CS:GO

Steam Keys Esports: Overwatch Banning and Crazy Whining

Posted on August 2, 2016August 2, 2016 by Richard Griever

The latest banwave from Blizzard happened just on the 1st of July and it’s been glorious. Tons of people have been banned and the servers haven’t felt cleaner. I knew that one Soldier 76 in that one game was just too good to be playing fairly!

But I digress; Blizzard has been doing a fantastic job in maintaining the integrity of the game by quickly taking out these script kiddies before their taint spreads farther unlike Valve with their treatment of Team Fortress 2. While CS:GO has its automated VAC bans, it doesn’t take everything out and, sometimes, a lot of hacks get right through, only banning the hackers when a live moderator steps in. And, even then, they aren’t too aggressive on the matter. Hackers on Steam sure get the full worth of their Steam keys.

Unfortunately, for Blizzard’s side, script kiddies certainly get punched in the nuts way before they can start doing stupid crap. But what’s even more hilarious is the fact that these same cheaters have the nerve, gall, balls, or whatever you want to call it, to get angry AT Blizzard for an apparently “unfair” ban.

The failure due to the absence of mind of these people are just astonishing. From CS:GO’s VAC porn reddit page, a certain redditor presented to the public the reactions of people in a unnamed gaming forum where they accept cheating fully. I swear that you will not believe what you’ll be reading. In fact, all the reactions in the photo album of reaction screenshots simply scream “staged” in every sense of the word due to how absolutely baffling the reactions are. Then again, there are stranger things in the world.

You can click on the link above to see the full album of the reactions, but here are a couple down below as a sample of what to expect. Enjoy.

Steam Keys: A Few Samples

Steam Account Value: The Decline of CS:GO

Posted on July 28, 2016 by Richard Griever

There’s been a lot of hubbub surrounding CS:GO, especially concerning the gambling scandal, iffy balance patching by Valve, and a ton of other stuff. The video below explains how things could be worse or better, depending on your view of it.

Steam Account Value: The Gritty Rundown

Without a doubt, CS:GO has been seeing decreasing numbers, not just in viewership, but also in players. While the top teams like SK and Liquid are unaffected, many other players, especially casual players, are making the shift towards Overwatch or other E-sports-worthy games, dismayed by the progress CS:GO is having at the moment. When compared to a juggernaut newbie like Overwatch, CS:GO simply doesn’t have the personality or character of the former.

Surely, the gambling scandal of a few weeks back couldn’t have done it any favors either as that kind of action can be something that folks will be dismayed into taking games seriously. Especially with the prospect of throwing games comes into question for money and not just for skins anymore.

CS:GO certainly could have had a better run, but as things look as of now, it certainly isn’t pretty. Fortunately, the pro scene is still flourishing with large upsets from the latest major tournaments. Folks like Team Liquid certainly has a lot of Steam account value considering the effort they go through in improving. So long as top tier teams like Liquid and SK gaming are functioning well, there won’t be any real danger of the CS:GO e-sports scene dying. Of course, there’s still always the danger of diminished interest from viewers forcing the ESL folks to eventually pull the plug on the scene when it becomes unprofitable for the trouble it is worth. Hopefully, that won’t ever come to pass and CS:GO goes on to live a long and healthy e-sports life. Until then, keep practicing until you get to the pro leagues or your Steam account value goes crazily high due to all your achievements in the game.

Steam Account Drama: CS:GO YouTubers Gambling Scandal

Posted on July 15, 2016 by Richard Griever

There’s been a lot of drama about the illegal online gambling market related to CS:GO’s community and it certainly hasn’t slowed down. Two prominent CS:GO YouTubers, Trevor “TmarTn” and Tom “ProSyndicate” Cassell, are part of all this hubbub. Normally, it would be fine for Valve to just let go of this gambling crap except that these two YouTubers are at the center of it all by being the owners of said gambling sites and not saying anything about the matter at all in any of their vids. Talking about the sites isn’t necessarily punishable, but being at the head of it is clearly another story.

This revelation, of course, breaks all kinds of rules, both written and unspoken (it’s pretty illegal) though the YouTubers both claim that they never hid their involvement with CSGOlotto. However, there has been no mention in any of their videos or video descriptions stating that they are the owners of the site.

