Skins Trading Reaches New Heights Despite Pressure
The 21st of June, the first day of summer in the northern hemisphere, typically signals the beginning of great times ahead. For OPSkins, one of the largest marketplaces for trading digital items, it was a date to forget!
This is because Valve, a video game developer and digital distribution company, shut down all Steam trading bots connected to OPSkins. This, in turn, resulted in the loss of an estimated $2 million in digital items.
Valve’s move was a direct response to OPSkins’ launch of ExpressTrade, a free service that was primarily designed to circumvent Valve’s seven-day hold on Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) trades.
Once the cease and desist notice was received, OPSkins did notify customers to remove Steam items from OPSkins prior to the ban on the 21st, but many skins traders still ended up incurring significant losses. While this turned out to be terrible news for a lot of people, it was a necessary move for the gaming industry as a whole.

Gaming VS Gambling
The gaming industry is under siege by various governments who perceive the trading of digital assets as gambling. A simple Google Search on the subject matter will yield hyperbolic news stories with titles that will strike fear in the hearts and minds of parents around the globe.
So OPSkins’ move to use their ExpressTrade feature to enable users to bypass the seven-day trade hold not only violated Valve’s policies, but it also made the whole skins trading community look bad. As a result, OPSkins is actually helping the cause of those who oppose the trading of digital assets.
In fact, Valve implemented their hold policy because they wanted to steer clear of anything that could be remotely perceived as a form of online gambling.
This ongoing debate about in-game trading has resulted in the introduction of a bill in the U.S. State of Minnesota that prohibits the sale of video games with loot boxes to minors. The games are now required to have a warning that alerts both kids and parents alike that there is a “gambling-like mechanism” within the game.
In Hawaii, Congressman Chris Lee has introduced a bill to Congress that requires game publishers to follow the Chinese example and publicly disclose the odds of loot boxes. In Belgium, loot boxes have already been outlawed, and more nations are expected to follow their example.
As politicians declare war on the trading of digital items, you have to wonder why a company like OPSkins would hurt their own business model. This is exactly what they did when they decided to take steps to avoid Valve’s policies. In fact, their move to circumvent the seven-day hold showed that they were thinking more like FUT Galaxy.
What’s the Future of Skins Trading?
OPSkins did not admit guilt, instead accusing Valve of making “yet another effort to drive sales to Steam Community Market”. However, with more than two months gone since the ban, OPSkins’ claims are still not supported by facts. The facts are that OPSkins remains the only big marketplace banned by Valve, while other skins trading platforms such as Skins.Cash, Bitskins, DMarket, or Loot Farm keep working at full capacity.
Not only is skins trading going on, but it’s also taking on new heights. This is indicated by exciting recent news from Skins.Cash, a global trading market for instant in-game skins sales, and Xsolla, the one-stop-shop for developers to launch, monetize and scale video games globally. The two companies have announced their global partnership that will allow millions of gamers to pay for products and services from Xsolla’s clients using Skins.Cash as the payment method. Simply put, this means that gamers will be able to pay for their favorite games with skins.
This completely new use case shows that skins trading continue to evolve despite Valve’s ban of OPSkins. It also suggests that the evolution will go on despite all the pressure from politicians.
If this whole process of trading in-game items is handled the right way, skins will remain highly collectible virtual items that breathe new life into games. They will also be a great way for developers and players to monetize their efforts while extending the lifecycles of games.
However, if this movement is forced to go underground, it will continue to generate revenue, untaxed and unregulated, far from the long arm of the law. Engaging in nefarious activities within skins trading will not only kill off additional revenue streams for developers, but will also hinder future industry innovation.
