Keys on Steam Market Lowest I've seen

[G R O W U P]

I recently started to dabble on steam market selling+buying and this is the first time I've seen Keys selling the lowest - £1.5 (or 2.05 USD I think). I saw history of sales and i thought it was some random key depression but its been stable at 1.5 or lower for quite few hours. 

Anyone got any idea of whats going on, And should i buy in all the keys right now ( any experienced scm trader's opinion would be nice)?

[RouzenZaker]

why? it's much cheaper on the markets, and it's sitting out every year in the fall, it's all falling.

[LstratosHF]

csgo operation just dropped. the people need steam wallet funds

[Keks]

dont worry if scream fortress comes soon enough the key prices will drop even lower temporarily

[G R O W U P]

33 minutes ago, Keks said:

dont worry if scream fortress comes soon enough the key prices will drop even lower temporarily

so should have i waited to buy keys till scream fortress? how much should i make the buy orders for? 

[LaughingLollipop]

Currency items with no in game use potential?

 

Cross game currency where the source has far fewer players?

 

WCGW

[G R O W U P]

1 hour ago, LaughingLollipop said:

Currency items with no in game use potential?

 

Cross game currency where the source has far fewer players?

 

WCGW

What do u mean no in game use potential?  - its used to open crates... its a currency lol, its very much the backbone of tf2 trading for the past 7 years.

Tf2 has had the highest con-current players since release just 3 months ago... and was ranked 5th "most played of the day" just few days ago. 

Maybe im misunderstanding you

[Jammos]

1 hour ago, LaughingLollipop said:

Currency items with no in game use potential?

 

Cross game currency where the source has far fewer players?

 

WCGW

CS:GO does have much higher player counts, but TF2 is still around. Don't understand what you mean by "No In-Game Use," its used to unbox and was chosen as a currency because of how relatively stable the price is.

[Nickman]

1 hour ago, ShadowClanZ said:

What do u mean no in game use potential?  - its used to open crates... its a currency lol, its very much the backbone of tf2 trading for the past 7 years.

Tf2 has had the highest con-current players since release just 3 months ago... and was ranked 5th "most played of the day" just few days ago. 

Maybe im misunderstanding you

 

1 hour ago, Jammos said:

CS:GO does have much higher player counts, but TF2 is still around. Don't understand what you mean by "No In-Game Use," its used to unbox and was chosen as a currency because of how relatively stable the price is.

 

I ended up writing more than I intended and went on a bit of a tangent towards the end but the issues I spoke about here (particularly no new effects on old hats) have been on my mind as of late. I think it's worth a read if you want to know about some of the issues with Supply Crate Keys and crates vs cases but for everyone who's going to skim over this:

 

TL;DR:

There's no good reason to unbox crates requiring a generic Supply Crate key over cases or special crates

It's in Valve's benefit to release cases that require a special key

It's unlikely Valve will introduce anything that will increase the usage of keys for unboxing (new crate series, event effects from crates)

Haha key supply go brrrrrrrrrr

 

I think he's pointing out that Valve has made Mann Co. Supply Crate Keys more or less obsolete. Due to Halloween/Smissmas/Summer events only giving new effects from cases, which need their own special key, and due to the fact that cases contain bonus drops, which reduce the cost of unboxing, there are not nearly as many people unboxing crates as there were in the past.

 

There are few reasons to unbox crates over cases at this point, assuming the goal of unboxing is to get an unusual. Most crates have horrible items in them which don't make them worth unboxing at all. Of the crates that are actually worth unboxing currently, 2 of them require their own special key (EOTL and Robo), one of them is unlocked (multi class), and the majority of the rest give 2nd/3rd gen unusuals.

 

All of these factors lead to more people unboxing cases, with their case specific keys, over crates. This means that the Mann Co. Supply Crate Keys that are in circulation are likely to remain in circulation, and the number of regular keys in circulation will continue to climb as more people (for whatever reason) buy keys from the in game store.

 

Valve could easily fix this by introducing a new series of crates or by allowing event effects to be unboxed from any crate or case. That being said, I don't see them doing either of these in the near future. For Valve, it is more profitable to add cases that require special keys. When a new case drops, every one who wants to unbox is required to buy from valve. If new crates are added, people are much more likely to use their existing supply of keys or buy them from other players, since it is cheaper than buying them directly from valve. Also consider the fact that people do not stock pile case specific keys nearly as much as supply crate keys. This means that over the life cycle of a case, the majority of the unboxes will be done with recently purchased keys, earning Valve more money.

 

The above holds true during events, but the events have a different aspect to consider. Since Valve has essentially stopped making their own unusual effects and cosmetics (and skins, and maps, and updates, and......) they rely on the community to create these items. As compensation, the people whose workshop selections get added to the game earn a certain percentage from each case containing their cosmetic or effect that gets unboxed.

