Two days ago on March 29, 2018, Valve announced on their blog some changes they’ve made to trading CS:GO skins. Skins in most games are cosmetic items that players can purchase and use in-game. Most of the time, these skins are traded between players because different skins have different qualities and values that people and some collectors desire. I myself also have several skins on my CS:GO account.
Before the update a couple of days ago, it was possible to trade items extremely quickly although you should’ve taken the time to review the contents of the trade and confirm everything. The fastest possible way to trade items before was to have both parties involved in the trade having the Steam Mobile Authenticator linked onto their smartphone or similar device. Once the trade has been confirmed one time by both parties on either PC or mobile, you would confirm once more using the Mobile Authenticator. The trade will then be completed and items are exchanged. If none or one of the parties involved with the trade does not have the Steam Mobile Authenticator it is a little different. Once the trade is confirmed the first time, the items are taken from both parties and held by Steam for fifteen days. During this time, any one of the parties is free to cancel the trade if something seems off. This made the longest possible time for a trade fifteen days prior to the update. However after the new update, any CS:GO skin that has been received in trade will be given a trade cooldown of seven days. This means that you cannot trade that item again until seven days later. Now, the fastest trading time between a new item a player has just received and another party is seven days instead of just one.
For example, let’s say I have just received a skin from a third party and I would like to give the skin to a friend. I have to wait seven whole days before I can trade it to my friend. That’s assuming we both have the Steam Mobile Authenticator. If one of us or none of us have the authenticator, this makes the time of the trade twenty-two days. Another common practice among players is the borrowing of skins. So let’s say I just received a new skin and a friend of mine wants to check it out. I have to wait seven days to trade it to them and in the worst case scenario, we both don’t have the Mobile Authenticator and then we have to wait twenty-two days before my friend even receives the item. After my friend has a chance to look at the skin he/she has to wait another seven days plus fifteen to trade it back to me. This makes the entire interaction for even just one item fourty-four days. Best case scenario for a borrowed skin is still a long fourteen days.
For the CS:GO community this displeases a large amount of the players even though Valve’s main intentions are to prevent scams, gambling websites, and those types of things. These skins can range in value anywhere from $0.03 USD to $100,000 USD. Some skins still don’t even exist and when they do appear most likely will be priceless. There are already a few skins that only have single digits of themselves that collectors aren’t even willing to name prices.
Although I myself am not a huge trader or collector, I am still apart of the community. Along with the mass majority of players, I do not like the idea of this new trading system. I can see how much this new change will inconvenience people and I hope that Valve can find a different option to issues like scams instead of this seven-day cooldown thing.