Valve should bring Trading CS skins back

Skins were launched by Valve as Collectibles, with the possibility of trading with other players. Over the past years Trading Counter-Strike skins has been one of the most nerfed fields.

Some of the updates were to add security, but nowadays the mechanic has become very slow and clunky. Should Valve think about revamping trading in order to make viable? In my opinion, yes!

Too many cooldowns

With the relase of Counter-Strike skins, players started trading items right away. Of course that this feature was already in place on Steam, but once again, Counter-Strike Players really popularized the act of trading items on the platform.

At first, when the value of the skins were low, Valve didn't really worried about security that much. There were no trade locks, trade holds or anything like that. You would trade with someone instantly without the possibility of retaking your items.

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The security measures came when players started to log-in in third party websites, without really understanding what type of information they were giving.

As skins became more and more valuable, taking over steam accounts also gained traction. With this, there were tons of posts across multiple platforms of players complaining of how steam support wouldn't help them retrieve their items.

So, at some point it is understandable that Valve took matter into action. The problem is that with the constant updates, the trading scene became useless.

I did some trading and it was a very nice way of upgrading items. You would collect some items and eventually you would upgrade to a better item, with a bit of overpay in sight. A fair deal, considering that you would be getting a better item.

A better trading system makes people less interested on using 3rd party platforms

Why should Valve try to bring back trading? I think that the main reason is to bring back more engagement between players. The fact that you have to wait a whole week to trade items again, makes it so hard, that players don't even bother to do it altogether.

And the problem is that this opens the door for bad actors. Some trading websites end up exchanging players items at a rate where you could be losing up to 20% in each trade.

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The mechanic of trading shouldn't have so much friction, because everytime you add friction, people always seem to find a way to workaround it, and sometimes that implies less security.

Is there a way to have trading instantly without cooldowns and provide security to the players?

I don't really think so. But I do think that Valve needs to find a balance, so that trading finds its way back into the routine of Counter-Strike players.

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