September is coming to an end, very soon a series of big sales will hit the wallets of users, and Halloween events will begin even earlier. It's time to think about the cards, more precisely, about their stocks. Today's lesson will be about trading cards.
What is this? What are they needed for? Where to get them and the easiest way to raise your Steam level - all this in the second issue of Stimology.

What it is?
Collectible cards (Steam Trading Cards) are digital items that can be obtained on Steam by playing games, participating in promotions and exchanging gems for them. They look like cardboard cards with the image of something and when you click on the picture, they show the whole picture.
In the US, collecting real cardboard cards is a popular hobby and is closely associated with board games and sports, especially baseball. They are collected in special albums, and the rarest cards can sometimes cost more than one thousand dollars.
Steam cards are collected in sets in order to forge the game icon. Usually a badge has 5 levels, and in order to raise your badge by 1 level, you need 1 set of cards. In this case, the icon changes externally. After forging the badge, the cards disappear and are replaced by a profile background, emoticon, and a discount coupon. If you click on the level 5 icon, you can see all the cards in the set. Art from the game is usually used as pictures for cards: character portraits, landscapes, weapons and other things related to the game. Sale cards (there are some) usually contain games that VALVe marketers consider worth buying. More precisely, art dedicated to these games.
You can read more about cards and.

What kind of cards are there?
The cards look different. But the essence is the same for all.
Cards are of different types.

• The most common is a simple collectible card. It looks like a card with blue fields.
• Metal trading card (foil)- Rarely dropped collectible card. It costs more than a regular one and is needed to create a rare metal badge. Looks like a card with beige fields.
• Mysterious card (Mysterious Card)- usually appears a week before a major sale, along with a section for a mystery badge. Dropped by forging a regular badge instead of a discount coupon one week before the sale. At the moment the sale starts, it turns into a sale card.
• Sale card - a card that can be used to forge a sale badge. It is simple and metallic. You can get it in different ways - for participating in voting (there were several sales), for buying games for a certain amount, and even just like that. But the usual way to get this card is to forge badges for sale. Only available during winter and summer sales. After its completion, it disappears.

What are they needed for?
Big level - big spending. Cards are a valuable resource. They can be sold, exchanged for something or donated. But their main purpose is to raise the level of the profile. The higher the level, the more showcases will be in the profile. The more showcases in the profile, the better it will be possible to customize the appearance of the profile. Also, forging the icons of your favorite games and displaying them in the storefront is a good way to express your love for the games to their fans.
It is worth remembering that not only Steam, but also the game developer receives a small commission from the sale of cards on the marketplace.

Where to get them?

There are a few simple ways collect cheap card sets to forge badges and raise your level.

• Weekly sales. There are small sales every week on Steam. On them you can easily find games priced from 2 to 7 rubles with cards. In the CIS, these games are slightly more expensive. By purchasing such a game, you can knock out half a set of cards from it for a lot less than if you bought the entire set on the marketplace. Sell ​​them and get twice as much money or collect a badge - it's up to you. The disadvantage of the method is that most of the games are disgusting indie, which is sometimes impossible to play.
• Buying cards for metal from TF2, exchanging for various items. You will have to create a bunch of deals on all sorts of trading sites. And you might be lucky. There are still people who are willing to exchange cards for scraps or backgrounds / emoticons. The downside of the method is that you need items to exchange. In addition, it would be a stretch to call such a trade honest - cards usually cost much more than metal and backgrounds. In addition, serious traders consider buying up to be indecent and bordering on a scam.
• Free distribution of games. Every week, various sites and just developers distribute game keys to everyone. Usually, to get such a key, you need to have Twitter and Facebook. By subscribing and liking posts, you can get a game key for free and, by activating it on Steam, start knocking out cards. The disadvantage of the method is that you need to follow promotions, have many accounts in popular social networks. In addition, most of the games are indie, which is almost impossible to play.
• Getting cards using the card set generator. Complicated and expensive method. Suitable only for obtaining valuable and expensive cards. In order to get a set of cards you need to spend a certain number of gems (Gems). Stones can be obtained from unnecessary backgrounds and emoticons - each of them has its own price in gems. On average, a set of three cards costs 600-750 gems. The method is completely unsuitable for obtaining cheap cards, since the price is 1000 precious stones quite high - at the time of writing the article -45 rubles. The disadvantage of the method is the high cost of stones. Luck and card sets
• From time to time, Steam users are dropped card packs from games they own. There are three random cards in one pack. The higher the level, the more sets fall. This happens quite by accident, but quite often. Some of the sets are much more profitable to complete than to sell. The minus of the method is the randomness and rarity of falling sets.
• Free icons. Not really cards, but the level increases. On Steam, in addition to game and sale icons, there are various icons dedicated to some events or user status. Developer, translator or icon VALVE employee shines, of course, not for everyone, but a badge, for example, "Community Ambassador" is quite easy to get. You can also get free badges on sales. In addition, your level grows with the number of games on your account.

When to forge?

