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OK, what are Steam Trading Cards and why would you want them?


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Oh what a relief ... i though i am only one who have no idea what Steam cards are.Hmm i read FAQ and "guide" but i still don't get it why should i care for badges,experience and possible discount of a DLC or game (possibility to get one is next to none).If you ask me this is the biggest non sense Valve ever introduce.

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Meh. If the cards sell for an average of $0.10 and you've already bought the game, you'll earn about $0.50 playing Xenonauts. Better than a poke in the eye!

They are pretty lame in principle, though. I'm not really sure what they add to Steam overall...but if people like them then who am I to argue?

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I love steam trading cards. Why? Because every one I get I sell for approximately $0.10 to $0.20. If a game gives 10 cards, that's about a dollar. If I play two games and get their cards to sell that's $2. I can now buy an old game on Steam during a super sale. I have bought maybe 5 games entirely from steam trading cards.

Oh, and you can get new cards on the games you buy with trading cards. :D

Edit: For those who don't know, steam cards are *virtual* trading cards. You see them in your "steam inventory" which is accessible at the top and through the letter envelope button. You sell cards *directly through steam* with a point and click interface in the steam client.

Edited by victorix58
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What do they add to Steam? Cash, of course. People spent more than one and a half million euros on the special holiday cards that existed during the few weeks of the Christmas sale. Check out this forum thread wherein I argue (and provide evidence) that the profits from those holiday cards stand a good chance of competing with profits made by games that were among the top 20 or even top 10 best selling during the sale.

As to why people buy them, the best reason I could find is that they have a pricetag attached to them.

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You meant to jump at anything thats stupid ?This has nothing to do with Steam Cards but as good example we could use Goat simulator ...what can be more stupid than that (among Steam cards).Nowadays people just love stupid stuff,create stupid product which is "unique" and people will buy it.

Edited by Sentelin
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You meant to jump at anything thats stupid ?This has nothing to do with Steam Cards but as good example we could use Goat simulator ...what can be more stupid than that (among Steam cards).Nowadays people just love stupid stuff,create stupid product which is "unique" and people will buy it.

Here you go with a good example - one of the most popular Kickstarter game projects in recent days:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1581450659/worst-game-ever?ref=discovery

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I'd like to give a little overview here. ^^

Most Games on Steam have these Trading Cards nowadays.

What to do with them?

You can collect them and once you have one of each card you can turn them in. In exchange you get:

-goodies for steam with the theme of the game. Normally chat smilies or background pictures

-XP on your steam account. This grants steam level, which then opens up additional possibilities for your profile.

If you check my profile for example: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197997012035/

You see a background picture - this is a picture you can get when turning in one pack of Metro: Last Light Cards.

You can also see showcases where the achievements are displayed. The higher the level you are the more showcases you can put there. There you can display rarest achievements, number of games and whatnot.

A higher steam level also increases the amount of people you can have in your friends list, though you will hardly reach the "normal" limit anyways.

-You also receive a "Badge" which shows you turned in a pack of cards. You can see that on the right in my profile (e.g. Hotline Miami, Level 1 - yes, Level 1, you can turn them in multiple times)

However if you want a special reward, like a background picture or a smiley, it's probably most effective to just sell the cards and buy the thing you want directly from the market. People mainly use packs to Level up in steam. The pictures and so on are mainly a byproduct.

How to get them?

-You earn them by running the game. If you see yourself in the friendslist with the status "Playing XYZ" the time is counting towards getting the card. After about 3-4h you normally got all cards which you can earn that way. This is normally about half of all available cards. So if a game has 5 cards, you will get about 3. If a game has 14 cards you will get 7. Though they might be double.

-The other way to get them is by sheer luck. Personally I got like 1 "pack" each 4 months or so, if not even less...

That is a couple of cards for a random game you played lately. This method of acquiring cards is totally random.

