So do you think farming trading cards to sell is worth having trash in your library?
you can remove those games from your library after you sell the cards, so yes, its worth.
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Oh I didn't know that! Looks like I've been missing out with this whole farming thing then
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Yes, hiding them is the better option since there might be series 2 of cards in the future.
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That seems very unlikely, considering how the trading card system is handled. But if you remove the game, you can't get boosters.
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I only got 2 boosters in my life. I'd just remove the game and be done with it.
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Over got plenty, and I don't even farm cards to any greater degree, nor is my level really high. If averaged out over a whole year, I would say I get about 2/month.
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you can incrase the chance of randomly earned booster packs by your steam lvl & booster pack permissions. i get like 2-3 booster packs per month with 400+ trading card games (lvl 67)
As example, your chances of a booster pack doubles at lvl 50+
always remember that your chance of the pack themself is by the game & community (players with a chance of a booster pack too)
so if you have game XY and permissions to a booster pack, but there 10.000 other users, you end up with a winning chance of 0,02%, lower than the most SG GA's ;)
source: https://steamcommunity.com/tradingcards/faq/
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Or you could keep them and wait for the sweet, free boosterpacks while hiding the unwanted games like KillingArts suggested =D
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Just use a secondary account. It takes about 10 dollars to pull it to marketable state and level 8 to get event cards. Assuming you use it for bundle game farming, it can start being "profitable" after 10-14 months or so.
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Actually you only need level 5 to get event cards now. It used to be level 8 last year I think.
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Are you sure? I'm still seeing all the games I've removed in my "Booster Pack Eligibility"
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Me too!I dont know if they mean "uninstall" by the "removing" but anyway i still get drops from uninstalled games
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They mean "permanently" removing them from your account but since apparently you can even add removed games back to your account free of charge they might also let you keep the Booster pack eligibility.
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Removed or uninstalled/hidden in library? Because I asked Steam support and they said removing the game locks out everything.
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I asked the support to remove them.
I have a feeling I received a couple of booster packs from removed games, but I can't say for sure.
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You can check the actual list of eligible games. I now for sure that what I removed is not showing up there any more.
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But what if someone want booster from a good title instead of a bad one?
I mean does it really matter during that booster lottery how much games you have?
I heard that most important is steam level to get counted in that whole valve lottery.
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When a badge is crafted for game X, you get a chance to receive a booster pack for that game, not for any other game,
This means that free games and bundled games and pretty much the most profitable.
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Getting booster packs from "bad" games won't affect the chance of getting booster packs from good games. Keeping them just means more booster packs in general.
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Depends. A lot of games I already play have them. The levels they give you can be helpful if you trade too. I would see how many games you have already that drop them. Also, anime games can net you .25 and up per card easily.
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Thanks for the advice, a lot of games I own don't have trading cards but some definitely do. I never understood steam levels, but I suppose for the social aspect having a higher level is better. I hate anime but .25 is a very good price!!!
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They tend to be kind of expensive, so if you don't enjoy them, it's probably not worth it unfortunately.
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Fair enough :/ Maybe some bundled anime games? I see a lot of those around here
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Yea, you can check beforeehand. I think Sakura games have a decent return.
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I don't think anime fans would like it if anime haters entered those giveaways just for the cards...
It would be kinda... distasteful...
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I wouldn't enter the giveaways, that's kind of a dick move. I only enter in games I want to play, don't worry :)
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also, the higher your level, the higher are the odds you get booster packs.
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You can always hide the shit games so you don't see them.
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I personally don't sell cards but I never understood what's up with people not wanting to have shitty games in their Steam libary (unless they dislike the developer / publisher). I mean if we were talking about retail versions which take up space and collect dust I totally get it but since it's all digital I don't really understand the problem. And this is coming from somebody who would say he has an extremly mild case of OCD but apparently not in this regard :D
Edit: Also for me Booster pack eligibility is more important than the carddrops from the game itself.
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Haha I don't know for some reason it just bothers me. But since I just found out you can remove games that's not a problem anymore :)
I'm still new to this whole thing, so I don't really understand booster packs or steam level or whatever but the whole profiting from selling cards thing is pretty attractive.
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Basicly once you've gotten all your card drops from a game you might get a free Booster pack of 3 cards for that game every now and then which you can then either open and use the cards yourself to craft Badges and raise your level (which contributes to more booster packs) or sell them.
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Don't you usually have to buy cards to do that though? Cards stop dropping after you get about half of the cards that the game has so haivng to buy the rest makes the profit even more minimal
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That's why I edited my message from "all the cards" to "all your card drops" because it was a little unclear. Once you gotten half the set you get for free (+1 if the number of cards in the set is uneven) you are eligible for Booster packs.
