Steam thwarts Counter-Strike scammers with new trade reversal system

In-game digital items are big money. According to one website that tracks just the money spent on semi-random in-game items for Counter-Strike 2 in 2023, players spent almost a billion dollars in that game alone. So whatever cracks I make about imaginary rainbow knives, these items do have tangible value… and are often the target for scams and hacks. Valve’s newest feature is fighting back.

Steam’s new Trade Protected Items system (spotted by PC Gamer) is debuting in the latest update to Valve’s own Counter-Strike 2, but according to the FAQ, it’ll be coming to other games using the Steam Community Market in the future, too.

Here’s the gist: When you buy or trade a digital item in a supported game, you can use it in that game immediately but can’t trade, destroy, or modify it for seven days. (Something, something, The Ring reference.) At any point during that period, either party can reverse the trade.

Valve

The core idea here is to protect players whose accounts have been hacked or somehow compromised. And there are a few safety rails to prevent the obvious “no take-backs” situation. One, you can’t pick and choose which trades will be reversed in that seven-day period. If you use the tool, all trades made in all supported games in the last seven days will be undone. On top of that, once you activate the reversal, your account enters a 30-day cooldown period during which you can’t perform any more trades using the Steam Community Market.

I’ve never really played Counter-Strike or dug into its deep and wide loot system, though I know those digital guns and knives are a huge deal both in monetary and social terms. I get the feeling some players will deeply appreciate the extra protection… and also find the seven-day freeze on trades annoying, especially if you’re the kind of wheeler-dealer who constantly moves stuff around.

It’s also going to be hard to trade Community Market items across games until this becomes a much wider system, as items featuring trade protection can’t be traded for items that do not.