"Valve benefits from any panicked trading in the short term, with every Steam Marketplace sale carrying a 5 percent "Steam Transaction Fee" on top of a 10 percent " Counter-Strike 2 fee... that is determined and collected by the game publisher" (read: Valve). In the long term, though, making some of the rarest items in the game easier to obtain will likely depress overall spending among the whales that dominate the market."
"I've spent the last few hours digging through market data and built this projection chart to show how I think things play out. Knives and gloves drop fast (40-50%) as the new trade-up path floods supply, while Covert skins surge short-term as everyone... pic.twitter.com/8NOMIBPZ1F - SAC (@SAC_IG) October 23, 2025 Using marketplace data, Irish Guys esports team owner SAC ran some projections estimating that, over the next few months, "the market settles about 5-10% lower overall, not a crash, just a correction.""
"Market tracker CSFloat also crunched some numbers to determine that the overall supply of knives and gloves could roughly double if every common item were traded up under the new update. In practice, though, the supply increase will likely be "far less." Massive monetary shifts aside, this latest update seems set to make it easier for new CS2 players to access some once-rare in-game items without breaking the bank."
Valve collects Steam Marketplace transaction fees and a separate Counter-Strike 2 publisher fee on each sale, benefiting from short-term trading activity. The CS2 update introduces a trade-up path that could flood supply, causing knives and gloves to drop roughly 40–50% in value in projections and potentially doubling supply in an extreme scenario. Market projections estimate an overall market correction of about 5–10% rather than a crash, with outcomes dependent on demand and liquidity. The update lowers barriers for new players to obtain formerly rare items and may shift spending away from high-value whales toward broader player access.
Read at Ars Technica
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