The set is ready, but it's too early to forge the badge. The winter sale has not started yet.
One of the biggest mistakes many high profile hunters make is to forge badges as soon as they have a full set.
It is much more profitable to forge badges during the winter or summer sale - at this time, for forging, instead of a discount coupon, you will be given a collectible sale card. You can also forge a badge from this card, or sell the received cards at a bargain price at the beginning of the sale.
Until about the middle of the sale, their price is quite high.
Of course, there is a possibility that VALVe will change the system one day, but so far everything is happening that way. It is more profitable to forge badges during the sales period.

Where is the best place to buy cards?

Steamcardexchange.net is a badge collector's best friend
The unequivocal answer is on the trading floor. You can find out which icon is the cheapest to collect on the website steamcardexchange.net. There in the section TOOLS need to choose bange pricelist and select an increase in price.
The traditional leader among cheap icons - Counter strike game: Global Offensive.
But the use of various sites that accept cards and give points in exchange, I would classify as extremely unprofitable undertakings. Most of these bots are made to please their owners and take user cards for next to nothing. However, there are some good things to be found there.

How to sell cards the right way?

If raising the level is of little interest to you, and you decide to sell cards, you should know a few features of the trading platform.

1. Don't sell cards for a game that was just on sale right away. Usually during this period, card prices fall by a few cents. You can wait for the price to rise or "throw the float" - put a card for sale with a price a few cents/rubles higher than today's.
2. Even if the price of the card is already high, it makes sense to put it a little more than the minimum price.
3. If you urgently need money, the easiest way is to sell cards from popular games. Especially if they already have profitable orders.
4. Do not be greedy when selling metal cards. If the game is unknown and there are about 10 cards in the set, such a foil will cost very little. For more expensive games, cards go well within 100 rubles and very badly at a price above 200. Usually collectors and top traders buy expensive foils, but there are not so many of them.
5. Cards from unpopular games are easier to use yourself than to sell. Usually this applies to games where there are a lot of cards and their price is very small. For example: there are 12 cards in a set. You got 6, but two of them are the same. The price of 1 card is around 1 -1.30 rubles. If you sell the cards, you will receive an average of 6 rubles in total. If you buy 7 cards in addition, spend about 8 rubles and get a complete set, which is much more expensive to collect from other cards. The same situation with the cards of the popular game is disadvantageous because the cards will cost more and you will spend money that would be enough for another set.

As for the purchase, there is only one piece of advice here - place orders on the trading floor. The probability that someone will sell the card at your price is very high here.

Not only is the Counter-Strike:Global Offensive badge cheaper than the others, it also gives you a smiley face and background for 100 gems each. What not to do with cards?

• Exchange for cheap game gear. Especially for 1 scrap*/piece. It is very cheap and unprofitable. It means metal Team games Fortress 2. But stuff from Dota 2 is also not the best choice.
• Transform into gems. Cards give very few stones, it is much more profitable to get gems from backgrounds and emoticons.

Well, that's the end of the second issue of "Stimology". Leave your questions, suggestions or comments in the comments.
The opinion of VT may not coincide with the opinion of the author.

There are so many ways to make money on the Internet - I'm talking about real ways, and not about all sorts of Forex and other trading - I can't count. But, in my memory, no one really bothered to describe how to make money on Steam. I think this omission needs to be corrected. Let's start with the simplest and least expensive way - cards. And then ... we'll see further;)

Yes, since this is an instruction - there are a lot of pictures under the cut.
Especially for the community - I understand that the audience is playing here and many of the infa described below is already known, or, for one reason or another, is useless. But, if suddenly not - wellcome, Cho is already there.

I will make a reservation right away - the method is very soft. It takes little time to execute, the initial investment is also very modest ... but, and the income is not very high. Yes, and withdrawing money from Steam is hemorrhoids (but possible). But, it is quite possible to earn money for new toys. So, it is recommended first of all to those who play actively enough. Yes, the described method is not the only way to make money on cards, but other methods are much more resource-intensive.

How to find what to buy

So, we consider that Steam account you have and you know how to use the local store. Wonderful! We go to the store and click on the link "Discounts":

We select in the drop-down list "Sort by price, from inexpensive" and we get a list of the cheapest games:

Scroll through the list and get to the filters. There we set the filter "Collectible cards":

All! We've received a list of all discounted games that contain trading cards. Now you need to understand - what and how to buy, and where to sell.

What exactly to buy
It is worth buying those games that fell into our filter and whose cost does not exceed 7 rubles. And here's why: basically, such small games contain 3 cards, whose price rarely exceeds 2-3 rubles. Personally, I still focus on 3. That is, 9 rubles from a copy. However, please note that you will be charged a 13% commission for selling on the Steam marketplace. Thus, you will receive 7.83 rubles. As many as 83 kopecks arrived bgg ... But, sometimes it’s strange, I remember, having bought some kind of toy for 4 rubles, I received three cards, each of which for some reason cost 50+ rubles. But, such cases are rare.

How do collectible cards work?

If the game has cards, then it allows you to collect a collectible badge that will give you a number of extra "friend places", a nice picture, and a limited-time coupon for a specific game. As well as a special emoticon applicable only in Steam and a background for the profile. If it’s completely good - useless slag and bothering with them - there’s not much point. But, if you want decorations for your profile - bother.

