going to end up like this because of what trading was MEANT to be outside of making profit which was to get items you liked. Early trading was almost like trading in human history, accepting cattle for some grain or other. Now we have Walmart and stuff for all that stuff. Large logistics with decades of infrastructure makes these retail shops work. Now that infrastructure has arrived at tf2.
It tried to get into trading 3 times. My biggest chance is when I pulled an Australian Sniper Rifle and quicksold it. Every unusual hat I got was nearly impossible to sell, and scammers would just keep adding me and pulling the same tricks over and over again. Of course, I never fell for any of them, but it’s annoying to deal with. I gave up and just dropped a couple $100s on the game, bought what I wanted, and now I’m happy :)
At the end of the day trading is not an action that creates any value, it just shifts ownership of pre-existing value. That means for any given trade, if someone is "profiting", another person is incurring a loss. It's only natural that people would be averse to incurring losses, and want to be informed traders. Trading is harder because people are more informed, but I think that's generally a good thing.
When I got into trading, I was into collecting True (can't be unboxed again) 1-1 of a kind unusuals. Making profit was easy (if not a massive waiting game) when you invested into limited items. Of course, that doesn't really apply anymore, most of these kinds of items are too damn expensive to even buy (seriously, who in their right mind would pay 2000+ keys for a Noh Mercy? At that point you'd should be considering something more important in your life like buying a car instead of this degrading game) or aren't worth buying (most of the new halloween/smissmas effects call into this range: you'll notice alot of traders will flat out reject trading for these for this reason) and knowing Valve it's highly unlikely we're get anymore worth buying for "reasonable" prices like miscs again. You'll only be stuck with the extremes going forward: tons and tons of crap you don't want, and all the good stuff hoarded by collectors or traders who'd you have to sell a kidney to affourd.
Spy: no one would want that skin Me who sold a strange skin for twice the pricebi bought it because the skin had a specific pattern and theres pattern for holy mackerel like fish sana fish joker and shit mouth fish
Thank you for great video I learn more trading from older videos about trading in tf2 have done some trading i would say i like more working with the steam market then trading but i do understand it so i say thank you for teaching more in depth about trading
Last time I attempted to trade I ended up with a like, - 4 key profit because by the end of the attempt which lasted a few weeks I just wanted to get a nice looking unusual and stop. All the servers I tried to trade on where just people wandering around either trying to scrap bank 10 years too late or trying to trade massively expensive unusuals. The bots and hard item prices make it so that there is virtually no way to trade up without happening to own some niche hard to price item that isnt too hard to price.
I honestly wish they kept weapon skins as they were introduced where you'd unbox the skin itself instead of given a skin applier that lets you apply it to any weapon
I've never heard of chubbyemu but I'm glad that channels as big as theirs are using this music, meaning I'm not gonna get a copyright strike for it lol
So far i think im much happier with access to things like steam marketplace tf marketplace and tf backpack its gotta be so much safer and easier to learn how to trade now. Even as an old trader im enjoying the laxness of it all. I remember it felt like a majority of my time before was wasted on scammers or people trying to see if im dumb enough to trade them.
I'm still kinda trying to get into trading, I agree that from the looks of things getting into trading is so much more difficult than it was back then, with key value skyrocketing and certain things just becoming less valuable. I really wish I could have gotten into trading before things became like this instead of blowing my wallet on some unusuals to sell and then learning they're not as valuable as backpack says they are. I do try to trade the old fashion way on trade servers but people are rarely even trading on those servers anymore. trading just doesn't seem too appealing or fun anymore and I think the time you need to invest in this stuff today is not worth the returns.
. With this in mind I'm sure I can actually get somewhere with trading now, just too bad I spent the majority of my time trying to trade without knowing this.
Profitting in low tier is still possible, the hard part starts when you get your first key, when keys are involved instead of just ref shit turns actually impossible to profit
Hey Virtual economist. Can you make a trading series (like keys to riches) in this year? I know its gonna be hard but it will pay off. If you do refuse well its fine i mean it is gonna be so hard so yeah goodluck in your future vids bro.
