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Key Hyperinflation, Time for a CPI?


ConVict  The_Hairy_Baboon

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I've pretty much stopped gaming at this point in life, and I occasionally trade.  I do check key prices and found an interesting thing.

 

According to wikipedia, "hyperinflation occurs when cumulative inflation over three years is equal to or exceeds 100%."  Looking at key prices over the past year (7.00 ref on Dec 30 2013, 17.00 on Dec 30 2014) we have about 143% inflation.  That's in one year, the 3 year total is even higher.  Ergo, we have hyperinflation in key price.

 

​Intriguingly, we may not have hyperinflation overall, as the price of common hats and other ref based items has remained roughly the same/dropped.  Craft hats have stayed at ~1.00-1.33 for ages now.  Most other items/weapons have experienced similar trends, once the hype wears off, an item's price generally stays stagnant.  This has me wondering if anyone has created a CPI (Consumer price index) for the TF2 economy.  I'm thinking it should look at the prices of an assortment of commonly traded items such as Paints, keys, ToD, weapons, hats (a few from each update, potentially some issues as items get added to the game, I'm not entirely sure how to represent their prices while keeping the same relative CPI levels).

 

At the same time, I'm wondering how exactly to use a CPI to describe this economy since there's not one specific currency.  We have refined metal for smaller purchases, keys for larger ones, and buds for others.  They also have their relative prices, buds have been falling relative to keys, but not 100% tied to metal value.  When you have multiple usable currencies with varying exchange rates, its hard to compare prices.  Potentially treating each market like a separate country, i.e. Country A uses refined, B uses keys, C uses buds, but even then, the math doesn't add up.  Buds could be considered like gold, people directly buy and sell gold, but also sometimes use gold+ money for purchases directly.  That allows for somewhat of numbers loss conversion process.

 

What do people think, TF2 economy in hyperinflation in general, or just for keys?

Would a CPI be useful for looking at this inflation?

 

Also, for some economics reading: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/

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You've made a mistake trying to have a conversation on the backpack.tf forums, you'll be lucky to get one or two replies that arent just spam and crappy .gifs.

 

I'd contribute, but I honestly don't pay attention to Keys anymore, since I dont trade Ref for Keys or vice versa. It's actually nice for Keys to be stupidly high for me, since it means I can buy tons of Orange paint if I ever want any.

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You've made a mistake trying to have a conversation on the backpack.tf forums, you'll be lucky to get one or two replies that arent just spam and crappy .gifs.

 

I'd contribute, but I honestly don't pay attention to Keys anymore, since I dont trade Ref for Keys or vice versa. It's actually nice for Keys to be stupidly high for me, since it means I can buy tons of Orange paint if I ever want any.

 

Yeah, I kind of expected some people to just spam posts to get a higher post count.  I also hope that some more educated people actually browse the forums, or maybe some of the developers here will see it and take it on as a side project (making a CPI).  

 

The danger of high valued keys may not come from them being high valued, but what makes them high valued, a surfeit of metal on everyone's hands.

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You've made a mistake trying to have a conversation on the backpack.tf forums, you'll be lucky to get one or two replies that arent just spam and crappy .gifs.

 

I'd contribute, but I honestly don't pay attention to Keys anymore, since I dont trade Ref for Keys or vice versa. It's actually nice for Keys to be stupidly high for me, since it means I can buy tons of Orange paint if I ever want any.

 

no, it is because we're tired of seeing the same shit about keys threads created everyday.

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You've made a mistake trying to have a conversation on the backpack.tf forums, you'll be lucky to get one or two replies that arent just spam and crappy .gifs.

 

I'd contribute, but I honestly don't pay attention to Keys anymore, since I dont trade Ref for Keys or vice versa. It's actually nice for Keys to be stupidly high for me, since it means I can buy tons of Orange paint if I ever want any.

And you, we Can have a Conversation over something, That isn't the fucking 200th thread about this, we don't wanna have the same Convo For the 200th time, and if you think we just spam you can get out if you don't like it here.

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It's actually nice for Keys to be stupidly high for me, since it means I can buy tons of Orange paint if I ever want any.

You are kinda wrong, cause paints as well as TOD's are bought with $ in the store, so they always keep up with the key price in ref.

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You are kinda wrong, cause paints as well as TOD's are bought with $ in the store, so they always keep up with the key price in ref.

Not always, Stale has been keeping the same price, Only really Aussie Paint Stays the same

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no, it is because we're tired of seeing the same shit about keys threads created everyday.