In order to get a card - just start the game and ... and that's it. You do not need to play (although you can if you want). You just need to wait. You can even minimize the game with Alt+Tab and do whatever you want. Also, some games (for example, Indian crafts on Unity) before starting the game itself, show you a menu with settings. To receive cards, just launch this menu. The main thing is that in your Steam library of games, the game is displayed as "Launched".

After that, you will be shown those games in which you can get cards. Find what interests you and watch:

And then just keep track of Steam notifications about new items in the inventory. As the amount of interest to you accumulates, close the game, delete it and stuff it into the appropriate category in your library. I recommend creating a separate category so as not to get confused.

How and where to sell?
So we got to the most interesting: how now to sell the received cards? Let's go to our inventory:

Select the item you are interested in, click on it and look in the item menu.

We are mainly interested in the current price on the trading floor and the "Sell" button.

By pressing the "Sell" button, you will see the sale menu with statistics of purchases and prices. Based on the sales curve, you can set any price that suits you. But, I would put +/- 10% of the one that is indicated in the product menu. Although, if you are not in a hurry, you can bet anything - maybe someone will buy;) Please note that both the actual price of the product and the amount of dough that you will receive after the sale are immediately indicated.

After accepting the terms and putting up for sale, your card goes to the Steam marketplace. You can get to the site like this:

As you can see, all your placed lots are listed here with the ability to remove them from the auction (after which you will need to put them in a new way) and .... and something!? What do you mean the lot is pending confirmation?

This means that the current Steam security policy, in order to avoid the sale of any good from your account by all sorts of intruders, requires:
A. Confirmation of the listing of the lot through the email address associated with the account.
b. Confirmation of the listing of the lot through the official Steam application linked to the account.
It seems to be nothing terrible, but mail is fiercely inconvenient. Each lot is a separately confirmed letter. Moreover, after confirmation via mail, the lot will hang on hold for another 2 weeks. And prices change...

Therefore, the application is our choice. Download on Google or Apple Store. For Windows Phone Owners Too

Explore popular ways to make money on cards and farm items on Steam.

To bookmarks

Everyone who uses Steam has at least once heard of "cards" and the sale of in-game items. With the start of the next sale, you can often hear that someone buys the game “just to farm cards”, or boasts about how they made money by selling some item from the game. We decided to figure out how this system works, and at the same time conduct an experiment to find out if it is possible to make money on the Valve marketplace.

How cards work

First, a few words about how to get cards for those who are not registered with Steam or have never been interested in the process. Thematic cards appear in the Steam inventory after you spend a couple of hours in the game. Their number varies from 5 to 10, but the player will receive only half of this number. To get the rest, you will have to trade with other players, or go to the Steam marketplace and buy there.

The user sets the price for the card based on the last price set on the trading platform. For example, the price of another user is 5 rubles, yours is 4 rubles 95 kopecks. The proceeds go to the internal Steam wallet, but it is impossible to withdraw money from it.

Collection card page

After collecting all the cards, the player presses a special button, after which a beautiful badge is “forged” from the cards. Icons have a level: the more icons we create, the higher it is. There is also another way to get cards: instead of selling game items, you can turn them into gems, and you can already make a set of cards out of them.

Creating badges increases the player's personal level on the Steam profile, which in turn affects the frequency of card packs and additional slots for new friends. At level 40, I got card sets once every two weeks, occasionally more often. What game is the set for? This is hard to predict since it all depends on the popularity of the game and the number of icons created by the community. Most often, card sets were dropped from little-known indie games, visual novels, and games that recently appeared on Steam, for which I already managed to forge a badge.

No one is safe from the same cards after unpacking the set

After forging the badge, the player will receive an additional background for their profile, a discount coupon (usually only for niche indie games), and a chat emoji. Backgrounds and emoticons can also be sold, and they fall into three categories: Common, Uncommon, and Rare. Items marked "rare" often cost a couple of hundred rubles, which in some cases will pay for the full cost of the game. It all depends on how popular the game is, because popular games quickly bring down the prices of items to a minimum.

This is how the icons change as you level up. The last badge is "metal"

In addition to standard cards, there are "metal" cards (very rare). Most of them cost up to 400 rubles apiece, and the price depends on the popularity of the game. A special "metal" badge is created from these cards.

These 12 metal badges are valued at several thousand dollars.

Why is all this necessary? To some extent - because it's exciting. It is comparable to the feeling from childhood, when you bought Kinder Surprise, and you don’t know what toy will be inside. Here, instead of a toy, rare emoticons and backgrounds fall out that can be used or simply sold.

CityScape is my favorite background from Terra Incognita ~ Chapter One: The Descendant. Its developers took it from the game Streets of Rage. Approximate price at the time of writing - 12 rubles

How selling items and cards on Steam works

Selling a card on the Steam marketplace is almost the same as selling an item from a game. It's all about the nuances. To get started, the user goes to their inventory, selects desired item and looks at the bottom line, which says, for example, this: “From 2.65 rubles. Sold: 4 in the last 24 hours." 2 rubles 65 kopecks - the price of a request to sell based on the last lot. At this price, the item can be bought from you in turn, but if you lower the price, for example, by 40 kopecks, then the item will be bought faster.