I guess because 90% of the traders in tf2 are people looking to "profit". Mostly maybe kids that hope they can make some big money out of tf2 or at least getting a big inventory. This translate that low tier is full of people looking to just buy under bot orders. Most of them don't count add-on because no bots that buy them exist. If they count them most of the time is some ultra low-ball. Unusual trading may be the only thing that could be saved even if bots are starting to get their hands even on that. At one point im sure bots will simply control the entire market. Because people wants to make $$ they create bots but at this point a bunch of them exist and so they look to expand their market and expand their bots to new horizon (example when i started trading bots for painted hat did not exist. Now you can find them in every cosmetic item pretty much, similar to unusual and even if not in a large quantity they are starting to get even into the skin or at least the most valuable ones) Then we have key price in ref going crazy as fuck. at least when i started they were 20 ref (for many still a lot) but now we are going for 70+. Idk how most can't see it but i see people going crazy for having made a few ref profit trades or some of them really trade to make that scrap profit every once. Even if i make a 30 ref profit trade it may look big but at the end i just made around 90 cent. In one of the best case scenario in a month with low tier trading i could make 5-10 keys? Not worth at all for the effort you put in finding the deal and advertising it. Honestly it's just better to work or find some little jobs to do. I'm a chemistry uni student and for helping kids/teenager to do homeworks i get paid 10-15 euro/h. i make that 5 keys profit in an hour and i can actually use my money in other way other than steam/tf2/reselling it and losing value. This is just my opinion ^^. Sorry for the long msg!
![[TF2] The Day Valve Broke the TF2 Economy](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/VIGLWpd8Jw0/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TF2] The Day Valve Broke the TF2 Economy](/img/tr.png)
![[TF2] The Craziest Scam Methods In TF2 History](/img/n.gif)
Happy New Year everyone!
I’m super excited to finally get this video out to you guys. This video has been in the works for a couple of months now, and it contains a lot of ideas that I’ve scrapped from previous videos over the years. It’s pretty cool that these ideas are finally seeing the light of day!
To clear up any potential confusion, this video addresses trading from the perspective of a profit trader - someone who trades in TF2 to obtain their dream items, cash out, or whatever ultimate goal they may have. As I mention in the video, one could argue that the current economy is actually pretty good for casual players. But for traders... well, it's a little more complicated.
If you want to learn more about key inflation and trade bots, check out my older videos on the topics! Aside from the fact that keys were only 30 ref back when I recorded the key inflation videos, the videos are still relevant to this day!
Series on key inflation: ua-cam.com/play/PLkF-LQyhMelLPY38cSINEnGa9e6hygQv7.html
Video on trade bots: ua-cam.com/video/R2to2-VkgzA/v-deo.html
See you guys in 2022!
new years gift? tq bruv
I literally still have no idea what a key, a refined, anything is
@@StockLlama A key is basically the tf2 market's equivalent of a dollar bill, with refined metal being the equivalent of a cent.
Thats why i simply dox people so i can get their items
@@letterh9648 what
As a kid I wanted to be a tf2 trader but as an adult id much rather just purchase the items I want to own with currency and enjoy them instead of dealing with the hassle of trading up.
i dont really recommend buying something flashy, youre gonna get sharked to death.
@@RagingInsomniac no you
Bro when I was like 14 I spent all my time trading up. Shit sucked
cheers, without people that buy an item for the sake of having that item we would never profit since otherwise we'd all just be out for profit
@@TCLG6x6 thats the Stock market youre refferenccing
Having too many items in game currently can make trading way harder especially for the items that have niche market. Great video and happy new year!
I remember buying a ton of Scout cosmetics years ago and would go on servers selling them for 2 scraps higher. It was a fun experience being a trading nomad around the time Scrapbanking was very popular.
The good 'ol days :)
Is imposible these days with ton of specific hats or these party ruiners who yell in mic or chat THAT HAT COST LESS IN BP DONT BUY TO HIM like if you was going to kill or scam someone
Must've been a blast, i deadass joined tf2 in 2022 after knowing the game at the back of my mind for YEARS, just never decided to join, my friend just played and i never felt the urge to play it, now it's my main game.
