Soooo! what do you think of the new pseudo game that Valve has come up with to fleese unsuspecting Steam users of more cash? Actually, if you play your cards right you can make some money. (you just need to play the games that have been included (there's a growing number with at least 12 or more games now included and more being added virtually evey day) Initially the project started with five or six games. Each game when played has the potential to drop between 4 or 5 cards. The rest of the set has to be traded or purchased via Steams community market. Cards are selling from between 28p (around $0.42cents up to several dollars for ordinary card and unbelievably hundreds of dollars for foil cards). When you've collected a full set of cards. These sets can range from 11 to 8 cards in a set depending on the game; once you have a full set you can craft them into a steam badge. When you craft you get 2 or 3 drops that include vouchers for money off games. These vouchers can be anything from 25% to 75% off and cover a wide range of games. You also get emicons and profile backgrounds that are associated with the game set you crafted, for example, if you collected the Team Fortress 2 set you'd get a background or an emicon that reflected that game. All of these can also be traded or sold on the market.
I collected several cards, then ended up spending quite a lot of money (I'm embarrased to admit how much, suffice it to say I was paying between £0.28 to £0.60 per card, but did get three vouchers for games I didn't own (which is amazing considering I have at least 80% of all games on Steam at the moment
). I also sold four cards that were from one of the most recent games they have added and got between £1.30 to £1.50 for each card. The longer the game has been in circulation, the cheaper the cards become.
You can craft an upgraded badge in each game five times, which means between 40 and 55 card will need to be collected to earn the highest level in each game. Oh yeah, you also get expewrience points that level you up when you've attained a specific number of points.
What Valve says is that the Steam level indicates the amount participation that particular member has accrued on Steam, but nothing else. You can get these points for several things, but I'm not sure yet exactly what things you get them for. I started with a Steam level of 8 and am now 18 (thanks to spending a small fortune ( at least enough to purchase a newly released AAA game and have change left. Some of the friends in my friends list are now on steam levels of 40.
These levels don't confer any special perks or priveledges (at least so far), so I really can't see the point in them, apart from its maybe going to create a little competition between some friends. (probably the younger ones, lol).
Personally I think its all just another way for Valve to grab more money. They take a cut out of every sale made on the Sream community market.
It has been suggested that they create a game out of the Steam cards. I think that may actually be a good idea. It could be on the lines of the Planeswalker game or maybe a Half Life card game. At least then you'd feel like you're spending money on something more useful. Oh yeah, occasionaly one of the cards dropped may be a foil card. These are selling for as much as £150 ($225) each due to their rarity. Crazy.
What do you think?