Booster packs hold 3 cards of said game but you won't see what cards are in it until you open it. It will take a long, long time but it is possible to get a full set without ever buying a card or trading cards from other games to complete the set.
But that's not even necessary. If you don't intend to level up your own account you can sell the card drops from the game and as long as you don't remove the game from your account you'll still be eligible for Booster packs which you can then also sell.
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Yeah the Steam leveling system is a bit weird and questionable. I would prefer if it had points off ingame achievements, or even the number of games you own in the first place (Although it does seem like you get a few XP off making purchases directly from the steam store.
When you level up you Steam profile, you not only get that little number beside you name, but you get alot of Steam bonuses as well. For instance every few levels you get slots for another 5 friends on your friends list. While that might not be important to some people, others need to level up just so they can add all their friends. You also get added things to your profile as you level, such as showing off your favorite games, or showing off your achievements ect.
Another thing is the card system. When you play a game enough to get all the "free" card drops, that game will be added to your Booster Pack eligibility. As badges are crafted for a game, supposedly a number of booster packs are created and randomly sent to people that are eligible to receive them. Now here is where things get difficult. With Booster packs, your percent chance of getting a pack goes up every 10 Steam levels. So if you can push your levels higher, you will have a better chance of getting booster packs after.
What I do is sell cards from a bunch of my games, but use that money to purchase cards for the games I want to make a badge for. I still always try to buy games in that money making area that I would actually want to play, I don't believe in using those programs to autorun games to farm cards.
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Maybe you could create another steam account for farming and have main account with good games. Although I'm not a fan of multiple accounts myself. Only got 1 =).
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I did think about that but I really don't want multiple accounts either
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Yeah that's what the people always say at the beginning. Then they have all those cards and one day they want to try out the badge crafting.
Then they see that leveling up gives you showcases for your profile. Actually it is useless but believe me, sooner or later you'll want another showcase... and then you're full of the badge junk like wallpapers (too cheap to even bother selling) and emoticons, twice, triple, four times... and you may not want to have your inventory full off that junk.
Then you come to the point when you consider: a second account to dump all that junk onto would be nice. And then, while you're at it, you may come to the thought that since you now have a second account you can as well activate those freebie games on it to farm cards there as well - not long until you use a card farmer like ASF to automatically farm multiple accounts simultaneously and send your junk around, loot your other accounts via steamchat, check out sales for cheap game packs and consider their worth vs the worth of their cards. Sign up on GroupBuys for IndieGala happy hour group buy hosters to get games with cards in the most cheap way...
And when you notice that Valve already has your balls it is too late.
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It is a lot neater. I stashed all my extra cards and leftover too cheap bundle games on a secondary account, and now it serves as an occasional card farming dump account. Keeps my main cleaner, having games I actually play there.
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You can farm them and then just remove them from your library, or hide them so you still get booster packs.
edit: It's also more profitable to hide them rather than remove them completly, since you also level up from owning games, which again means more booster packs.
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I've googled it, but I still don't get the point of booster packs at all. What makes them so great?
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Every now and then you get a booster pack that has 3 cards(more free money). If you remove the game from your library you will no longer be eligible.
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I will say "of course, it's worth it", because I always show only installed games in my library, so those trashy games existence doesn't really bothering me.
Sid Meier's Civilization® V: Complete Edition is one of a lot games that I bought recently for "free" by farming the trading cards, just to show how it's worth it.
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Farming cards is the only reason I could even get anything during the Summer Sale. I've taken my sweet time spending it and haven't gone to pay for the picks in my cart yet until the last minute, but those pennies added up to 10.41 USD in my Steam Wallet, ALL FROM FARMING cards. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't be getting anything this Summer.
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That's exactly why I think I want to do this. That's some really easy money! Seems like it's hard to find a balance between creating badges and selling cards though.
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That's what I tried to do. If I remember right I think being Steam level 50 increases your booster pack rate to a nice round 100% increase so I stopped there and I've been selling ever since. Any increase I made since lvl 50 has just been from adding more games and other random stuff.