What you fail to answer is who controls the bots, who makes those buy orders and profits off them? Who are the people jacking up the price of strange pans, strange pda, and other "stable" long running high value items? Over the years I have noticed a larger and larger consolidation of traders controlling more of the market I can't be the only one who is seeing this?
This is a great observation. I mentioned it briefly at the end of my video on trade bots, but yeah, it's a big issue. It's one that backpack.tf could actually do something about too, but has thus far has chosen not to.
@@TheVirtualEconomist they'll never do anything about it because they have a monopoly on the market.
Trading is hard to do because the market is controlled by backpack.tf and their top traders. Their website has a monopoly over every item in the game- their rules and regulations control all of the prices. Not to mention they have item information put behind a paywall, meaning established traders with money can find and buy/shark items from players to then flip and inflate them. Plus their automated trading bots strengthen the iron grip of their price control. And let us not forget that you have no say in the pricing of an item unless your backpack value is above the value of said item being priced. It's immensely screwed up.
The entry bar is being set higher and higher because it takes more and more keys to buy....anything. So smaller traders have zero hope in getting anything worthwhile thanks to the small handful of backpack.tf traders manipulating and controlling the entire market.
It's a screwed up situation that can only be counteracted by the existence of alternative pricing centers aside from the community market and backpack.tf. So that monopoly is broken, and prices are set by the majority and not a handful of people.
Would also be great for item information to not be put behind a paywall, so everyone has a chance to access the market, not just established traders that can abuse a system they built and regulate for themselves.
@@ZestyJesus Over the years, I've heard many crazy theories as to how backpack.tf has “ruined trading.” Quite simply, none of them, including yours, are true.
To your point specifically: Sure, backpack.tf is behind most of the item prices, classifieds, etc. But isn’t that best for players? Backpack.tf is a trading platform that allows players to price, buy, and sell items, and it's simply much easier for players when there is only one trading platform rather than a couple dozen (think Spotify vs. Netflix/Hulu/Prime Video/HBO Max/Disney+, etc). Backpack.tf isn't selling any items themselves, so I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that backpack.tf somehow has a monopoly on the market.
Backpack.tf, does, however, indirectly control what players have access to the most profit via their rules (or lack thereof). If backpack.tf closed their public classifieds API, proactively banned overcutting scripts, and enacted limits to the number of buy orders a single individual could create at a single time, then the market wouldn’t be quite so dominated by the same few traders/bots. Clearly, however, they’ve opted not to enact these restrictions in favor of a purely free market. And in a purely free market, just like in the real world, a small handful float to the top, and end up making the majority of the profits.
So sure, I get your sentiment. But a most of what you’re saying doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
I also encountered something like that. I was trading for some not really popular cosmetic, it was priced on bp.tf at 1.55 while like the lowest seller was 2.22, it would stay like that for days until at the exact same time a swarm of bots (like 15 at once) all at once come and grossly overcut the original sellers by selling the item at something like 1.77 or 1.66, burying any non bot seller to the second page, it would stay like for a few hours to a few days where all the bots would remove their selling order probably because the item doesn't sell fast enough to justify it only to do that again a few days later.
The most suspicious thing about that is how all the bots, (whilst most of them are unrelated to each other) all suddenly floods the sell orders and all disappeare at the same time to the minute.
Capitalism. We need a Tf3 communist revolution. Everyone gets a golden pan!
We need something in the game that you can put your ref into that is actually desirable, not craft hats, just something otherwise keys will hit 100 ref and at the point the economy is done.
this did not age well lol
Keys now approaching 80 ref on backpack tf.
At least you can buy keys for 66 ref on scrap tf
@@airlynacesit says updated 2 months ago
@@explosion6768 yeah I noticed recently they dropped to about 56-60 ref
I’ve had some good luck with killstreak kits/fabricators. Recently I bought a festive holy mackerel and a killstreak kit, I applied the killstreak kit, then sold it to a bot for 5 ref profit 😎.