There may or may not be a line with a price. Items from newly crafted icons cannot be sold instantly, so instead of a sell button, it will say when (on what date) the sale and exchange will be possible. Also, if you want to sell an item instantly, you should pay attention to the separate column “Purchase requests” on the marketplace. In it, users set their own price at which they would like to buy this or that item.

After the sale of the item, the money goes to the user's Steam wallet. Funds can be used as a small discount when buying a game or you can use them to buy other cards. If you do not want to spend money, then items are easy to change. Any game on Steam has its own forum and "Exchange" section, where users leave their applications for the exchange of items. For example, if you really want an inexpensive rifle from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but there are no other items for exchange from CS: GO, then the user can offer 10 rare cards or several inexpensive items from Dota 2 for this rifle.

Attempts to earn money

In four years, my level on Steam has risen to 97, but I would not say that I receive any significant income from the cards. Some players spend thousands of rubles on “pumping” their account: it resembles the old version social network"VKontakte", when people spent crazy money to raise their level of reputation under the profile picture.

Of all the icons, I hung the most informative - the number of years since registration on Steam

On average, I spend on cards from 100 to 150 rubles every four months. I put money from a credit card, forged 5-6 badges and later sold items from them for 200 rubles. With this money I bought other cards, forged the badge again, and so on - a constant circulation of money for a couple of months.

Expensive metal cards in the game "Petka and Vasily Ivanovich 2: Judgment Day"

Sometimes it turns out to get a profit and buy a good game at a discount with the proceeds. But these are isolated cases. Often you get the same amount that you invested, or 50% of it. Some items made from Bound Badges are so expensive that it is almost impossible to sell them at the recommended price. The cost of an emoticon from some indie game has to be halved, otherwise no one will buy it. Well, or wait a few months until there is a person who does not mind spending a couple of hundred rubles on a picture with a resolution of 80 by 80 pixels.

Badges and cards have become an integral part of Steam for me. Sometimes there is even a feeling that I do not consider the passage of the game complete if I have not forged an icon in it.

For the sake of experiment, I tried several methods by which you can earn money. Enthusiastic people know other little-known ways: someone creates additional accounts for profit, but I used only a personal profile and 50 rubles in my wallet.

The traditional and correct way to get cards is to play yourself. Some, however, try to get around this need and use third-party ones that mimic the operation of the game and farm cards without user intervention.

How ArchiSteamFarm works

Method number 1: just sell

For example, the player bought The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, spent a lot of time with it, and after some time I found cards in my inventory. He did not understand why he needed to spend money on some badges, so he sold all the cards that fell out on the marketplace. There are still enough players on Steam who have a huge collection of games, but a low profile level. They don't want to spend money on cards and sell whatever they drop. The money you earn helps you save money on future purchases.

Method number 2: making money on indie games

Go to the "Games up to 150 rubles" section and sort them by price. Indie games are cheap, and bad indie games are cheap. Every week they are given big discounts, often the price drops to 15 rubles. At the time of this writing, the cheapest game on Steam was Grind Zones.

4 rubles 90 kopecks is not money. In two hours you can get all the cards and sell them for 12 rubles. That is, if you have five accounts on Steam, then you can get about 60 rubles from the sale of cards from Grind Zones. This way of earning is real, but inconvenient: a lot of time would have to be spent only on transferring cards from account to account. Theoretically, in a couple of months of active card farming, you can earn money on an AAA game.

Method number 3: return the game

One of the most popular, but also dangerous ways to make money on cards. For example, I found out about it after buying the Worms: World Party remaster at the summer sale. The game refused to start due to incorrect work on monitors with a resolution higher than Full HD. You can solve this problem by lowering the resolution in Windows settings. Such manipulations did not suit me: I bought a product, it does not work, now I want to return the money for it. The money was returned within a week.

The most interesting thing is that during unsuccessful attempts to revive the game, I dropped two cards, and after returning the game, no one took them away.

In the reasons for the return, farmers indicate "Frequently crashes"

Some Steam users specifically buy games with expensive cards (15-20 rubles and more), knock them out using the ASF program and apply for a refund. Steam, as a rule, always refunds if the user has played less than two hours, and 14 days have not passed since the purchase. It is better not to abuse this method, because sometimes accounts are temporarily blocked due to frequent returns. There are not fools in Valve, so I did not take any further risks.

Method number 4: buy low, sell high

More myth than reality. During the sale, for many games, the price of cards drops, as they try to sell them cheaper. There is an opinion that if you buy cards during the sale, then after it ends, they can be easily sold at a higher price. I tried this with several games, but only managed to earn 8 rubles. Indie Game Bundles . The main problem is that with free games you can hardly get more than 100 rubles a month, even with several accounts.

Item farming

Some players make good money reselling in-game items. The method is doubly effective if you work with rare items from popular games: for example, buy a knife for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for 3200 rubles, and then sell it on another site for 3250 or 3330.

It is important to clarify the situation with third-party sites here. Money cannot be withdrawn from Steam, it can only be spent on buying something in the store itself. So Valve is trying to maintain control over the site and prices. So users have to resort to the services of third-party sites, but no one is safe from scammers there. It often happened that the players were deceived, and they lost money. Valve treats third-party services for the most part neutrally, intervening only in cases of outright fraud.

