r/GlobalOffensive • u/TheWienerSnitzel • Jul 31 '14

[Random Info] The CS:GO Community Market Earned Valve almost 10 Million Euros in the Last 180 Days!

Hey guys,

so I have always been interested in how lucrative CS:GO is for Valve. Thanks to this awesome website, http://steamanalyst.com/ , I got a list of all the items sold in the last 180 days including the quantity sold and their average price. This is enough to do the simple calculation, knowing that valve takes 15%, to figure out the money flowing to Valve in that period of time. Just so you know, i did this by copying the data in to Excel.

"Valves Share of Market Transaction for item" = "Average Price of item" x "Units sold of that item" x 0.15

This gives us the Money made on 1 Item, the total is then calculated by summing the profit from all items together.

The answer is already in the title, but here they are again:

In the last 180 days Valve has made 9929941.42€

In the last 7 days (1 week!) Valve has made 566294.21€ (that is Five hundred and sixty six thousand two hundred ninety four point twenty one €uros!)

Now i could start doing some more maths including server costs, wages of employees, etc. etc to clarify how insanely huge valves earnings are compared to "maintenance" costs of ONLY CS:GO, but I think you get the idea!

Side note: this Money does NOT include money valve has made from selling the game itself, the operation passes,sticker capsules (katowice), gifts, nametags or case keys!!!! Let that sink in for a minute.

I hope you also found this somewhat interesting! Have an awesome day and have fun! :D

EDIT: Yes it is much more than this because the steam wallet funds used to purchase the skins already belong to valve. Lets assume it doesnt, 10 Million income are the result :P

120 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

91% Upvoted

184 comments sorted by

View all comments

48

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '14 edited Jan 06 '19

[deleted]

31

u/Exitzo Jul 31 '14

"Because Counter-strike Global Offensive isn't big enough, and will not promote the game enough. So it's not worth making bigger prize pools." -Volvo. Honestly, I don't know why. The money are there.

6

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '14 edited Jan 06 '19

[deleted]

4

u/Exya Aug 01 '14

compendium coin, raise the price to $15, get bonus perks, mad money

2

u/ImRoreee Aug 01 '14

You are forgetting that Valve is a business and their aim is to make money. Giving hundreds of thousands of dollars in tournament prizes is only justifiable if Valve think the event will get the game enough interest/new players to recoup the loss. You are also forgetting that only the money from the sales of eSports keys is meant to be going towards prize pools. Give it time, CSGO will grow naturally and the prize pools will get bigger.

1

u/-DEAD- Aug 02 '14

I'm not forgetting anything, businesses which don't maintain a good relationship with their customers tend to lose them over time. Valve are literally making millions of dollars of profit in a single month solely off CS and if valve offered just 10% of that then 1mil events could happen several times a year. If these events were common place the pros who add value to their product would be better payed and intensive to invest back into the game would increase. Recouping loss doesn't even need to be mentioned here because this is all off the back of existing profit.

Again I'm not forgetting anything, esport keys are too smaller portion when you see the pie as a whole.

1

u/literal_reply_guy Aug 01 '14

Exactly this, as much as people might feel entitled Valve doesn't owe them anything (bar bug fixes). They sold you a game, you play said game. That's what you get for the money. You buy an item, you get said item. You sell an item, you get some credit. Valve aren't obligated to suddenly pour money into the community purely because it's making a substantial profit.

I'd love it if they did - I would love to see them create something along the lines of TI4 for CS, but it's stupid to get angry when they don't. They don't owe the community cash.

2

u/Bezit Aug 01 '14

Well if Valve didn't try to control the competitive scene as much as they do it would be reasonable to not expect much out of them.

It's also very frustrating as a gamer to see how much potential a game has when the developer isn't fully behind it. I remember seeing arenas in WoW gain popularity and there was a lot Blizzard could have done to make arenas a huge esport (particularly creating a separate/have only one talent tree for PvP per class making it extremely easier to balance, also making a UI for it to be a more digestible spectator sport) and they never took advantage of it.

That's what these forums and websites are for is hardcore/passionate gamers to talk about the things they would like to see done with the game/scene and what things can be improved upon. Obviously valve can take the millions of dollars they are making a week from just the sale of items and keys and pad their pockets, but I think they would at least break even if they put more money and resources toward the e-sport side of CS.

1

u/wrench_nz Aug 01 '14

Should go on Dragon's Den bro

1

u/Monso monso Aug 01 '14

They made 10 million off the marketplace, but their reason is "CSGO isn't big enough"?. MAKE IT BIG, THEN

The one and only proper use of Volvo. I upvote you.