Virgin: Trading for items purely off of value
Chad: Trading for items that you think are cool and want to use
gonna be honest with you but i never care about items value on tf2 since it's just a small detail and honestly yeah i can agree with the last one
Same, i just gave away a hat and metal with cases for 2 weapons. Why? Because 1)i needed the Brass Beast to complete my set, and 2)i wanted a bat outa Hell for a long time
whats wrong with trading pure of value im not a trader also
This, the efficient market is great for buyers who just want a nice hat.
Other way around mate. Who the fuck cares about pixels, virgin things.
I’m not a very experienced trader but I traded a few years ago, and I agree with the “too many items point” normally when buying quicksells you would have expected to sell it to a buyer that wants the item to keep and not to make profit. But now with a lot of items available, the odds that a non trader thinks your specific item is the best looking for the price are way lower. Before I would but quicksells and sell for full price but it seems like now the only way to trade is to buy quicksells and re quicksell it
Yep, you're exactly right. Statistically, your just less likely to trade for a quicksell that buyers actually want.
Trade bots make it almost impossible to buy or sell at a profitable price, because there's always a better option than getting something from me
I've always said that the TF2 economy is seeing who can be ripped off the most.
I mean Unusual Skins can be very profitable to deal with even if it's time consuming especially because the market (aside from None Strange Merc grade) isn't really affected by a lot of the issues in the video, if Unusual skins got more popular there's a good chance that their more Unique nature would make it much more like trading back in the day due to how hard it can be to narrow in on accurate prices. But ofc the issue some people have is the complexity which just means a lot of people don't wish to engage with it unless they plan to buy it for keeping which is why it takes so long but can also be profitable and get you pure payment a lot of the time.
From my perspective and many others, the skins suck. Unlike many other games, there’s a tonne of weapons which you need, instead of csgo model where there’s 2-3 main weps, and 2 secondaries, in tf2 there’s 9 different Main weapons, 5-9 secondaries.
The war paint loses a lot of value once applied, and will often sell very poorly, since no one is interested in your weapon. And the not so optimised backpack site doesn’t benefit this either.
I know you love skins, but from most traders standpoint, skins as they are now, are just as illiquid as spells, and often have less demand except for a few outliers.
Very true, might get back into trading at some point but I've been kind of discouraged lately due to the worse economy
No point. Bots will always undercut/overcut you :/
I'm still trying to trade to this but this is indeed harder and more difficult
Very well put together video. Thank you for the insights.
no problem, I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
Can't wait to see more of your content in 2022. 👍
More is coming! At a really slow pace, however, haha.
The intro with scout and spy is pure gold, had a nice laugh with it.
Appreciate your work and effort you put in your content, keep it up!
Finally someone said something… I tell ya… these trades get worse by the year…
I’m so glad someone talked about how hard trading has gotten
That little detail about the voice chats icons is gold
It really is and has become difficult to trade. Like for completely new players that want to start off obtaining a key at this time of year is going to be hard on them, also because of they're being too much items trying to find a seller for an item u want is way too expensive and trying to sell an item is beyond profitable. A few months back I tried to scrap-bank which was possible it just takes so long to do so
Well, I actually got in trading a lill' bit and your videos helped a lot!
Glad to be of help!
@@TheVirtualEconomist No, I'm glad that you're helping all of us!
Also, HNY!
@@PashaVerti honk nasty yoinkers?
I used to be a TF2 trader from September-December 2019. I made about 27 dollars over the course of that time. It was an extremely painful process even 3 years ago. Hours could be spent for maybe 2 ref in profit, and key inflation being a factor made it harder every day to do low-tier trading. You're better off buying whatever you want with your own money from a job.
There is only one instance in which Cosmetics have an effect on gameplay. Scout can instantly K.O. Pyro if Pyro is wearing the Isolated Merc-specific cosmetic set with his melee weapon if Scout is wearing the Isolationist Pack. Pyro with the Isolated Merc does crit damage as default if the flames touch an Isolationist Pack Scout.
Players should never be forced to participate in money market.
Games are a way to escape life and have fun, not feel stressed that you can lose money or earn it, casinos are unhealthy.
That’s part of the reason why you focus on 1 of 1 on the market hats, you get to set the price you want for it.
