Scripts and software that automatically buys items off of the steam market

[Mariah Carry]

I am one of many who are trying to use the Steam Community Market to their advantage by buying CS:GO Skins and using these for profitable trade-up contracts. With a bit of understanding of the system behind trade-up contracts and general knowledge about float-values, it's pretty easy to profit off of the Steam Community Market. One huge part is to find the correct skins (with the right float values) on the market. This involves checking the community market every 5 minutes, hoping someone has just listed their skins with the correct float-value and being the first one to take action and buying it. This is fair. The first one to check and to notice gets the skin.

However, a few days ago I couldn't find skins with good float-values anymore. It seemed like someone or somewhat what so incredibly fast at buying every decent float-value skin, that I had no chance in competing. I got very suspicious and asked around different trade-up communities if maybe bots or scrips were a thing. Unsurprisingly it was confirmed to me that there indeed were people using this kind of software to get an unfair advantage.

I found out that Steam states that those kinds of software are forbidden and will be punished. But how is it possible that these people are continuously using those scripts and getting away with it? Nobody should be forced to use any illegal software just to be able to compete with the ones who did it in the first place.

I'd be glad if someone who works at Valve can comment on this.

[J4MESOX4D]

Originally posted by Mariah Carry:

I'd be glad if someone who works at Valve can comment on this.

They wont as this is a user forum and the SSA is quite clear. Just because others are doing it doesn't mean you should to 'compete'. Sometimes Valve takes a while to detect and take action against such accounts that manipulate the market through automation but the consequences can be dire especially when an account that has spent $thousands on items gets locked with a packed inventory.

If you have any doubts about something, don't do it.

[MalikQayum]

there is nothing wrong in querying for the items, with a script, automating that aspect of it. The only thing that would be an issue is if the actual script did the purchase (market transaction), then there is a breach of the SSA as you are not allowed to automate market transactions.

how do you then know if a user does this or not, the answer is, you don't. is it difficult for valve tof figure out, probably as if 1 user is doing it, most likely other users are doing it so the same user won't always get the item.

that is the tricky, how would valve then know if the market transaction was automated or not, the answer is, it would be pretty difficult hence why they get away with it for a long time.

but even if they don't automate the transaction part they still have means to notify themselves that now is the time to "buy" and that would beat someone like you 9 out of 10 times that are heavily interested in those items because they can automate it all the way up to that point.

[szilveszterdomotor]

Well, Browser is freedom, download the content with scripting and if required use user interface automation, like AHK, Autoit, or paid product similar. They can never identify as you were clicking in a brwoser, especially if you give it some randomness, writing to some users etc, no evidence no crime :) It is not fair for you for sure, but the world trending to automate various processes with more and more success rate. Similar to stock exchange systems. I would not make it forbidden, I just simply allow it to everyone without programming mindset/knowladge... Like a stock exchange software buy if price under this value sell if it lower than, process in queues . This is steam responsibility to make market better and fair for everyone! if you need something then you should be able to opt in at price when avaiable, you are in the queue and server will process it. Then script has no benefit as all at server side, because of queue early bird applience win if the price reached.

[nullable]

Originally posted by szilveszterdomotor:

Well, Browser is freedom, download the content with scripting and if required use user interface automation, like AHK, Autoit, or paid product similar. They can never identify as you were clicking in a brwoser, especially if you give it some randomness, writing to some users etc, no evidence no crime :)

Well that's not true. Of course any bugs or mistakes in said scripting would also leave you open to detection. And unless you're an expert at replicating human behavior in software, you might find it harder to fool detection mechanisms that just saying "here's how you fool them" would suggest.

Originally posted by szilveszterdomotor:

It is not fair for you for sure, but the world trending to automate various processes with more and more success rate. Similar to stock exchange systems. I would not make it forbidden, I just simply allow it to everyone without programming mindset/knowladge... Like a stock exchange software buy if price under this value sell if it lower than, process in queues . This is steam responsibility to make market better and fair for everyone! if you need something then you should be able to opt in at price when avaiable, you are in the queue and server will process it. Then script has no benefit as all at server side, because of queue early bird applience win if the price reached.

Steam has met it's obligations. Ultimately its not responsible for bad actors trying to abuse the system and breaking its rules. But it will ban such abuses when discovered. It's just not a good argument to argue, "The only way to combat unwanted behavior is to make the system a free for all." It would just make it a mess and only the most aggressive and competitive users would have a chance on the market. That might work fine on the stock market, but the community market on Steam is really several orders of magnitude less complicated and less serious. Valve wants it to be fairly simple and accessible to everyone.