That article was funny.
My snap judgement was that these rewards were pretty lame. Emoticons? Wallpaper? Really? But then I remembered that Microsoft and Sony have been selling gamers UI skins and other virtual trinkets for years. Want that sweet Bikini Woman Waving an American Flag theme? Sure thing - just pay $2.99. The Xbox Avatar Marketplace will let you advertise Turbo Racing League on a T-Shirt for the low price of $1.00. Gross.
...but individual Borderlands 2 cards and items are also for sale, to let people fill gaps in their collection. Around 2,000 were sold yesterday alone, for around $0.30 each
I got all my BL2 card drops. 3 cards out of 6. One Handsome Jack and two Maya cards. Maybe I can trade one of the Maya cards for another I need, but the rest? I either have to play some
other game and trade the cards I earn there (time consuming) or I have to jump on the marketplace and buy them. 4 cards at $0.30 each is $1.20. For emoticons and wallpapers? Gross.
I can whip out my iPod and buy an actual game for that.
And that's the problem I have with the system. It's not actually rewarding you for playing your games. Monaco, been playing it, got my card drops. 4 cards out of 8 dropped....one Gentleman and three Mole cards. And that's all that will drop unless the random number generator decides to bless me with a booster pack. I'd need 2 booster packs to make a full set and that's if duplicates are kept to a minimum. I have yet to earn ANY booster packs. If I could just keep playing and keep earning drops and
eventually get a full set of cards myself then it would be sorta cool. If I really love a game and play it long enough to get all the cards which then earns me some wallpaper or other customization then awesome! But as it is now I have to spend MY time to trade off these duplicates and track down people willing to trade for the cards I want. Either that or open my wallet.
Here, too, Valve’s new system wins out. If you have zero interest in Steam trading cards, you can keep playing PC games as you always have. When you earn one of the random card drops you can sell those cards for real money.
I found out there are limitations to this. The first is your account has to have Steam Guard turned on to be able to sell things. Blah, so I turned it on and waited the 2 week waiting period before it would let me sell. Then it turns out you also have to have bought a game, on Steam (bought a key somewhere else and registered it on Steam? Doesn't count), within the last year. Which I haven't done so I can't sell these cards. Great.
So I have cards but can't really do anything with them. I can't earn more and craft a badge myself, I can't sell them, and trading won't help (still can't make a full set unless I go earn cards in another game and trade all those away). To get some emoticons? Doesn't seem worth the effort. The only thing I could do at this point is the Steam Summer Sale badge. I have 5 of the 10 cards with a couple Prison Architect duplicates to trade. Steam shows me that you guys have all the other cards I would need to craft the badge. So we could do that but....why?