Have you accumulated more than one hundred skins in CS:GO? Do you have a bunch of collectible cards on Steam? You can make money on these things! To do this, you do not have to leave your computer and be distracted from your favorite game for a long time - the process, on the contrary, will become even more exciting. In this article, we will analyze how to make money on Steam.

All types of earnings in Steam (Steam) can be divided into five groups:

• trade game items;
• account trading;
• bets in sweepstakes;
• game trade;
• completing tasks.

And before we move on to the analysis of each option, a little background information.

Steam is both a playground and online service. Here, gamers compete in various popular cyber disciplines such as Dota 2 and CS: GO and buy almost any licensed games for PC and some programs.

The service is visited daily by more than 10 million people. With such a large audience, it can be used not only for entertainment, but also for making money.

Only, unlike the usual market, they sell not tomatoes and cucumbers, not jeans and T-shirts, but a very specific product: gifts, collectible cards, skins, capsules with stickers for CS, profile backgrounds, emoticons, gems, etc. On this, and not only - many users make money.

How and where to start?

If you are not affiliated with Steam in any way and computer games, in this service you will have to invest both money and time. And the latter is much more. Let's deal with the installation of the service and account activation.

1. We go to the official website of the gaming community: http://store.steampowered.com/?l=russian

2. Click the "Download Steam" button at the top.

3. Click "Install" on the next page.

4. A standard installer will download to your computer. Launch it and follow simple instructions inside.

5. Run the program. Click "Create new account».

6. We go through registration, which also consists of several simple steps: creating a nickname and password, confirming your email address and phone number.

Entry threshold

So, a Steam account has been created, but that's not all. The service does not activate the account until $5 is credited to it. This is the threshold of entry, which leaves behind the gates not the poor, but the swindlers.

Five bucks can be spent in two ways:

• transfer this amount to your Steam wallet;
• buy one or more games.

It’s better to just deposit money into the wallet, they will come in handy in the future. After that, the account will be activated, but some functions will still be unavailable - more on that later.

Crediting money to the Steam wallet

There are several ways to transfer money to the Steam virtual wallet:

• through Qiwi terminals;
• through the service itself, using electronic accounts or bank cards.

In the first case, you need:

1. find a terminal in your city,
2. find on the terminal in the Steam payments section,
3. enter your account name and transfer the required amount.

Consider also the method of transferring funds through Steam.

1. Launch the gaming service.

2. Click on the button with the account name in the upper right and select "About account".

3. Click "Top up balance".

4. Choose one of several suggested amounts and click "Top up balance". $5 is, if anything, about 304 rubles, so 300 rubles may not be enough to activate an account.

5. We decide on the payment method and transfer money to the Steam wallet.

In the window with options for replenishing the wallet, there is also a button "Wallet or gift card code".

It may come in handy in the future, when making money through sites with tasks.

Types of items that can be traded

Trading items is the most common way to make money on Steam. There are a lot of various in-game and in-service items here. They can be divided into three groups:

• cards,
• skins,
• other collectibles.

Cards

Trading cards on Steam are items that drop from certain games. To get them, you just need to play. The cards bring an experience to the user when he collects them into icons. However, there is a catch: you can only “knock out” three or four cards on your own, the remaining two or three need to be bought or exchanged for the badge. This is where the business starts.

Common cards cost up to ten rubles, but there are also many rare ones, the price of which is more than a hundred. Foil Cards stand apart - cards with a metal rim. They drop out extremely rarely, which means they are usually higher.

Cards can only be obtained in certain games. However, there are a lot of them, and it will not be difficult to find them.

1. Click "Store".

2. Click on the search bar, do not enter anything there and press "Enter".

3. On the side we find the filter "By characteristics" and check the box "Collectible cards".

The search will display all the games through which you can get cards.

Skins are external skins for objects in games. A modified weapon will not shoot better, and the character will not run faster, but other gamers will envy the beautiful appearance. Skins also drop out randomly in games, only the conditions for them to drop out are more complicated and there are many more of them. But some of them can cost more than $1000.

The highest demand and the highest price for skins in CS: GO and Dota 2. Therefore, most sellers specialize in these two games. Other prices are usually lower.

You can view and compare prices for items as follows.

1. Hover over the drop-down menu "Community", select "Marketplace".

2. In the menu on the right, select the game that interests us.

On a note: it is more convenient to do these things in the browser. You can't open many tabs in the Steam app, and you will have to navigate through them often.

Other

There are many more collectibles that can also be sold and exchanged:

• capsules with stickers for CS: GO and the stickers themselves;
• profile backgrounds;
• emoticons from games;
• gems.

Among them all, there are both those that cost less than a dollar, and those whose cost reaches thousands of bucks.

Let's figure out how to trade these pixel sets.

Card trading. Step one: purchase

Cheap cards

Let's start on the condition that we have just registered with the service. This means that you have to wait 30 days before making your first money on the Steam marketplace. So much time must pass from the moment of the first purchase to get full access to the market.

