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Jake

Idle Thumbs 131: Real Life

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The preferred way is You, Biquitous.

 

I think asian hookers say it best to old men: You be soft.

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from podacst, about Steam trades:

 

Valve is gonna stop it by just finding how they can do even more money from it and make it into official thing.

 

They already did it. A year ago. I'm dissapointed in you, guys. It's called Steam Market and was mentioned in the email itself, you sell stuff for money going into your steam wallet and there is a 5% fee that goes to Valve and 10% fee to the game.

 

Also, Valve totally monitors trading market since it started in TF2 several years ago. There were examples of some item that became rare and super-expensive on trades being reintroduced in new crates, to level the market a bit, etc.  I guess, you don't know about the earbuds, by the way? (And some other promo items from the early days)

 

As the trade market was developing, there were a lot of 3rd party trading websites created, going far enough to have automated bots that could friend you and trade you item you wanted. In the last few months, Valve touched that subject too - with Steam Trade Offers and recently - official Trade Forums. 

 

Jeez, i can (and want to) tell you so much about this whole steam/valve/tf2/dota2 economy stuff.

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Speaking of Steam trading market: http://www.ongamers.com/articles/courier-sells-for-38-000-on-dota-2-trades-subreddit/1100-34/'>Dota 2 courier from early days sells for THIRTY-EIGHT GODDAMN THOUSAND DOLLARS

 

Valve also once hired a dedicated economist to study this stuff. He no longer works there, I believe, but I thought that was kind of amazing when I heard about it back then.

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In 2005 Jacobs mortgaged his home to buy a virtual asteroid for US$100,000, being the most valuable virtual item ever sold at that time.[9] The next day, he got an offer to sell the asteroid for US$200,000, but he refused. The asteroid space resort was named Club Neverdie after its owner's avatar name.[10] In 2010 Jon Jacobs sold the Asteroid Space Resort to various other Entropia Universe participants for a total of 635,000 US$.[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Jacobs_%28online_personality%29

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I misheard medal of honour as Lego Harry Potter and wondered at how much rage such a seemingly Innoculus game could inspire such rage.

 

I misread innoculus as in Oculus Rift and wondered at how Lego games worked within Oculus Rift and are they doing Oculi in child head sizes now?

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from podacst, about Steam trades:

 

 

They already did it. A year ago. I'm dissapointed in you, guys. It's called Steam Market and was mentioned in the email itself, you sell stuff for money going into your steam wallet and there is a 5% fee that goes to Valve and 10% fee to the game.

 

Also, Valve totally monitors trading market since it started in TF2 several years ago. There were examples of some item that became rare and super-expensive on trades being reintroduced in new crates, to level the market a bit, etc.  I guess, you don't know about the earbuds, by the way? (And some other promo items from the early days)

 

As the trade market was developing, there were a lot of 3rd party trading websites created, going far enough to have automated bots that could friend you and trade you item you wanted. In the last few months, Valve touched that subject too - with Steam Trade Offers and recently - official Trade Forums. 

 

Jeez, i can (and want to) tell you so much about this whole steam/valve/tf2/dota2 economy stuff.

 

I've made around $400 on the market from just a couple TF2 weapons.

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I've made around $400 on the market from just a couple TF2 weapons.

This reads like one of those work-from-home ads.

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I've made like $25 selling steam trading cards. Soon I can stop working and simply sell Steam trading cards. But first I have to move to a place where earning $50 per year provides a comfortable living environment.

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Someone will pay me 15 actual dollars for my Sam & Max tie-in gun.

 

Okay, they will pay me $13 Steam dollars, which Steam will accept in lieu of payment for a game, but still: what.

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Yea, I've sold a bunch of pre-order tf2 items and trading cards and put them towards other games.  I think I've made something like 30 bucks in the past couple months, though I haven't been playing much of anything.

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In 2005 Jacobs mortgaged his home to buy a virtual asteroid for US$100,000, being the most valuable virtual item ever sold at that time.[9] The next day, he got an offer to sell the asteroid for US$200,000, but he refused. The asteroid space resort was named Club Neverdie after its owner's avatar name.[10] In 2010 Jon Jacobs sold the Asteroid Space Resort to various other Entropia Universe participants for a total of 635,000 US$.[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Jacobs_%28online_personality%29

 

Part of me died a little.