 

If you actually bothered to read his post rather than being a twat with your response maybe you'd see this wasn't really about keys but more about creating a CPI that is similar to the US economy has. 

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in terms of real money only the tools and higher end items (unusuals, high tier stranges, australiums) have mostly stayed the same where anything craftable has significantly dropped in price. 

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i dont understand why people are saying keys are rising, they are always worth 2.49$. No clue why bp.tf says 2.75$ but thats just blatantly incorrect. The only change that is happening is the fall of ref price, the key price "rises" proportionally.

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i dont understand why people are saying keys are rising, they are always worth 2.49$. No clue why bp.tf says 2.75$ but thats just blatantly incorrect. The only change that is happening is the fall of ref price, the key price "rises" proportionally.

Refined is outdated

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i dont understand why people are saying keys are rising, they are always worth 2.49$. No clue why bp.tf says 2.75$ but thats just blatantly incorrect. The only change that is happening is the fall of ref price, the key price "rises" proportionally.

 

They say that because it's the easiest and most convenient thing to say when the price in refined is constantly reinforced as a visual link to the key value. If the price was listed as something else for instance, USD, then I doubt you'd see as much talk of "keys rising". This is also happening because most of the children that play or trade with TF2 have zero understand of how economics work and fail to grasp the idea that another "currency" such as refined could be dropping which gives the false appearance that keys are rising. 

 

Also keys are shown as $2.75 right now because since they are listed in refined, the main currency which shows your USD backpack value is tied to your total refined value which is then reflected by the value of refined in USD. So as Tom Cruise said, when refined's value listing becomes outdated, it shows fixed price items such as TOD tickets and keys as being worth more than they are in USD. 

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They say that because it's the easiest and most convenient thing to say when the price in refined is constantly reinforced as a visual link to the key value. If the price was listed as something else for instance, USD, then I doubt you'd see as much talk of "keys rising". This is also happening because most of the children that play or trade with TF2 have zero understand of how economics work and fail to grasp the idea that another "currency" such as refined could be dropping which gives the false appearance that keys are rising. 

 

Also keys are shown as $2.75 right now because since they are listed in refined, the main currency which shows your USD backpack value is tied to your total refined value which is then reflected by the value of refined in USD. So as Tom Cruise said, when refined's value listing becomes outdated, it shows fixed price items such as TOD tickets and keys as being worth more than they are in USD. 

 

 

It also kind of depends on what you view as the ultimate currency.  If you're like me, trading only within game, no paypal or steam market, keys are rising, ref is staying the same.  

 

bp.tf's price for stuff is going to be off anytime keys change price in refined, but that's because of how the code was originally set up.

 

there's a few "main" currencies out there:

 

refined metal: used mostly for weapons, hats, and other low value stuff.

keys:  used for mid level stuff as well as unusuals

buds:  used predominantly for unusuals, as well as exchange to keys.

USD:  used for paypal purchases/steam market.

 

Because of the steam market/paypal, whenever the price of a key in refined metal increases, the value of metal in USD decreases since a key will never sell for more than $2.49.

 

I'm guessing that most of the children that play tf2 don't use steam market or paypal, and therefore to them, keys are rising.  To those on the market/paypal, refined is falling.

 

I wish that Valve Economist would release a statement about key prices, but he hasn't done anything since 2012

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It also kind of depends on what you view as the ultimate currency.  If you're like me, trading only within game, no paypal or steam market, keys are rising, ref is staying the same.  

 

bp.tf's price for stuff is going to be off anytime keys change price in refined, but that's because of how the code was originally set up.

 

there's a few "main" currencies out there:

 

refined metal: used mostly for weapons, hats, and other low value stuff.

keys:  used for mid level stuff as well as unusuals

buds:  used predominantly for unusuals, as well as exchange to keys.

USD:  used for paypal purchases/steam market.

 

Because of the steam market/paypal, whenever the price of a key in refined metal increases, the value of metal in USD decreases since a key will never sell for more than $2.49.

 

I'm guessing that most of the children that play tf2 don't use steam market or paypal, and therefore to them, keys are rising.  To those on the market/paypal, refined is falling.

 

I wish that Valve Economist would release a statement about key prices, but he hasn't done anything since 2012

What did he even do in 2012?

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I've pretty much stopped gaming at this point in life, and I occasionally trade.  I do check key prices and found an interesting thing.

