MCM 0230 S01: Digital Media

Farming gold in World of Warcraft as outlined by Dyer is one of the rather curious cases of capital markets giving value to an otherwise valueless object, but in this case a digital object. A similar case is present in Valve’s implementation of the Steam Market. In their games Team Fortress, DOTA 2, and Counter Strike, Valve has introduced in-game cosmetics that have value on the Steam Marketplace, and more recently, are exchanged on external, third-party sites so that the $400 limit for single transactions on the Steam Market can be avoided. Yes, this means that there are cosmetic items that exceed the value of $400, and some of these are thousands of dollars each. None of the prices are set by Valve, but instead, economies are naturally created by supply and demand. This means that if a new pack of cosmetics comes out that is highly desired by the playerbase, the other cosmetics on the market will tank in value. Case in point: about a year ago, the Asiimov skin in Counter-Strike was $75 each, and because of the stability of its price (due to its monopoly as a moderately-rare, desirable skin), was a currency in and of itself (many trades listed items priced at $300 as 4 Asiimovs, such was its reputation). However, as of now, it is priced at $30, due to a multitude of new skins that have similar rarity while being visually pleasing enough to be desirable. On another note, one of the minds behind the Steam market was employed as Greece’s finance minister in January of 2015.