Valve’s been trying to get these sites shutdown for the longest time but has still been unsuccessful to this date. The real issue here is that, while it’s being claimed that these slot machine-esque gambling system of the sites via lootboxes is fine because the skin rewards are purely cosmetic in the game and have no real bearing in performance, but the skins can sell for thousands upon thousands of dollars. With that in mind, it’s now, essentially, become real gambling. The legal gambling age in the US is 21. What age is the biggest demographic for shooters in general? Kids. There’s the real problem.

What’s more, there are a number of websites, like CSGOlotto, set up with the sole intention of promoting gambling where you can use your gun skins as tokens and win bigger and better skins or lose out. Considering the amount of money at stake with these skins, you start to see why it could be a bit of a problem for two YouTubers with a hefty sum of CSGO videos on their channels to promote a website like this and not disclose that they own it.

The Steam Account Drama Continues

Since this CSGO gambling scandal broke, however, Martin has deleted almost everything related to the scandal from his Twitter and YouTube accounts, while Valve have added a huge anti-scam warning to CSGOlotto when you try to log into the site via Steam account. It certainly isn’t a good scandal to have in the game considering that the playerbase is getting splintered due to the advent of Overwatch. Hopefully, everything goes back to normal and stuff like this isn’t on anybody’s Steam account news feed anymore.

Steam Keys News: Valve’s Crackdown on Gambling

Posted on July 14, 2016 by Richard Griever

Valve has been one of the most powerful, if not the most, and has changed the very face of how we buy and play our video games. But as almighty as Valve is, it isn’t at all immune to certain systems that aim to abuse Valve and milk it indirectly of a lot of cash. Most notably, gambling websites focused on the extremely popular CS:GO have been a thorn in Valve’s side ever since the game came into existence by continuously breaking their end user agreement.

Back in 2011, Valve added the ability for Steam account users to trade in-game items for certain games. While it was an awesome system, it unfortunately opened the doors to abuse with certain sites using the OpenID API to convert in-game items to real world money. Valve never supported this and they don’t at all have anything to do with it. It’s simply an awful coincidence.

Valve also stated that Steam-based gambling sites like CS:GOlotto will be taken to court if there is no progress to be made in them willingly shutting down operations.

“Using the OpenID API and making the same web calls as Steam users to run a gambling business is not allowed by our API nor our user agreements. We are going to start sending notices to these sites requesting they cease operations through Steam, and further pursue the matter as necessary. Users should probably consider this information as they manage their in-game item inventory and trade activity,” posted Valve’s Erik Johnson.

It’s always been an issue for Valve in many games that have some trading support and has gone by through the years relatively unnoticed, but this recent CS:GO scandal involving some popular CS:GO YouTubers may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Steam Keys: What’s the Big Deal?

Websites that deal with in-game item sales, sell Steam keys, Steam codes, or cheap Steam games, or merely gamble indirectly are already walking a very, very fine line in the first place. What more for websites that deal with direct gambling that go against not only a specific game’s EULA, but also against Valve’s and, not to mention, possibly criminal in the United States due to the possibility of minors engaging in said gambling? Like the earlier mention of the CS:GO scandal, these popular YouTubers may have inadvertently encouraged minors to go gamble. That’s a big no-no. Good on Valve for taking measures in taking these sites down. They are well within their rights to do so.

CSGO market – Shotgun Spotlight

Posted on July 1, 2016 by James Young

csgo market, only few people sell shotgun’s cs go skins.

Shotgun is the saddest gun in counter strike series. They are rarely used, and when someone uses them, they don’t know how.

Counter strike is a game where every gun is disregarded except the Ak-47 and M4. They are the only guns in CSGO.

Why are shotguns not that popular in counter strike? Basically, it has something to do with the overall gameplay and scenario construction of counter strike, making shotguns very situational.

CSGO market – Accuracy

This is just a theory: probably, shotgun is a gun for people who can’t aim properly. It is a foolproof gun. Wherein, if the enemy’s proximity is high, shotgun can still hit because shotgun fires spread bullets. If the enemy is close, the user can easily aim. If it still didn’t hit, mate it is not foolproof at all.