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Right so levelling up is definitely worth it, and then once you get to a certain point then you start selling. Got it. Thanks :)
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Umm, leveling up is definitely not worth it... The money you spend leveling up (remember, that means crafting badges with cards you could have sold) won't be offset by the slightly greater chance for a booster pack. :)
Now, if you're already planning to level up anyway for some other reason like adding a showcase to your profile, bigger friend list, whatever, just think of the better booster pack chance as a neat side-effect. But don't kid yourself about profiting from it... :)
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Ok I'll keep that in mind. Especially since I'm not super into the social aspect of Steam since I don't really have many multiplayer games. That's the reason I haven't done much leveling up already. Plus like you said, you have to spend extra money on cards you don't have in order to craft badges
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Yeah, Steam levels only show people you were willing to spend money on your Steam account. It's like cosmetic items in an online game. :)
If you don't feel the need to impress a bunch of internet strangers with your amazing ability to spend money, you could just buy games instead. :)
But it can be tough to resist the temptation to craft just this one badge, so good luck... :)
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It's true, the temptation is real :P But I really don't feel the need for cosmetic bonuses when I get actual money so thanks for your advice :)
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I need to learn how to do that. So far my earnings are a fraction of that. There's got to be some systematic way of doing that.
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Just set a goal level where you like the rate increase for boosters and just stick to it and say no more badges.
UNLESS of course you run across a game where you have a game that gives you a chance to make a background or emoticon that sells for a lot of money, like Port Royale 3 and its marijuana emoticon which right now is starting at 7.71 USD and has sold for as much as almost 30 dollars, well then you better take a shot and hope you get it and make that badge!
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I did not even "farm" the cards for the most games I own... for me it's not worth it!
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Farmers use tools that do it, no one would actually install all the crap games and run them.
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Check out the free Windows app called "IdleMaster" to automate the farming (only of the games you own, of course).
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I've sold around 400 cards and got 20 GBP, totally worth it ;)
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Bully: Scholarship Edition
Super Meat Boy
The Witcher 2
A Story About My Uncle
The Hat Man: Shadow Ward
Braid
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition
DARK SOULS II: Scholar of the First Sin
Mark of the Ninja: Special Edition
Qbeh-1: The Atlas Cube
and 2 bundles cheaper than 1euro.
i bought the games above just with the money from farming cards for 2 weeks. My pc is almost always turned on anyways, so it is definitely worth for me. Now it is time for me to buy things with my real money :)
edit : i care about the quality of my library, i dont have free trash games except max 5 of them. i have 280 games in total. You dont have to fuck up your library. IMO bad side of farming cards is the play times of your games. It usually adds 4-5 hours, if you are a stat person, this might be a real problem.
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Holy shit, and many of those games aren't super cheap either so either you had a lot of cards, or you have cards that are worth a lot. I'm definitely not a stat person, I constantly leave games running in the background. Example I certainly do not actually have 142 hours in Assassin's Creed 3 :P
I think what I may do is buy cheap shitty games and farm their cards, then when everything has dropped, just remove them from my library. Leveling up will take too long to think about getting a booster pack.
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Not in my experience. The 2-5 cards you might get from each game will be very low in worth and I get virtually no booster packs so... Not really worth it in my experience.
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You are on level 16. That ensures you don't receive many booster packs. The chance of getting booster pack increase with Steam level. On 5x-6x level you will receive around 3-4 booster packs each month (or one a week). Even more with multiple accounts.
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I've been told differently several times. I've maybe gotten 3 booster packs in total since my time in the beta. I have somebody on my friends that is slightly higher than my level and claims they get them way more frequently than me.
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Well, it also depends on the number of games you are eligible for (games you already have all cards dropped).
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In reality, levels mean diddly dick in booster drop frequency; the eligibility counter has magnitudes larger weight in the equation. My level 30 alt gets twice-thrice as many boosters as my level 110+ main.
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Level guarantees you a decent chance of drop for each game, while eligibility literally adds those chances up. It's just how probability works. But yeah, both will increase the number of packs you get.
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I made an explanation on it related to PalmDesert's level 1000 thread, so I just link it here:
https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/ecaCwio
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Depends on how poor you are and/or how fond of nickels and dimes. For me, it's the latter as a result of the former. For now.
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It's not worth it to get games specifically for cards. If you buy bundles(not the steam ones, the 3rd party ones) semi-regularly you'll end up with a bunch of games that drop them anyway
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I've spent over £350 / $400 on the summer sale this year and it's cost me nothing, the whole sale was funded by selling my 6K trading cards xD
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And how much did you pay for those games to get the trading cards? And how many of those games you played and not just farmed?
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selling 6000 cards with mobile confirmation must be funny.
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Or just use WinAuth/SDA, with a confirm all button. :)
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They are the desktop versions of the mobile authenticator. Not so mobile (although portable), but with being able to copy-paste the code and with built-in confirmation options (down to auto-accepting anything without user intervention—although that defeats the purpose of the authenticator in the first place), it can be more convenient to use.
