It Pays for Itself

…or rather, “someone else pays for it.”

My Team Fortress 2 buddies have seriously gotten into Mann vs. Machine mode, and I was recruited as a reliable Engineer. I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 on tickets and a backpack expander. I certainly don’t begrudge Valve the money, given how much play time I have gotten from TF2.

The last time we completed a tour, I received a professional sniper rifle killstreak kit. For non-TF2 people, that is a fancy cosmetic item that attaches to the standard weapon for a popular class, but it takes a bunch of other resources to use it. And, to my shock, it sells for about $50 on the Steam market. Mine sold for that in about a week, which netted enough in my Steam wallet to pay for my initial cost, then all the MvM tickets I am likely to use this year, and then a game or two besides.

I am happy to take the sponsorship, although I am shaky on why one might spend that much on one component for one cosmetic item for one weapon for one class in a game. Maybe it is a really nice cosmetic item. As it is, there are apparently people who are willing to sponsor me to play games with my friends and get bonus items, as long as they get one of the rarer bonus items. Pro circuit it’s not, but deal.

: Zubon

4 thoughts on “It Pays for Itself”

  1. I did this in magic the gathering online for quite a while – after a initial investment in cards I found you could sell the rares you didn’t care for for in game tickets – the tickets could be used to buy packs or play tourneys – if you were smart about your card pickups and watched the market you could pretty much keep getting packs without spending cash.

    1. Indeed, looks like I could have posted higher and waited. Ah well, should have looked at more market history. More sponsorship in the future, woo!

  3. I find this to be true in most P2W games as well. Once you invest ‘enough’, you are so powerful that the mid-range power items you get as rewards can be sold to further fund your climb in power.

    And while not legal, cashing out a high-powered account easily gets you your money back, if not far more.

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