First, we buy games so that this period begins to count down. However, you need to know what to buy. Not all toys are suitable for collecting cards. We need those whose cost is less than the total cost of the cards. For example, a game costs 20 rubles, and a few dropped cards can be sold for 30 or 40 rubles.

You can find such games using this site: steam.tools/cards/ . The algorithm is the following:

1. We go to the Steam store. We set the filters "Games" and "Collectible cards", as well as sorting in ascending order of price (it is better to do this in the browser, and not through the application).

2. Open a website with a table of games.

3. We correlate the price of the game with the approximate cost of the card (column Card Avg in the table). Based on this, we buy the most cheap games with cards as expensive as possible.

To get started, just purchase a few games to spend the $5 required for activation. The main thing is that the total cost of the cards exceeds the cost of the game.

Now these 30 days can be spent usefully - knocking out cards from games. It is not at all necessary to knock them out on your own - then you will have to spend 8-10 hours for each game. Many programs have been created for this purpose, the most convenient and proven: Idle Master.

Automatic card collection

1. We go to the office. utility website: steamidlemaster.com. Click the "Download now" button.

2. The archive will be loaded, which we unpack.

3. Run IdleMaster.exe. The program will require you to log into your Steam account to continue working - click "Sign in".

5. In the settings, select "Run each game separately."

6. We launch. We are waiting for the utility to check each game in turn.

From the game can fall from about three to seven cards. By simple mathematical calculations, we get: the sum of the cards is more than the cost of the game - we are in the black. You will be especially lucky if a Foil Card falls out.

They can cost more than usual at times and fall out very rarely. However, if you constantly farm like this (farm - perform actions in games to gain benefits: level up, earn money, points, items), then you will definitely be lucky - the probability increases.

Expensive cards

Things are more complicated with cards that cost from 50 rubles or more: they should be bought on the trading floor. It is necessary to guess the moment when the price of such an item will be at a minimum level. If there are less than ten cards, their prices begin to rise very quickly. Everything here is like on the stock exchange - sometimes you have to wait a couple of months to successfully sell such a card.

Conditions for a successful purchase in the market rare card:

• no more than ten such cards;
• the price is now in a period of decline (this can be viewed using a special chart by clicking on the icon with the item);

• the demand for it also falls.

Buying through bots

If the 30-day period has passed, and you have access to the store, you can buy cards automatically. The Steam Trader Helper will help you with this. The utility is a browser extension. It just needs to set what we want to buy and the purchase price. She will automatically start buying it from the Steam Market.

Installation

2. Select the "Settings" section.

3. In the "Connections" item, we link the account to Steam.

4. Find the desired video on the portal.

Now, when watching match streams, even in the background, you will have a chance to get some items for free and then it is possible to earn money on them in Steam. The chance is low and depends on how many people watch the stream. At 50,000 spectators, about 1,000 item chests drop per game. Of these, 10-15 are really valuable. On the forums, players sometimes brag about getting a souvenir worth 2000 rubles.

Operations

Operations are campaigns in CS: GO that must be completed online. They consist of several missions. At the end of each mission, the player can receive a skin.

Sometimes these are extremely rare skins, the cost of which is more than several thousand rubles. Each transaction must be purchased. They cost about 400 rubles, so they don’t always “pay off”, although real gamers don’t care much.

In CS: GO and Dota 2, it is possible to create weapons and some other items on your own. To do this, you also need to collect various things in the game and make modified skins based on them. In addition to collecting, using the workshop (Steam Workshop), you can generally make unique weapon skins and various modifications.

Crafting in CS: GO and weapon qualities

In Counter Strike: Global Offensive, weapon skins are divided into several types:

• hardened in battles (Battle-Scarred);
• worn (Well-Worn);
• slightly worn (Minimal Wear);
• after field tests (Field-Tested);
• from the factory (Factory New);
• the best level is contraband, but few people encounter it.

No, your AK-47 won't shoot better or worse because it's battle-hardened or just released. Only the cosmetic component undergoes changes. However, such differences in skins also lead to differences in prices, and the different state of the gun affects crafting recipes.

Crafting in "Contra" is a combination of several types of weapons to get one, more rare. The rarity is determined by the color of the inscription, here are all of them in ascending order:

• white,
• light blue,
• Navy blue,
• violet,
• pinkish purple,
• red.

Accordingly, we use white trunks for crafting - we get light blue ones. The ability to craft something appears in the game inventory after ten guns of the same rarity level are collected. The opportunity will come in the form of an exchange contract - a single item in unlimited quantities.

1. Open the exchange contract.

2. Choose ten types of weapons.

3. Press the "Exchange" button.

4. Leave your autograph.

5. Click "Submit".

After that, instead of ten, one new weapon will be obtained.

Crafting blindly is not very profitable. Fortunately, many sites have recipes for successful crafting that allow you to get really rare things. But the authors of the posts warn: the player himself is responsible for crafting. There is a 60-70% chance of getting the stem promised in the recipe. In other cases, you can end up with much less rare weapons. Here are a couple of recipe pages:

• forum of Na'Vi, a famous team: http://forum.navi-gaming.com/cs_go_oruzie/kontrakt_-kraft-_oruziya_counter-strike_global_offensi/
• site dedicated to CS: GO: https://csgo.gs/recepty-oruzhij-i-krafta-ks-go/

Tip: first check the cost of the item you receive and the total cost of the items to craft, so as not to take risks for the sake of losing money.