-And of course you can buy them. The more cards there are in a game, the less they are worth. So for a game with 6 cards, where you might need 3 cards, you pay 15 cents for each card. And for a game with 10 cards, where you have 5, you might need to pay like 10 Cents or so.

-And there are holiday sales: During Christmas and Summer Sales you can normally vote on steam like "which of these 3 games should be on sale for the next 8 hours". For each couple of votes you get a steam holiday card - which then again can be put together to a holiday badge. These holiday badges can also bring you items for games which are directly connected to steam. Like Team Fortress or DOTA2. Depending on the rareness of these items they can be worth nothing and up to a couple of hundred Euros/Dollars. The Cool thing about these sales is also that each pack you complete you get an extra holiday card. So if you have a full set of cards from Game A and turn it in during a holiday sale, you get (or got at least) one extra holiday card.

-Last but not least you can also trade them with friends if you both have steam guard activated.

You can of course also sell the cards Normally the price of cards is between 6 Cents and 20 Cents. I think it's a percentage like 5% or so which goes to steam and another 5% or so which goes to the developer. However the minimum of the fee is 1 Cent each.

So if you sell a card for 6 Cent, steam will get 1 Cent, and the developer gets 1 Cent. You will get the remaining 4.

If you sell a card for 20 Cents, steam will get 1 cents, the devs will get 1 cent, and you will get 18 cents.

So my guess is that for developers it's probably most effective to have lots of cards as there will probably be more transactions. However if the game has just 6 cards, you might feel more attracted to buying the remaining 3.

So in summary: These cards are indeed totally pointless if you are realistic. But so is playing games. And like playing games it is fun for some people. And if you don't like to collect these cards at all, you can profit from them anyways but just selling all of them.

Personally I handle it the following way: I see the steam trading cards as some "mini game". I don't invest own money at all. However I also don't want to make profit with it. I split the games I play into two categories: The ones I want to have badges for, and the ones where I don't. I sell the cards for those games where I don't want them. And instead of using the money from my wallet when purchasing a game, I keep it aside and use it for buying cards for the games where I want to collect the badge.

In the end everyone profits:

-Players who don't want to bother with it, can either ignore it, or get around 30-50 Cents for selling the cards.

-Players who like to collect them have a neat little time sink and can decorate their profile

-Developers receive extra money from each trade. Which isn't tons of money, but it's some extra money coming in for a very tiny effort. In addition players might find games more attractive if they have cards - especially during sales later on.

Edited by Kordanor
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Incidentally those trading cards are worth about $0.30-$0.40 at the moment because they're still relatively rare. So if you get them, selling them now seems a good idea.

Josh Eales has sold about 30 times in the last 24 hours for $0.40.

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Yep, might be a good idea to sell them right away and rebuy them later on. ^^

Also when going over 0.22 Cents the fee increases to over 2 cents. So the developer gets additional money this way.

Just don't put them in for the price shown in the graph. The prices will go down inevitably. So if the card you want to sell is listed as

"30 times in the last 24 hours for $0.40" it's still a good idea to check the availablity of the card. If there are several offers already for 39 Cents, it doesn't make sense to put them in for 0.40, because it won't reach this price anymore.

However there will probably be additional price spikes when the games officially releases and when it gets into sales. These spikes will however end in a lower price a week later or so (until it reached the base price which is dependent on the number of cards for the game).

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It was a different time in the heady days of the trading card beta. A foil would easily sell for 10+ USD, at the least. Fortunes were made and clandestine card control operations were formed, organizing and exploiting the differences in prices of games between regions.

A Russian contact was your best friend. On average, a game would sell for 66% (in addition to any other discounts) in Russia for what an America would plan to spend. Wait for a sale. Buy through contact. Use Steam Achievement Manager to idle game without even downloading to acquire cards. Sell. Profit.

But the market burst. Supply quickly outstripped demand. Like tears in the rain.

TL;DR You sell them for money

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