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The long game (lemmy.world)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/memes@lemmy.world
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[–] 16 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Online gambling existed well before Steam.

How did they start microtransactions?

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Selling loot boxes, where you pay 2-3 currency units to "unlock" a box that definitely won't have something of value the vast majority of the time. TF2 cosmetics, CS:GO gun/knife/glove/player model skins

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    To be fair those are cosmetic only items. I've played a ton of those games and didn't spend s dime, because I don't care about how cool my gun looks.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago

    same. But to a lot of people, those pixels are valuable. So valuable an entire secondary market opened up outside of Steam. And the lootbox mechanic is literally gambling-- No different than a slot machine. When opening a box, it even gins it up with graphics and fanfare, just like a video slot machine.

    Multiple billions of currency units in "value" all situated around virtual gambling. Valve created the most successful, valuable digital casino, ever.

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