the only replacement for keys that would work with me is money trades
Comment has been collapsed.
plot twist: that was not a gif
Comment has been collapsed.
What are gems valued at compared to keys, and what is that value based on (which Steam cards, emotes etc. justifies the price)?
I haven't traded with gems before and don't know much about it.
Comment has been collapsed.
I only encountered gems in regards of trading cards, but cards converted into gems are worth a lot less than if sold as cards (at least the ones I tried).
An example:
The "Have you met the witch of the woods?" card of Grim Legends: The Forsaken Bride is worth £0.11 at the moment and is convertable to 5 Gems, resulting in £0.022 / Gem. As far as I know one can only sell Gems in bundles of 1000 (called Sack of Gems), for which the price is £0.43 at the moment, resulting in £0.00043 / Gem . So that specific card drops to about 1/50th of is value if converted into Gems. I don't know if it's the same for all other stuff too, but I remember back at the Christmas Sale when I tried to convert Christmas cards into Gems it resulted in the same horrible value drop.
Comment has been collapsed.
Typically the high end for a key is 2.50 us. A gem sack is worth .69 cents each now or 100 gems is .07 cents. 3571 gems is a key or about 3 and a half sacs of gems.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think trading cards related to Valve games are worth the most (no surprise there). Using CS:GO cards as the benchmark, you can obtain them reasonably fast at €0.04 each (buy orders) and they give 40 gems. So that would be exactly €1 for a sack of 1000 gems. A key is worth slightly more than €2.
I guess if you argue that the after-tax value of a card is approximately €0.03 (and for a key it is about €2) a gem sack costs roughly €0.75 to produce at least. So IMO it would make more sense to have it 3 sacks = 1 key. But I guess I can see that people would want to scale it up a bit since sacks have only artificial value after being created.
Comment has been collapsed.
Gems appear to have stabilized at 0.50-0.60€. Keys are ~2€ and experience similar fluctuations in price.
Comment has been collapsed.
1 key ~ 4 sack of gems. If someone dont have tradable keys, gems seems better
Comment has been collapsed.
Yea, that one week waiting period just killed the want for keys for me. If someone is offering a good trade I want something I can buy right away and trade right away. Gems are a more accurate currency than keys too, if you feel like doing the math you can offer so many sacs + pretty close to the exact value left or do it all in unpacked gems, knowing 1000 is a sac. Basically off the top of my head at the current gem sac price 100 gems = .07 cents. .069 exactly.
Comment has been collapsed.
They have in some respects. Many people accept gems for trades. I think gems are pretty versatile in a lot of ways. If anything, gems have just become another form of currency to go along with keys.
The issue with keys is the waiting now. However, CSGO keys are still tradable immediately if you buy them directly from the in game store, TF2 keys have really taken a hit though. And obviously you can buy keys from a seller, but not everyone does that.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes they are. I just did it TODAY. Try it yourself. CSGO keys are tradable immediately if you buy them from the in game store.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, it works for me. Its pretty much where I get my keys now for trading. I bought 2 Chroma keys a little while ago and they were tradable immediately.
I also think it matters on how they're purchased. IE I used Wallet funds whereas a CC or Paypal may incur the delay. I always use wallet funds and dont have a CC or Paypal on my account. I buy those cards locally instead.
I was just reading this thread and others say the same sort of thing:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/730/discussions/0/618453594739258991/
Comment has been collapsed.
Now that keys take a week to become tradable I see gems as the currency to take its place. It's been working out for me well. Hopefully the price of them will stay relatively stable.
Comment has been collapsed.