Happy new year Ben, good video, as always!
Happy new year Inferno!!
Best thing that’s happened to me in the past year trading was that I found a collector of a certain hat that was really lazy and would pay huge amounts for old Halloween effects. I simply had to check classifieds for the hat, buy the ones that came on the market, mark them up 50-75 keys and he’d buy them. I’ve made 400ish keys doing this
You've also stuck a load of nice hats into a dead inv. Or rocketed the price ov them sky high so normal people cant obtain them.
Trading hasn't become more difficult, obtaining big profits from trading has. For the people that just want to buy cool cosmetics and stuff it's great, for the people that want to just earn money at the expense of other's lack of knowledge it's bad, which is in my opinion, good, now everybody can actually agree on one price and it's less likely to get scammed
This is basically the only decent good take I've seen
Honestly forgetting most of the unusuals and stranges, I'm able to deck out my classes with the exact cosmetics I want from Scrap.tf for only a few months worth of weapon smelting. For players like me, it's really nice to get the looks you want without paying much of anything, although I didn't really know how good it was like pre-2017 (before I started getting into trading things), so.
This was the best new year gift to receive. Thanks, and Happy New Year!
Glad you enjoyed the video so much!
omg its been forever its nice to have you back for trading!
Before I watch further...
I think with the first two points being Key inflation and bots... there is a third... And that is lack of anything new, hot stuff, new merchandise... trading frequency always goes haywire before new stuff drops and after and then is slowly drops till its very low again. Before it was better as updates were frequent, but now, not even new cosmetic chests...
I agree that new updates can be very profitable for traders, but I'd argue that is only the case for maybe the top 5-10% of traders who really know what they are doing... Everyone else has just as high of a chance of making a terrible trade and losing profit. Sorta how the economy was during it's first year or so.
I personally haven’t had a problem, my backpack has grown from $400 to around $11,000 now in 4-5 months. I believe if your willing to learn the current market and put the time and effort in, the sky is the limit.
@Vax Xav sure add me, i have a demonflame hat with no name listed on backpack, add that user
Add me too, I wish to learn trading I only have 2 unusuals but they were birthday gifts from a friend so I Don't really have much.
Damn that's not bad
I used to do my main trading in pubs because of #3. Just selling cheap items like stranges and hats cuz thats what casuals want. Good times.. made lots of friends too
Back for the new year!
:)
Bots and people hoarding desired hats which can't be obtained anymore and artificially jacking up prices are the problems. The oversaturation with low quality workshop items is just the cherry on top.
i rly enjoy watching your videos, you should upload more often
For me - trading was always about the interaction. I have meet so many great and kind people just over trading and most of them keept being in touch with me over the years even when we never ever traded after that.
I love that beginning
Very insightful
glad you enjoyed the video!
Hey! Great video, I appreciate the realness and positivity you always bring to the economy. It's nice to hear someone so down to earth and in touch with how everyone feels these days
Thanks for the kind words! I love getting comments like this :)
Yooo when i saw heard kelp forest soundtrack i thought my below zero opened! Great music decision man. I also play below zero
I've never actually played the game, but when I came across the soundtrack I was blown away! I love the vibe, there are a couple of tracks that sound like Portal which is really cool!
@@TheVirtualEconomistThanks for the reply. I really recommend you play this game, but you should finish first subnautica so you have the
Nowdays to make profit you need to treat tf2 items like stock market, buy them at a cheaper price and wait for it to grow, and then sell it to a bot
Seems to me that the best way to trade now is to have a bot with a lot of keys taking buy orders and another storage bot making sell orders. The process could be heavily automated. With a small amount of oversight it would provide a decent passive income source
damn i wonder what happened to him for him to not be posting anymore
ngl the opening part of the video reminded me when I TRIED to get into trading I got some decent a decent unusual at a bit of eh price(which was a green energy pyro beanie I bought for 39 keys and was selling i think for 41 or 42) and i remember when i tried to sell it to people IT WAS BASICALLY IMPOSSABLE i ended up getting scammed twice with trading and all i can say was it was stressful as hell. I still trade every once in a while just because its kind of a necessity if your buying some hats to know how to trade but god dam i am still paranode as hell when trading cause it just felt it was impossible
I stopped trading when trade holds came out. Making any trades got way harder and my trades slowed to a crawl. Pretty sure all steam trading took a big hit from that update.