In counter strike’s scenario, there are only few spots where shotguns would work efficiently.

It is not a reliable weapon in terms of range.

Skill Based

Why use shotgun if you can aim really good using AK-47 or M4? In the real world, shotgun might be the most efficient weapon because people don’t know how to use guns. However, in a game everybody knows how to use guns, although there are some shotguns in counter strike that is really good when used by the right hands.

We can see some professional players using shotgun in competitive tournaments as the map sometimes suggest that using shotgun would be effective.

Mechanics

Shotguns have these long delays upon shooting, although there are automatic shotguns, the reload time is just ridiculous.

Granted, in close combat nothing can beat shotgun as it will instantly pop any body’s health. However, how often can this happen, probably, 1 out of 5 situations? Or even worse

CSGO Skins – CS and Overwatch

Posted on June 24, 2016 by James Young

The newly released first person shooter – Overwatch, induced threat to counter strike. Wherein, people who are tired of counter strike might switch to Overwatch.

Blizzard heard that people like first person shooter, but they also like MOBA. As a result, they mixed two ingredients creating an addictive game – Overwatch. Players don’t call the characters of Overwatch, characters; they call it – heroes which is kind of, off, in some ways. But that is how blizzard does things; they try to make it cool, cooler than your grand-father, riding a skate board, resulting into a stampede of players.

Anyway, does Overwatch directly compete with counter strike? Or they seek different audience?

CSGO Skins – Overwatch

csgo-skins-counter-strike-global-offensive

Blizzard created this big fishing net where they could capture two kinds of fishes: Fishes who like first person shooter and fishes who like multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA). And it is very successful; very successful that they run out of both digital copy and physical copy of the game, making blizzard millionaire in just a couple of days.

Overwatch is first person shooter, but it is totally different than counter strike. It is like how people differentiate a baboon to a gorilla. Both are monkeys, but different in types.

We can say that Overwatch has an indirect competition against counter strike.

Moreover, Overwatch’s gameplay is totally different than counter strike. In overwatch, composition weighs more than aiming. Wherein, aiming good can win you games, but good composition can win you tournaments; thus good aiming and good composition can make you participate in the world championship.

Counter Strike

csgo-skins-counter-strike-global-offensive

Counter strike has been in existence for a long time. It is the classic first person shooter. Unlike overwatch, in counter strike, aiming weighs more than composition.

Overwatch vs Counter Strike

Since both neither are way too different, we neither say that overwatch is better than counter-strike nor counter strike is better than overwatch. It is going to be one’s taste. And everybody has different tastes.

Overwatch has loot box counter strike has csgo skins and people buy csgo skins. In overwatch people buy loot boxes

CSGO Market – FPS Died Once

Posted on June 1, 2016 by James Young

First person shooter games used to be really famous in the past few years, until MMORPG came into the spotlight. FPS genre was killed, losing almost all its attention, while people are focusing on MMORPG games.

Today, FPS seems stronger than before, as MMORPG genre grows very old and probably even dying.

First person shooter back in the day was offline. Players don’t meet people around the world, and this is one of the reason how MMORPG genre defeated FPS at the time. In MMORPG, people get to meet people from around the world while FPS is fixed locally.

When FPS finally connected in the internet, they became famous again.

CSGO market – Versatility

FPS games are versatile. These games could be played with or without the intervention of internet.

Since MMORPG was really popular back then, FPS developers tried to copy some factors that the MMORPG have – Trading.

Even counter strike have a csgo market which has its own economy. The economy of CSGO is unique. Economies that never affect the gameplay because what are being traded are only cs go skins, primarily for aesthetic.

CSGO as the most basic, but strategic, can’t add more mechanics like how overwatch works because the thing about counter strike is it has a well balanced maps and guns. Changing these mechanics would destroy the core nature of counter strike.

CSGO

It is so strange that with numerous FPS with good mechanics and creative factors can’t beat counter strike. Counter strike is so simple that you choose your gun and kill people. In some newer FPS, players get to choose their classes.

Who is going to die next?

With the hype of overwatch around the world, how csgo or valve will respond to blizzard’s new game – Overwatch. It is also a game that has a potential to become an E-Sports.

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