 

Even if we ignore the mutli and class specific crates for a second, it is my belief that if valve were to allow event specific effects to be unboxed from any crate or case during the event, a large number of people would be unboxing crates instead of cases in hopes of getting a new, limited effect on an old, desirable hat. If you consider the unlocked multi and class specific crates, even more people would be unboxing those over cases, particularly the multi-class crate. This could potentially cause tension between Valve and the community creators who contribute cosmetics/effects. The number of cases being unboxed would go down and as such, the amount of money the contributors (at least the ones who did cosmetics, not sure how payouts work for effects during an event) make would go down as well. Essentially, the current demand for limited effects on older hats and the existence of the multi-class crate ensure that valve will only allow new effects out of cases in order to maintain a good relationship with the community contributors.

 

If you want to look at the effect the multi-class crate would have on this relationship, you can look back to Halloween 2016. Just comparing an all class hat from the multi-class crate (keep in mind not every all/multi class hat is in that crate).

If we compare the Patirot Peak to the KE, there are 6 Insomnia, 5 slumber, 12 neutron star, and 9 tesla coil peaks while there are 18 insomnia, 12 slumber, 17 neutron star, and 22 tesla coil KEs. This holds true across many case specific hats and all/multi class hats (that can be obtained from the multi-class crate) for that event.

 

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[Jammos]

1 hour ago, Nickman said:

 

 

I think he's pointing out that valve has made Mann Co. Supply Crate Keys more or less obsolete. Due to halloween/smissmiss/summer events only giving new effects from cases, which need their own special key, and due to the fact that cases contain bonus drops which reduce the cost of unboxing there isn't nearly as many people unboxing crates as there were in the past.

 

There are few reasons to unbox crates over cases. Most crates have horrible items in them which don't make them worth unboxing at all. Of the crates that are actually worth unboxing currently, 2 of them require their own special key (EOTL and Robo), one of them is unlocked (multi class), and the majority of the rest give 2nd/3rd gen unusuals.

 

All of these factors lead to more people unboxing cases, with their case specific keys, over crates. This means that the Mann Co. Supply Crate Keys that are in circulation are likely to remain in circulation, and the number of regular keys in circulation will continue to climb as more people (for whatever reason) buy keys from the in game 

Fair enough, but people still continue to unbox old crates rather than cases (especially players who have had a large amount of crates drop over the years.) Most people just unbox whatever cases/crates they happen to have in their inventory, and a majority of players still have crates laying around. People who only occasionally unbox wont go out of their way to buy a specific case and key, they instead just use a mann co key they have lying around on one of their old crates. There are other crates that can be profitable that don't use their own special key (Namely, the crate with Damage Dealt inside). Still, that is a fair point, keys have mostly become obsolete, but people will still continue to use it, regardless of their usefulness. 

[Nickman]

1 minute ago, Jammos said:

Fair enough, but people still continue to unbox old crates rather than cases (especially players who have had a large amount of crates drop over the years.) Most people just unbox whatever cases/crates they happen to have in their inventory, and a majority of players still have crates laying around. People who only occasionally unbox wont go out of their way to buy a specific case and key, they instead just use a mann co key they have lying around on one of their old crates. There are other crates that can be profitable that don't use their own special key (Namely, the crate with Damage Dealt inside). Still, that is a fair point, keys have mostly become obsolete, but people will still continue to use it, regardless of their usefulness. 

 

One thing to consider is who is doing the majority of the unboxing. I don't want to go on forever like I did with my previous post, but to keep it short, I believe the majority of unboxing is done by a minority of the TF2 player base. That minority of players who are doing a ton of unboxing is often focused on unboxing whatever gives them the best chance for a high value unusual. This is often very specific crates (and often the ones that require no key or a special key) or cases during an event.

 

The players you're referring to are definitely a factor when it comes to actually using up the existing supply of Supply Crate Keys, however I think they are a minority when it comes to the number of crates/cases being unboxed.

[awsommv]

4 hours ago, Nickman said:

 

One thing to consider is who is doing the majority of the unboxing. I don't want to go on forever like I did with my previous post, but to keep it short, I believe the majority of unboxing is done by a minority of the TF2 player base. That minority of players who are doing a ton of unboxing is often focused on unboxing whatever gives them the best chance for a high value unusual. This is often very specific crates (and often the ones that require no key or a special key) or cases during an event.

 

The players you're referring to are definitely a factor when it comes to actually using up the existing supply of Supply Crate Keys, however I think they are a minority when it comes to the number of crates/cases being unboxed.

there are also the casuals who will unbox 5, 10, 20 cases of whatever they have in their inv just for kicks. Regardless the majority still are cases

[Nickman]

1 hour ago, awsommv said:

there are also the casuals who will unbox 5, 10, 20 cases of whatever they have in their inv just for kicks. Regardless the majority still are cases

Sure, but I guess what I'm getting at is the number of cases being unboxed by people who unbox 5, 10, 20 cases a week/multiple times in a week out number the number of crates being unboxed by a long shot.

[Keks]

15 hours ago, ShadowClanZ said:

so should have i waited to buy keys till scream fortress? how much should i make the buy orders for? 

just buy keys from third party websites lol

[G R O W U P]

2 hours ago, Keks said:

just buy keys from third party websites lol

I'm trying to trade up from nothing, i basically sold my stuff on steam market  to buy stuff from steam /SCM. But thanks for the input