 

According to wikipedia, "hyperinflation occurs when cumulative inflation over three years is equal to or exceeds 100%."  Looking at key prices over the past year (7.00 ref on Dec 30 2013, 17.00 on Dec 30 2014) we have about 143% inflation.  That's in one year, the 3 year total is even higher.  Ergo, we have hyperinflation in key price.

 

Keys still cost the same as they always have.  2.49 usd, and sometimes +/- on scm due to regional currency differences.  Key inflation would mean the devaluation of keys, and we're not seeing that at all.  We're seeing a devaluation of metal.

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​Intriguingly, we may not have hyperinflation overall, as the price of common hats and other ref based items has remained roughly the same/dropped.  Craft hats have stayed at ~1.00-1.33 for ages now.  Most other items/weapons have experienced similar trends, once the hype wears off, an item's price generally stays stagnant.

 

This is because the crafting system determines the value of those items.  2 weapons make a scrap, and either 2 hats or 3 refined makes a hat.  Craft hats are valued for their use in crafting other hats, and drop weapons are valued for their use in crafting metal.  This is TF2 trading 101.  One wonders how you ever functioned as a trader without this knowledge.

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They say that because it's the easiest and most convenient thing to say when the price in refined is constantly reinforced as a visual link to the key value. If the price was listed as something else for instance, USD, then I doubt you'd see as much talk of "keys rising". This is also happening because most of the children that play or trade with TF2 have zero understand of how economics work and fail to grasp the idea that another "currency" such as refined could be dropping which gives the false appearance that keys are rising. 

 

Also keys are shown as $2.75 right now because since they are listed in refined, the main currency which shows your USD backpack value is tied to your total refined value which is then reflected by the value of refined in USD. So as Tom Cruise said, when refined's value listing becomes outdated, it shows fixed price items such as TOD tickets and keys as being worth more than they are in USD. 

 

 

Keys still cost the same as they always have.  2.49 usd, and sometimes +/- on scm due to regional currency differences.  Key inflation would mean the devaluation of keys, and we're not seeing that at all.  We're seeing a devaluation of metal.

Effectively ame as what kiki Vidis said.  But again, as my response to kiki, it depends on your reference frame.  If you don't participate in SCM or Paypal trades, then keys are rising (as well as some items tied to keys).  

 

Also, technically yes, it's inflation of refined not key inflation (assuming the tf2 centric view, not SCM/Paypal/Tf2 view), it's really all in the wording.

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Effectively ame as what kiki Vidis said.  But again, as my response to kiki, it depends on your reference frame.  If you don't participate in SCM or Paypal trades, then keys are rising (as well as some items tied to keys).  

 

Also, technically yes, it's inflation of refined not key inflation (assuming the tf2 centric view, not SCM/Paypal/Tf2 view), it's really all in the wording.

 

The statement "keys cost more metal because keys are undergoing inflation" doesn't make sense.

The statement "keys cost more metal because metal is undergoing inflation" does make sense.

 

One is coherent, while the other is incoherent.

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This is because the crafting system determines the value of those items.  2 weapons make a scrap, and either 2 hats or 3 refined makes a hat.  Craft hats are valued for their use in crafting other hats, and drop weapons are valued for their use in crafting metal.  This is TF2 trading 101.  One wonders how you ever functioned as a trader without this knowledge.

that is basic knowledge for when someone doesn't want a hat or weapon.  when someone doesn't want a hat or weapon, the value drops to using it as a raw material for making something new.  If a weapon is desirable (eg awper hand, 3 rune blade) its value is not half a scrap.  when buying specific weapons, most people charge a scrap, because there is the desire for the item, the value that one is willing to pay rises.  

 

I may not have directly considered the aspect of banal weapons having half a scrap-1 scrap value being tied to crafting when making that post, but there are enough non-junk weapons and hats (that can still be crafted) for my point to be made.

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that is basic knowledge for when someone doesn't want a hat or weapon.  when someone doesn't want a hat or weapon, the value drops to using it as a raw material for making something new.  If a weapon is desirable (eg awper hand, 3 rune blade) its value is not half a scrap.  when buying specific weapons, most people charge a scrap, because there is the desire for the item, the value that one is willing to pay rises.  

 

I may not have directly considered the aspect of banal weapons having half a scrap-1 scrap value being tied to crafting when making that post, but there are enough non-junk weapons and hats (that can still be crafted) for my point to be made.

 

The examples you gave are still tied to the crafting system since they are obtained through token crafts.  This also impacts the genuine versions of them since greater availability of non-genuine variants has a negative effect on the genuine price.  Do better.

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