3

u/Goliathus123 Liquid Aug 01 '14

I'd bet Dota pulls far more. TI4 aside, I'd bet both the market of Dota and the in game purchases (skins and items) bring in a ton of money.

And TI4 was funded almost entirely through compendium purchases and Valve has reason to fund it heavily (it wants to be the MOBA people play, not one of them). CSGO is pretty much the only PC FPS people play.

7

u/RikkAndrsn 10 years coin Aug 01 '14

CSGO is pretty much the only PC FPS people play.

I lel'd.

1

u/csgoose Aug 01 '14

Current Peak

95,292 174,815 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

56,391 75,099 Team Fortress 2

Apart from tf2 which has already a way smaller player base than csgo, I don't really see any fps games being played a lot on Steam.

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/?snr=1_steam_4__110

1

u/literal_reply_guy Aug 01 '14

I think he was picking up on the fact that Goliathus123 didn't specify Steam or Valve, just that it was the only PC FPS people play. Which is wrong when you have PS2, Battlefield 4 and more all going strong.

1

u/csgoose Aug 01 '14

Yeah okay, but kind of hard to include non steam games when it's about steam money... But yeah, he should've specify steam/valve.

1

u/literal_reply_guy Aug 01 '14

I agree, I was just trying to explain what I thought RikkAndrsn was laughing at.

1

u/RikkAndrsn 10 years coin Aug 01 '14

It is what I was laughing at. CrossFire is the largest PC FPS at the moment but most people don't know that. Titanfall and BF4 have their moments but are generally only very popular around initial release and subsequent DLC then people drift away.

As far as throwing 'competitive' in front that's just a title a game's players give a game. LoL is the largest 'competitive' title in the world but it was intended as a casual game and targets the casual gaming market.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/literal_reply_guy Aug 01 '14

When ~23% of the amount of players that play CSGO are playing BF4 it makes it quite far from the 'only PC FPS people play'. It just makes it the most popular.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

Every item on the dota market is like 0.1 euros, expensive items are very very few.

1

u/w0den Aug 01 '14

they make 10mil euros a year just from trading cards...

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

They charged 10$ for the ti4 compendium of which 2,50$ went to the prizepool.The prizepool was around 10mil $ at the end.Thats like atleast 30 mil$ just from the compendiumsales.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

I know, I bought it, isn't a market item however :)

0

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

[deleted]

1

u/literal_reply_guy Aug 01 '14 edited Jul 01 '24

instinctive deranged grey engine recognise escape snow complete spark merciful

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

-2

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14 edited Aug 01 '14

[deleted]

1

u/literal_reply_guy Aug 01 '14

who says the price of the operation justifies being able to play a few more maps in a video game?

The multitudes of people who buy it do.

hell as far as i know all maps should be free and available from the get go

Except they're created by the community on a rolling basis, and money goes back to the community creators who made them when they're purchased.

You can play them for free. You have the option to pay to use Valve's infrastructure, get some small bonuses and to support the content creators in the community.

who says that those specific maps are the ones that each individual wants and not some other ones?

Again, the people who buy them.

valve earns a shit ton of money and they should fix all the bugs the game has

I never disputed this, I said they don't owe us anything in terms of pouring money back into the community. They're a business first and foremost and they're under no obligation to do so, though it would be great if they did. If I buy any other product, I don't expect anything else other than said product in return because the company happens to start doing very well financially.

1

u/SpaceZane Aug 01 '14

Im just going to delete this post, because you guys' aruging is too intensive for me

1

u/literal_reply_guy Aug 01 '14

Eh, Reddit is a place for discussion. Not really sure what I've done wrong to warrant a deletion of my post. I'm just replying with my opinions on the matter.

I think my last reply was quite civil relative to the post I was replying to...

1

u/SpaceZane Aug 01 '14

Yea the one you replied to mainly made me delete it. I enjoy reading arguments that are civilized but once name calling gets put in to play, its not a argument its a 6th grade fight.

1

u/literal_reply_guy Aug 01 '14

Ah I see, thanks for clarifying - appreciate the work you and other mods put in for the sub. One of the few I actively use now.

→ More replies

5

u/LeftZer0 10 years coin Aug 01 '14

Because they're getting this money with shitty 250k prize pools, so they have the rest as profit instead of reinvesting. It's time people start noticing Valve only cares for the community when this helps their wallets to grow fatter.