Weapons can be improved 1.5, 2, 5, 10 times. Accordingly, the price will increase by the same amount. This is done on a special site: https://upgrade.gg/.

Management is extremely simple (do not forget to log in to Steam):

• we move the item cheaper from the inventory (it is below) to the left window;
• choose the improvement factor;
• click Upgrade Skin.

After that, you will either get a new, more expensive weapon, or you will be left without the one you wanted to improve. The method of earning is quite good and allows you to increase their cost several times with a large number of cheap items. The main thing is a certain amount of luck.

This method is very profitable. At the same time, it is easier to understand it than selling cards and other items. The whole point boils down to the fact that the user simply purchases games with discounts. When a large number of games accumulate, the account can be sold, allowing another gamer to save money on buying games, and earn money himself.

This way of earning requires financial investments and time. It makes little sense to buy games for 15 rubles, which no one will need later. It's better to make a list of good games and, following it, buy, for example, shooters, RPGs or the entire GTA series and its clones. You will have to spend at least 1000 rubles. The more you invest, the greater the benefit. There are players who received from 1000 rubles to 5000-6000.

If finances allow, it is convenient to maintain several such accounts at once in order to grow an amount two to three times more in one period. Especially if you accumulate a lot of games on account, not everyone will be able to buy it then.

Sales

It is better to buy toys during large sales. These take place in the middle of summer, autumn and before the new year. At this time, in addition to the general price reduction, various promotions can be carried out, for example, a strong markdown for just one day. You need to take advantage of the moment.

Keys

This way of filling the account with games at first glance is the most profitable. Keys - sets of characters, after entering which in the Steam (shown in the picture above) the game gets. They cost less than the games themselves if you buy them through the service. However, there are many scammers among merchants: they can slip a key that does not work or opens access to the wrong game. Therefore, looking for a good site with keys is always a risk.

Editor's Choice

Steam Cards: How to farm and sell?

With the widespread development of digital technologies, the concept of “paid” entertainment has become inevitable. And it seems that the content is offered completely free of charge.

It is enough just to download the installation one, and now a satisfied user leads his character into an unknown world.

But that's where the free entertainment most often ends.

Buyers of official software almost always get a few free trading cards. This is a gratitude of the platform for the purchase.

What are these cards? Why are they needed at all? And why are they so valued? Is it possible to earn money on this? We will try to find answers to these questions during our review.

What are Steam cards?

Collectible cards are a kind of unique virtual jewelry.

Most often these are images of characters or objects of a fictional world.

Initially, they are distributed for free through the Steam service. The developers came up with them as a bonus.

That is, for each Steam games designers create a special set of cards based on a specific story.

The creators of the app are waiting for designers to specifically draw some backgrounds for users' portfolios.

In addition, they develop distinctive graphic emoticons. They can be used when corresponding in a text chat.

Without meeting these requirements, the developer is not allowed to sell through the Steam channel.

That is, on the channel you will not find a single franchise that does not have its own backgrounds, emoticons, and at least a basic set of cards.

But, there are exceptions to any rule. Even if there is an object on the channel without the “required card base”, this means that the digital distributor bought it from another platform.

For example, it was assumed that sales would go to Origin or Uplay. But back to our decorations.

The value of a set of bonuses lies in the fact that the player will never get a full set for free.

The maximum you can get is half. And backgrounds and emoticons are generally absent in free content.

Well, since users are mostly gamblers, the pursuit of these very special privileges turns into a real test for them.

First, let's figure out why we need cards, backgrounds and emoticons on Steam.

The answer is obvious - in order to decorate your gaming profile, in order to stand out from the mass of other inhabitants of the online world.

In order to assert themselves. How is it implemented? Each registered Steam member has his own public profile.

Achievements are added to the main page. The participant can change the background of his own profile (the one that is not available in free access) and chat with other players.

The Steam store, which was previously an inferior and little functional offshoot of Counter-Strike.

For decades, it has grown to a huge market, so productive that its sales cannot be calculated.

It turned out that this is a pretty good investment, if you guess in time which of the lots after just a few months will skyrocket in value ...

Methods of extraction or earnings multiplied like mushrooms after rain.

The financial aspect brought particular popularity to the gaming platform.

In the game you can earn money. Not physical bills, of course, but still.

You cannot withdraw them, but you can spend them on other games, on improving your characters, on buying exclusive backgrounds and unimaginable emoticons. All this can be done only with the help of bonuses.

This is how the movement called “farming” arose. This is in-line production.

Steam card farming

The most important thing to understand is that no game can drop enough cards to collect the badge.

Usually the limit is about half the required amount. Even worse, dropped samples can be repeated!

The rest of the objects can be purchased on the marketplace. It's pretty cheap fun.

A standard unit costs no more than 5-6 cents, and rarely in any game you need more than four additional units. So any student can afford such pleasure.