Steam Desktop Authenticator is getting a bit bloated and slow, but it is fully portable.
WinAuth is smaller and easier to use, but you need to know where it puts the user data or export it and store next to the authenticator to add it every time you are on a new computer. Oh, and it can also act as an authenticator to a plethora of other sites/services.
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I don't really see the issue here. Either you already own the games, in which case you might as well get the cards since they're potential profit waiting to be converted (+ booster pack eligibility for future profit). Or you don't own the games, in which case there is no point. It's never worth buying games to farm cards. Finally, there is the option of free games with cards. Since you get the games for free and you get cards worth something greater than zero, this is always worth it.
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IndieGala happy hour group buy, DailyIndieGames group buy and OtakuMaker group buy are usually cheaper than the cards are worth. Some 50s Groupees bundles were worth it too.
Example for IG (since they have so many bundles and are the cheapest too) one game from a happy hour bundle is worth ~9 cent (whole bundle usually around $1). I average the worth of selling cards as 15 cent per game (Steam fee already considered).
That's your investment and your profit.
You redeem the ones with cards and you trade the games without cards for games with cards from other cheap bundles (I use barter.vg). Games that become available as freebies later are problematic. Hard to trade them.
I don't buy bundles with games that were freebies.
And you have more than one Steam account. Accumulating money from trading cards takes too little baby steps with just one account.
Then rather start collection and reselling skins if you're looking for a 'worth it' hobby.
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It could be a good start on steam market operations, but after you get to know the basics, you can start to play more with the market, it's better than farming crappy games cards. First you have to look for expensive cards and check their market behaviour graph, buy them for 25-35 (or maybe more) cents less than their market value, when you get the card wait for the 7 days "cooldown" period, and later you can sell it at its "full" value.
It's a little slow and a little tricky sometimes if you do it at small scale, but if you invest some money (maybe 15-20 bucks earned from crappy games cards) and know how to operate you can get some wallet money to spend from time to time.
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I bought a Steam Link and Controller with farmed cards :) all in all I have probably made about £120 through farmed cards.
Since the authentication came in prices have shot up so if you can be bothered its more profitable than ever.
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I'll be the unpopular vote and say it isn't worth your time. If you invested that time in a job you would make much more money for the time put in. Unless you're really poor, can't get a job or don't have any income, you are wasting your time.
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You can't compare a hobby with a job.
Spending time on games is already a waste and not worth it. You could do something useful in that time or look for a second job ;)
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Absolutely. We're probably getting on a few blacklists right now, but who cares :)
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If you voice an opinion of any kind whatsoever, you usually get blacklisted.
You could say "cancer is awful" and there'd still be a few people who would disagree strongly.
It's all very silly, but there's nothing you can do about it.
Just mentioning Jim Sterling and DigiHom was very brave of you :)
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Digital Homicide seems to follow a complete different way of earning money.
They develop games barely good enough to remain on Steam and give them away for free in masses and then they get their share from the card sales. They misuse a given system, but many Steam users appreciate it. When it comes to money, who cares about quality.
You think the Steam users are gamers only? Anyone with a large library certainly has more interests than just decent playable games.
I've never bought any game from then, yet I have most of their entire pack. All freebies.
Quality control is not the task of the user (how could it?). That would be Valve's field.
Valve could remove all of the crap from the shop (reviews and their % are giving good leads to crap games) but they rarely do and if they do I'm not even sure whether it's because of many reported problems.
When I add games merely for card farming I don't care about anything else about the game.
When I add a game for playing I want achievements and Steam Cloud and don't care about cards. Whether the title is fun I'll see myself. I've played games that have a terrible rating but I enjoyed it. It's an exception but happens.
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Ok let me clarify farming steam trading cards is never going to earn you any real money but if they are games you either have or part of a super cheap bundle it can be a fun way to get a few extra "free" games.
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If you buy games just to farm cards for profit, then no. It takes months at best to break even, and even then, you need boosters for it. Also, it is only a viable option if you farm while you use the PC. If you have a server set up, then yes, it is a nice side-activity, but don't expect much. A one-dollar bundle may get you around $1.50 in cards, but it is rare. Card selling is nice, but only to get some money back for the games you play.
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I totally get the appeal of farming trading cards to sell them. Even though the profit is small I imagine it eventually adds up. The only problem with this is you end up with a bunch of crappy games in your library. I'm debating on whether or not to farm cards, since it seems like everyone else does it.
Is it really worth trashing your library for a few pennies?
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