Man I haven’t touched trading in years. Loved watching scrap to unusual sand did it myself. Started from nothing and got all the way to a 10 key unusual and left after achieving that. The inflation issue was the biggest pain for me even though I didn’t have it as bad. It was around 30 refined for a key back then for me but having to constantly check the increase was always frustrating. I had my fun back then, and hope it will somehow get better even if the future seems bleak.
Someone wanted my 2 CSGO crates for 2 keys until I looked up the crates marketplace value and found out they were $10 each. I find traders always sketchy.
I really liked the trading sketch lol
Extremely well done. As a person who just wants to buy items that I like, the bots are great for me! The only thing I dislike about the new trading ecosystem is the decline of trading servers. They were fun
I cashed out a good bit ago but I still really enjoy your videos.
Trading has been a chore for years due to weird inflations (I still remember when keys were 2.40 ref and Buds were heavily used to trade unusuals) I decided one day somewhere around a year and a half ago that I was done and cashed out. 8 years worth of trading and I can happily say it’s been fun and thanks to a video game I profited $2,000 from virtual items.
Edit: Keep in mind, I 100% know during my cash out that when I sold my backpack as a whole, I lost on roughly 300$ but didn’t feel like negotiating because I was so tired of how picky people can get. I settled with it and glad I left the trading scene and tf2 as a whole.
Glad you're still around watching my videos :)
via who did you cash out if i can ask?
So you profited $2,000 over 8 years. Assuming there are 2,080 hours in a working year that means you made roughly $0.12 an hour lol.
@@oddball7752 still pales in comparison to my 2 ref to key 100 hour journey where i made around 0.0223 usd per hour of trading
@@somewhat_human Stonks
Amé este video xD sigue así bro!
Player(s) placing a large amount of low buy orders in order to drop an items price also makes it very difficult to trade certain items. This is an example of the bigger problem that is market manipulation.
Babe wake up, TheVirtualEconomist's uploaded new video!
Love that you are active again
I remember when I started doing rags to riches years ago and made my way up from one key into a Frenchman's Beret | Cauldron Bubbles.
Nowadays trading isn't fun at all due to the lack of communication.
Risk of Rain 2 music hits different. Ty Chris Christodoulou for the amazing music.
Over the years, more and more traders I tried trading with wanted me to overpay more and more for the sake of "profit". As someone who just wanted the item, I wasn't wanting to overpay constantly when I was just paying for the listed price. It was like they were taxing me for their own gain. Back when I used to trade, a Key was worth 2.33 Ref, which was very reasonable back then. Now it's in the 50's and nobody can afford that kind of worth. Keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor.
I am pretty sure that the point of trading was trying to exchange weapons and cosmetics with people who wanted one thing but had another, not a damn economics class
And here i am, not even knowing what a damn refined is
But isn't it cool how a concept as innocuous as "exchanging weapons and cosmetics" could end up being so reflective of real world economics? That's what's awesome to me.
@@TheVirtualEconomist it is awesome, i just don't get how it got there xd
I’d like to see a trade arena about trading for what YOU want and not caring about values or anything or turnovers to the community market.
It's not more difficult per se it's just more traders almost never take a lost and move on and hold onto items they can't sell if there isn't an offer for profit. In short, all the traders are getting more wise but have no experience. They know their goal but lack experience to reach it. And they can't get experience if they're too stubborn to take risks and losses.
I Remember trading back when keys were 3 refined and buds were actually a currency. back then I could actually trade from a key to a pretty decent unusual pretty quickly.
Long retired trader here, just wanted to let you know that your videos have been watched many times over by me, and helped me a lot. Had a lot of fun trading spelled max heads and I couldn’t have done it without all the knowledge I got from your content. Hope you’re doing good.
