„Prepare for a massive market crash” CS2's new trade protection feature concerns fans

Today, Premier Season 3 for Counter-Strike 2 has launched on Steam. As consistently the number one most played game on Steam, according to SteamDB, this is bound to have a huge impact. There have been several changes to gameplay mechanics, as well as the removal of Anubis and introduction of Overpass. But one new change might have a larger impact than anything else.

Counter-Strike 2’s new anti-scam feature has players concerned it could crash the market

A common problem for Counter-Strike 2 players is scams and hackers. CS2 is unique in that the ability to trade in-game items has created a large economy. Everything from weapon skins to stickers are tradeable, and some players are willing to pay handsomely for the right item. Of course, where there is money involved, there are going to be people trying to take advantage. Players must be wary of falling for scams that cause them to lose access to their account, allowing a scammer to profit from their in-game items. Other scammers might create fake items to trade for legit ones. In the past the series has been rumored to be a front for money laundering.

In an apparent effort to combat this, Valve has introduced a new feature available to players. From the Steam news hub, “Today we are introducing a new feature to help keep your Counter-Strike items secure. In the unlikely event that you lose control of your account or were the target of a scam by a bad actor, you may reverse all Counter-Strike item trades from the last 7 days.” This new feature can be found “on the Trade History page on your Steam Account,” where you can also review your recent trades. Steam has an FAQ page if you have more questions about how this works.

On the Steam community discussions tab, some users are complaining about how the new feature restricts trading. Once a Trade Protected item is traded, it cannot be traded again for seven days. After that seven days is up, it’s also no longer protected. If you use the trade protection reversal to get your items back, “your account will be restricted from trading and using the Steam Community Market for 30 days to avoid future security-related incidents,” via the Steam FAQ page.

One important question that uses are asking is how this will impact financial transactions. If users are paying real money for an in-game item, what’s to stop users from accepting the payment and reversing the trade to not only keep the money but get their item back? Some users on Reddit are warning others, “prepare for a massive market crash.”

Ultimately, at the time of writing this, the new season and this new feature have only been available for a little over an hour. This is a developing situation and we will have to see how the player base reacts. In the coming days or weeks, there might be more to this story.

Counter-Strike 2

September 27, 2023

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• Overview

• patches and updates
• Valve
• CS / Counter-Strike (franchise)