Valve has dropped a new update introducing a fresh series of IEM Cologne Major stickers, following massive outrage over the pricing system. The freshly minted sticker collection brings a square-shaped look for all the teams, with their placement mentioned at the bottom, thus giving fans a new way to celebrate the Major.
Following the backlash, Valve did not shy away from admitting that the dynamic pricing model was far from optimal and failed to generate ” reasonable prices,” leading to a shift in the Community Market. Prices for popular stickers were shooting through the roof, making the market stagnant, which is never a good thing for Valve, especially because they take a cut from all the sales.
With the latest update, the Market seems to have stabilised by a massive margin, with the stickers becoming accessible to more and more people, especially with the release of new stickers that will share “50% of the royalties support the teams, players and tournament organizers.”
Community Reaction
While the community is happy to have more affordable stickers, there is a large section of investors who see stickers as an asset and are not happy to have their investments brought down to nought with the latest update.
“Valve just nuked sticker investing, Falcons Gold going from $1,468 to $52 is basically a 0 IQ hold now, resale market can’t compete with fixed pricing like that” – said one fan. Community forums were flooded with comments such as “disaster recovery”, “rip donk investors” and “How did Valve ever think this was a good idea”
As good as the stickers look, the CS2 community stands divided and while many care about the economy that revolves around the game, others worry more about how these assets serve them as investments and while one decision cannot make everyone happy, the market has just become more liquid with more and more people buying stickers now but for those who held them for a long time, this might have been their worst nightmare coming true.