Moreover, this is a real market. After all, you can not only buy objects of interest, you can also sell repetitions or those that are no longer needed.

The trading platform takes a commission from each transaction. Usually the percentage is 2 cents.

Each user, as a seller or buyer, is formed based on the number of successfully completed transactions.

In order for your lots to sell quickly and profitably, users should not set a price much higher than the market average.

Of course, if you do not take into account that the player accidentally became the owner of a real masterpiece, which, for one reason or another, he does not need.

Many users, realizing that it is not profitable to buy constantly, have switched to farming. This is a kind of "extraction" of valuable samples.

For this process, you need to install software. It is this, in fact, that will knock out bonuses on an industrial scale.

Farming with IdleMaster

One example of a successful mining app is IdleMaster. This is by no means the only program, but this moment is the most stable one.

This free program open source, and for its normal functionality it is only necessary to have it installed latest version.

During installation, you will need to disable the firewall and.

The program only works if Steam is running on the computer and the authorization procedure has been completed.

Also, the program does not work if the account is blocked for any violations.

In this regard, it is good that the gaming platform supports the development of IdleMaster.

Farming in Idle Master

Thus, if there is a stable Internet connection, the program automatically makes the gaming platform share with the user.

Moreover, the software creates an emulation of the fact that several games are running simultaneously on one computer.

At the same time, the hardware stuffing of the computer does not suffer at all, since the program is not demanding on resources.

Games will not even be installed on the computer and will not take up space. After all, it is very unlikely that you will play all the games at the same time.

Real gamers rarely settle down without going through one game to the end. Only after achieving the final victory, they switch to a new project!

Now more. Why is IdleMaster considered the most stable farming option at the moment?

Because of one single phrase - “the program is supported by Steam”. That is, it is practically official.

It is not banned by the marketplace developer and even has its own group.

Users on the official forum openly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of IdleMaster!

From this follows at least the reliability of its use and the durability of the user account! At the same time, the developers have set one limitation.

It cannot be used with VAC anti-cheat - in this case, the user account will most likely be blocked.

How to use IdleMaster

During the operation of the program, sometimes an error occurs.

The software does not see the running Steam stream. In this case, neither rebooting nor reinstalling the program will help the user.

In this case, the solution is simple: you need to run the program with administrator rights. This is a familiar problem for most users.

The operating system is increasingly confident that it is rare for a user to be allowed to run anything at all.

Perhaps, the process of farming is unlikely to seem complicated and confusing to anyone. It does not require knowledge, it does not consume computer power.

And the treasured improvements regularly appear in the player's piggy bank.

Making money from these unique exhibits is as easy as getting them. You get cards by farming, sell them on the market and invest in new games.

The trick is to act quickly, because now, thanks to Steam sales, the trading card market is collapsing like a house of the same name.

Received quickly, sold quickly, reinvested quickly. Don't wait for the value of your assets to rise. In the near future, this miracle will not happen.

You can receive from three to five cards from each purchased game. Also, a small number of cards will end up in your piggy bank if you play them constantly.

If you don't know which of your games support trading cards, check out the 'badges' section on Steam.

There is a constantly updated list of current games in which you can get the coveted bonuses.

There should be a little message in the top right corner of every game. Something like "you can get 4 more cards".

You can keep playing this game until the text changes. And you will know that " more map will not drop out in the game.

In fact, you don't even have to play, just enough to keep the app running in the background. Sooner or later, the remaining cards will fall into your gaming wallet,

The only exception is free games, which reward you precisely for progress.

Given that lots tend to sell for a few cents, it's not a good idea to purchase in-game items.

But, if you bought inventory before you decided to earn money, you should try to use it in order to reach the desired acquisitions faster.

Boosters

After you have received all the regular cards, you are entitled to a booster.

Each pack contains three random cards, including a small chance to find a 'premium' card that costs ten times more.

Boosters are awarded randomly, you don't even need to play games to get it, you just have to log into your account at least once a week.

Regularly, your chances of getting a booster increase. Also, the chance increases when you raise game level on Steam.

Every ten levels, your chance to find a unique booster increases by 20%.

Unfortunately, progress suffers from diminishing returns. Every ten levels, the amount of experience required to move to the next step up increases by 100 points.

With each new round of development in your career, moving on will cost you more and more effort.

If you are completely stuck in the Steam system, then these difficulties will only bring you pleasure.

Summer cards

This is a special type of bonus, created specifically for the summer sale.

You can get them in three ways: you can exchange one summer card for 9 regular ones. Given that the main goal is to make money, this is an unequal exchange.

You can buy summer cards for $10 each. But, for sure, then you can sell them much cheaper.

Earlier in this article, we already talked about the fact that it is not worth investing additional funds in obtaining cards if the ultimate goal is to sell them.

You can only buy them if you are an avid collector. And you need the cards for personal use.

Buying and trading

The final way to get new cards is the most obvious, you buy them in the market or trade them with friends.

Trading is the most profitable option. Cards vary greatly in value.

If you can trade with friends for Train cards, then by selling them on the marketplace, you can earn a reasonable profit.

Just be prepared to lose a few friends if they find out you're trading in what you took from them.