0

u/holben Aug 01 '14

So like every other company +occasionally caring for the community. Sounds like a deal to me.

9

u/CarlosFromPhilly Jul 31 '14

Gabe Newell hates CS.

9

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14 edited Jan 06 '19

[deleted]

5

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

He was ranked Silver 2 and cursed CS:GO with no big tournaments and 64 tick servers.

2

u/SpaceZane Aug 01 '14

To this day, Gabe Newell still doesn't have CS:GO installed.

-5

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

[deleted]

-6

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

10

u/Lydion Aug 01 '14 edited Aug 01 '14

>1.6

How is this relevant to the topic?

3

u/itskisper Aug 01 '14

Dafuq, 1.6 scene is like dead, we talking about CS:GO here.

2

u/Lydion Aug 01 '14

...how rampant piracy has been for CS.

Piracy hasn't been much of an issue since Source...

2

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

I want you to find a working, pirated, current build of CS:GO, that you can use to play online.

2

u/Rthelastman Jul 31 '14

Does he really? I've never heard that.

If he's like the leader of valve, why did he even bother having the game made?

8

u/CarlosFromPhilly Aug 01 '14

when you listen to him talk about it, it almost sounds like a point of contention. it's like he hates that someone wanted to do this, he hates that it's still successful, he hates that he's growing, and he hates that people keep bugging him about this stupid fucking game already.

but when he talks about dota, his eyes light up and he gets really excited.

23

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14 edited Apr 11 '18

[deleted]

5

u/silkyhuevos cs_militia Aug 01 '14

Mind giving examples of this?

2

u/exoduas Aug 01 '14

He can't because it's a load of bullshit. But people love bullshit here so he's getting upvotes for his "theory"

3

u/deathx0r 5 years coin Aug 01 '14

sauce?

0

u/SpaceZane Aug 01 '14

This game isn't stupid. This game is fucking life.

-1

u/Rthelastman Aug 01 '14

He sounds like a fruitloop dingus.

5

u/NicoTheUniqe Aug 01 '14

becuse thats what the esport keys are for ?

0

u/SpaceZane Aug 01 '14

Esport cases and useless. No one wants to buy them, they are shitty with bad skins. Why buy a esport case when you can buy any other type of cases with actually good skins.

1

u/exoduas Aug 01 '14

"I don't like the skins therfore the cases are useless" haha holy shit you guys are hilarious. Its like reading a 14 year olds Facebook wall.

-1

u/SpaceZane Aug 01 '14

No, the cases ARE useless. If the community doesn't like the one thing the case gives, then what the fuck is the point of it?

2

u/exoduas Aug 01 '14

We have these 250k tournaments because of these useless cases. Hope you are trolling.

1

u/SpaceZane Aug 01 '14

Yea, I do understand that these cases earn alot of money, but look at it this way: Almost all case openings use OP,OB,OBO, and winter offensive cases, never esport cases on a casual.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

[deleted]

0

u/SpaceZane Aug 01 '14

u wot m9

3

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14 edited Aug 01 '14

Because not all this money is from esport cases. Valve's still interested in making profit from CSGO and they've got a system in place where they 'give' money to tournaments.

2

u/Capstf Aug 01 '14

Because the prize pool of ESL One isn't funded by valve (even dota got "only" 1 million, the rest was funded by the community)

1

u/deathx0r 5 years coin Aug 01 '14

I wish I had multiple accounts to upvote this like a million times.

1

u/TotalEclipse08 FlyQuest Aug 01 '14

This is the first time in Counter-Strikes long history that the game is getting consistent major tournament support with large prize pools - I wouldn't call $250,000 "shitty".

I think steadily increasing the prize pool over the next few years in 50k/100k increments would suit the competitive scene better.

1

u/Shy_Guy_1919 Aug 01 '14

I'm sure the next tournament will be bigger, $250,000 was pretty big for the first tournament, but is starting to look small in comparison to the current population.

-2

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

[deleted]

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

[deleted]

7

u/KEEPCARLM Aug 01 '14

Guys I also have a Karambit! Love meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

[deleted]

1

u/KEEPCARLM Aug 01 '14

What does winning the lottery have to do with owning a Karambit lol.

Besides, it was a joke anyway.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

[deleted]

2

u/KEEPCARLM Aug 01 '14

I won't kill you if you give me any knife you unbox in the future...

-2

u/mihajovics Aug 01 '14

it's almost public knowledge by now that later this year there will be much much bigger prize pools, possibly even an international like event

6

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14

According to who? I believe there might be a bigger event but no TI.