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I sold my trading cards and with the proceeds I bought two Dota 2 tournament passes (NEL and EEL).  From spectating those I've gotten almost a full page of items (full page is 80)  and each one on the market sells for ~$1-5.  I also still had enough money in my wallet to buy the second season of NEL which just started so that's another months of items.

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I enjoyed the rant during the break.  I could tell you what it was about, but then I'd be busting a 'bargo.

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Speaking of Steam trading market: Dota 2 courier from early days sells for THIRTY-EIGHT GODDAMN THOUSAND DOLLARS

 

Valve also once hired a dedicated economist to study this stuff. He no longer works there, I believe, but I thought that was kind of amazing when I heard about it back then.

 

yeah, and he wrote a couple of cool blog posts about it, here and here. the second one is more about actual economics, i remember finding it interesting when i read it. it's recommended reading for anyone who cares about how the steam marketplace works, or rather how it's turned out

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I like that when Valve decides to hire an economist, they decide to hire a guy that previously was busy working out the details of the Euro crisis. Like, you could be studying trade imbalances in the Euro zone, and the problems with having a monetary union without a political union, or you could study the problem of why making the courier pink for your Lords Management game nets you $38k.

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Question: What is the point of a lighter in the first place? I mean, it's just to look cool. Does your phone look cool? Ok, good enough.

 

Question 2: Connection 2, I mean really you're just going to plug in. Your interaction will just come digitally.

 

If you can't tell the difference between "being there" and "digital" then what's the difference? What "quality" does real life hold over the ever improving digital experience?

 

It's just weird to hear, because it's something in my sci-fi novel. Everyone lives in virtual reality, and it works out great, because really why wouldn't it? "I can't see real life!" Sure you can, a billion cameras look out on the world from every robotic device you could want. Cameras no different from your eyes, which are just biological cameras. There's no reason to trust them less than your own eyes. You can interact with the "real world" all you want, if you want.

 

But all the "nightmare scenarios" people come up for this shit... look at real life for Zues' sake! You can get kidnapped and tortured and that happens to people. You can get shot and a disease and cancer and starve to death. Real life is shitty enough that even the most bizarre nightmares prude sci-fi writers can come up with is no worse than what can happen to you in your actual life right now.

 

Ok, not that I can't foresee people being "Glassholes" or whatever. But I see technology as mostly a new means for an asshole to BE an asshole, not the creator of assholes. I have my digital camera, and even when it's with me on a hike I do my best to remember just to enjoy the hike as well and not always obsess over what shot I'm getting. I can understand the impulse to use what's available, but it's just a shitty little impulse, ignore it.

 

/Weird rant over

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Question: What is the point of a lighter in the first place? I mean, it's just to look cool. Does your phone look cool? Ok, good enough.

 

Sorry I need to interject here. Using your cellular telephone to mimic a lighter definitely does not look cool.

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Sorry I need to interject here. Using your cellular telephone to mimic a lighter definitely does not look cool.

 

I am getting a strong hipster vibe right now. A man with glasses and beard, living in San Francisco with his own podcast, who needs to interject to declare that something is definitely not cool?

 

Yeaaaaah, I'm banned.

 

Isn't the whole point of the lighter thing to have a field of lights swaying in time to the music? Here is my tiny contribution to the whole, it says, to this whole moment we're having here. Now that no-one smokes, you can't really replicate that, but then we carry around these other things that make lights basically all the time now.

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I am getting a strong hipster vibe right now. A man with glasses and beard, living in San Francisco with his own podcast, who needs to interject to declare that something is definitely not cool?

I don't know what that actually means. I mean I know that you combined some words people often mention in the same breath, like "hipster" and "glasses" and "San Francisco," but I can't discern much beyond that.

 

Yeaaaaah, I'm banned.

 

Isn't the whole point of the lighter thing to have a field of lights swaying in time to the music? Here is my tiny contribution to the whole, it says, to this whole moment we're having here. Now that no-one smokes, you can't really replicate that, but then we carry around these other things that make lights basically all the time now.

I still think it looks dumb.

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