After watching this video I decided to start doing the "Keys to ritches" formula, starting with 10 keys pure. I started this in mid Feb like 3 weeks ago and...idk, I feel that trade is still good. For now I was able to get 10+ keys since I started and I feel that trading can still be fun if you want to negociate with people.
Holy shit , I remember a key used to be 2 .33 when I used to trade. Traded myself up to some buds and a couple bills's then quit the game after cashing out. Good days back in 2012 .
I remember spending my hours on TF2 trading back in late 2014 and early 2015. Oh the memories I had
Happy New Year! I'm a relatively new trader (6 months in) and I agree with the points in the vid
the real issue is the steam inventory API, is impossible to trade fast with the servers down 80% of the time
Your channel has taught me so much
Just recently, I was wanting to sell a bunch of some stuff someone was asking for on backpacktf, and sent them an offer, even making a great deal for them, and what did they do? They decided to report my backpacktf account saying that the stuff wasnt what they wanted, even though their offer was simple asking for the items i had, and I've been on the trading site since 2013 or so, but i guess that -1 trust was worth it to them.
I even said out loud after this, "This is why I trade with bots," but then after this video, I remember when I was just starting out, I got scammed out of my team captain I just got from the mann co store, as I fell for the cheap, 'we need to inspect this item as there might be some issues with it' and then didn't want to trade, until a year later when I started unboxing, which got me back into it.
Great point though, many factors play into an economy, especially an old game like TF2, and we gotta make some better ways to make the economy what it was before, or something of that nature.
3. Refined metal price has gone to shit
When The Rain Formerly Known As Purple kicks in.
That song's a bop ngl
Maybe if scout added a Tom jones figurine spy would accept the offer…
I remember when I first started playing TF2 keys were 3 ref each :D
Ultimately trading was going to end up like this because of what trading was MEANT to be outside of making profit which was to get items you liked. Early trading was almost like trading in human history, accepting cattle for some grain or other.
Now we have Walmart and stuff for all that stuff. Large logistics with decades of infrastructure makes these retail shops work. Now that infrastructure has arrived at tf2.
That sketch is so true, it hurts
It tried to get into trading 3 times. My biggest chance is when I pulled an Australian Sniper Rifle and quicksold it. Every unusual hat I got was nearly impossible to sell, and scammers would just keep adding me and pulling the same tricks over and over again. Of course, I never fell for any of them, but it’s annoying to deal with. I gave up and just dropped a couple $100s on the game, bought what I wanted, and now I’m happy :)
At the end of the day trading is not an action that creates any value, it just shifts ownership of pre-existing value. That means for any given trade, if someone is "profiting", another person is incurring a loss. It's only natural that people would be averse to incurring losses, and want to be informed traders. Trading is harder because people are more informed, but I think that's generally a good thing.
When I got into trading, I was into collecting True (can't be unboxed again) 1-1 of a kind unusuals.
Making profit was easy (if not a massive waiting game) when you invested into limited items.
Of course, that doesn't really apply anymore, most of these kinds of items are too damn expensive to even buy (seriously, who in their right mind would pay 2000+ keys for a Noh Mercy? At that point you'd should be considering something more important in your life like buying a car instead of this degrading game) or aren't worth buying (most of the new halloween/smissmas effects call into this range: you'll notice alot of traders will flat out reject trading for these for this reason) and knowing Valve it's highly unlikely we're get anymore worth buying for "reasonable" prices like miscs again.
You'll only be stuck with the extremes going forward: tons and tons of crap you don't want, and all the good stuff hoarded by collectors or traders who'd you have to sell a kidney to affourd.
[15:11] Also don't forget cases and crates, it may be small but it can be very useful as you can get free scrap from those trades.
Spy: no one would want that skin
Me who sold a strange skin for twice the pricebi bought it because the skin had a specific pattern and theres pattern for holy mackerel like fish sana fish joker and shit mouth fish
Thank you for great video I learn more trading from older videos about trading in tf2 have done some trading i would say i like more working with the steam market then trading but i do understand it so i say thank you for teaching more in depth about trading
a new virtual economist vid ?!
Just left trading recently, got the loadout i wanted, dont need to trade no more
Last time I attempted to trade I ended up with a like, - 4 key profit because by the end of the attempt which lasted a few weeks I just wanted to get a nice looking unusual and stop. All the servers I tried to trade on where just people wandering around either trying to scrap bank 10 years too late or trying to trade massively expensive unusuals. The bots and hard item prices make it so that there is virtually no way to trade up without happening to own some niche hard to price item that isnt too hard to price.
But like, having stuff available at a fair price that's really good for the casual buyers.
yep! over time the market has gotten better and better for casual buyers, just as it's gotten worse and worse for regular profit traders
Craft hat prices also stay the same on scrap tf. So the higher price the keys get, the easier it becomes to get more hats
Used to love his content; only found out I didn't subscribe with this channel now
Wherever you are, please come back
I honestly wish they kept weapon skins as they were introduced where you'd unbox the skin itself instead of given a skin applier that lets you apply it to any weapon
4:00 chubbyemu music starts playing lol
I've never heard of chubbyemu but I'm glad that channels as big as theirs are using this music, meaning I'm not gonna get a copyright strike for it lol
So far i think im much happier with access to things like steam marketplace tf marketplace and tf backpack its gotta be so much safer and easier to learn how to trade now.
Even as an old trader im enjoying the laxness of it all. I remember it felt like a majority of my time before was wasted on scammers or people trying to see if im dumb enough to trade them.
I'm still kinda trying to get into trading, I agree that from the looks of things getting into trading is so much more difficult than it was back then, with key value skyrocketing and certain things just becoming less valuable. I really wish I could have gotten into trading before things became like this instead of blowing my wallet on some unusuals to sell and then learning they're not as valuable as backpack says they are. I do try to trade the old fashion way on trade servers but people are rarely even trading on those servers anymore. trading just doesn't seem too appealing or fun anymore and I think the time you need to invest in this stuff today is not worth the returns.
I love the skit in the beginning.
5:11 i find it exceedingly hilarious that the only thing able to kill a medic is another with a melee random crit
this video made me have a great idea! Thanks! 😊
. With this in mind I'm sure I can actually get somewhere with trading now, just too bad I spent the majority of my time trying to trade without knowing this.
Happy new year economist!!!
Profitting in low tier is still possible, the hard part starts when you get your first key, when keys are involved instead of just ref shit turns actually impossible to profit
Hey Virtual economist. Can you make a trading series (like keys to riches) in this year? I know its gonna be hard but it will pay off. If you do refuse well its fine i mean it is gonna be so hard so yeah goodluck in your future vids bro.
I guess because 90% of the traders in tf2 are people looking to "profit". Mostly maybe kids that hope they can make some big money out of tf2 or at least getting a big inventory. This translate that low tier is full of people looking to just buy under bot orders. Most of them don't count add-on because no bots that buy them exist. If they count them most of the time is some ultra low-ball. Unusual trading may be the only thing that could be saved even if bots are starting to get their hands even on that. At one point im sure bots will simply control the entire market. Because people wants to make $$ they create bots but at this point a bunch of them exist and so they look to expand their market and expand their bots to new horizon (example when i started trading bots for painted hat did not exist. Now you can find them in every cosmetic item pretty much, similar to unusual and even if not in a large quantity they are starting to get even into the skin or at least the most valuable ones)
Then we have key price in ref going crazy as fuck. at least when i started they were 20 ref (for many still a lot) but now we are going for 70+. Idk how most can't see it but i see people going crazy for having made a few ref profit trades or some of them really trade to make that scrap profit every once. Even if i make a 30 ref profit trade it may look big but at the end i just made around 90 cent.
In one of the best case scenario in a month with low tier trading i could make 5-10 keys? Not worth at all for the effort you put in finding the deal and advertising it.
Honestly it's just better to work or find some little jobs to do. I'm a chemistry uni student and for helping kids/teenager to do homeworks i get paid 10-15 euro/h. i make that 5 keys profit in an hour and i can actually use my money in other way other than steam/tf2/reselling it and losing value.
This is just my opinion ^^. Sorry for the long msg!