High Steam Levels: A Naive Calculation

[wildschweinreiter]

Hi.

There are Steam users with levels above 150, like CrystalTheory (153) and PalmDesert (163). Some people wonder on how they could achieve such a high level.

To increase your level you need to gain XP points. You get them by buying games and by crafting badges. Badges can be crafted from a full set of Steam trading cards. A half set you get for every game you have and a set maybe has 5 to 7 cards. The remaining cards you need to buy from the market.

To get to the next Steam level, you need to get an amount of XP that depends on your current Steam level. For the first ten levels you need 100 XP per level, for the next ten levels you need 200 XP per level, and so on. We can verify this rule by looking at the profile of CrystalTheory and clicking on the level icon on that page. Currently the XP bar is almost empty and it says that 1539 were required to get to the next level. That's what we expected, 1600 XP per level.

This means, to reach level 160, we need (10*100 + 10*200 + ... + 10*1600) XP = 10*(1+2+...+16) * 100 XP = 10*16*17/2 * 100 XP = 1360 * 100 XP. This is the amount of XP we get from 1360 badge craftings. The reason CrystalTheory's page only lists 372 badges is that level n badges give you 100n XP.

With a little script you can easily figure out that there are 149 Level 1 badges and 213 level 5 badges in the list of CrystalTheory. This is equal to 149*100 XP + 213*500 XP = 121,400 XP. We're are off a bit by the value display on top of that page, 124,861 XP, because I did not count special badges like the 2222 XP one that you get for owning more than 1000 games. But the difference does not really matter much at such high levels.

How expensive would it be to reach such a level? The free cards you get are nothing. So let's assume we have to craft badges for level 160. We calculated this needs 1360 badge craftings. A set of cards you can buy at the market for about 1 Euro. So to reach level 160 you need to spend 1360 Euros. And what do you get for these 1360 Euros? You get an emoticon, a wallpaper, a coupon for a game you never want to buy anyway, and all this about 160 times. And you get a high level number displayed in your profile.

It's not worth it at all. Emoticons can be bought for 3 Cents at the market, wallpapers are also very cheap. There is no advantage of having 160 wallpapers when you can only have one in use. Better buy the wallpaper and emoticons you like for a Euro than to level up for them. And the coupons you get are usually for games that are not really good.

But why is Steam doing this? And why do people actually spend that much money to reach that level? 1360 Euro? What could you do with it?

Other interesting things to note:
Not even 20 % of the games have a playtime, and both, CrystalTheory and PalmDesert have almost 2000 games.
If one game costs 5 Euro on average, that would mean 10 000 Euros spent.
CrystalTheory links to another Steam profile of the user AciD who got a badge that says he is a Valve employee.

Do not let them make you crazy to reach a high steam level. It is all just worthless to rob your money!

You are welcome to respond with corrections, extensions, or other ideas.

[Herobyte]

sir, this may be correct that you MIGTH be wasting your change on this but you have to look at it from their point of view. if you dont know every 10 levels the rate of getting a booster pack is increased by 20%. By lvl 50 you're already at 100% at their lvls they are probably at 240~260% increased rate for these booster packs making it easy to make lvl 5 badges or just sell them for money so they dont have to pay for games and some coupons arent that bad.

i got a serious sam BFE 90% off coupon and used it to buy the game for 4 bucks and i have tons of good coupons still for games i like but dont have the money for atm.

[wildschweinreiter]

You are right, the chance to get a booster pack increases but it is of no use. To increase from level 160 to 161 or more, you need 1700 XP. To get 1700 XP you need to craft 17 times. This means you need 17 sets and a booster pack contains 3 cards which is about half a set. So you need 34 booster packs to increase your level from 160 to 161. To get that many packs with a chance that is increase by 240 % means that people without that bonus should get 34/(1+240 %) = 10 booster packs. I do not know any low level user who has received 10 booster packs so far.
For low level users, the increase caused by a booster pack is better, however. You get half a level from a pack. With 10 packs you can level up by 5 levels maybe. To get these 10 packs, however, you need to wait until you are too old to even remember what Steam was.

I also received that coupon and looked at the game. I cannot believe it costs 40 Euro. The game's fans must be real fans. It's not my taste at all. And so I do not save 36 Euro but I lose 4 Euro by buying it. You can also use this to fool people. Place a game for 400 Euro and give people 90 % off coupons. Some see the 360 Euro the save, some see the 40 Euro they need to spend. And when you are at a very high level, you have all the coupons multiple times. What you could do would be to buy the game for 4 and trade it somewhere. But I am not sure if the terms allow it and if games bought with coupons can be bought as gifts.

[wildschweinreiter]

I have thought and calculated around a bit more. This is crazy. To craft the 1370 times, you need 1370*5..7 = 6850..9590 cards that you need to buy from the market and that is also the number of transactions! Have you ever bought something from the Steam market? It is slow as hell and you need to make a list of cards that you need and use the search function for each card you want. Then do some clicks. The whole system is slow. Per card you easily must invest 10 seconds. So this means, to get to level 160, you need to use the Steam market for 68500..95900 seconds which is 19 to 26 hours without pause! I cannot believe the level 160 Steam users really did that.

Then, the number of games these people have, 2000 games. Imagine these games had been bought over a period of 10 years. Then this would mean these users had bought 2000/10/12 = 16.67 games per month! DLC not even counted! Who on earth does buy and play that many games in a month? Even over 15 years it is still 11.11 games per month. Something is really odd here. These users are not normal users, they are not players. The relation of one of the level 160 Steam users to one of the Valve employee now gets even more meaning. I wonder: Is this all just to cause craziness among the people to make them start a level run to spend hundreds of bucks for nothing and nothing?

[Lunacinda]

Some people spend huge amounts of money on collecting figurines. Some collect art, some collect designer clothes, some collect jewelry etc etc. And then some collect virtual items like steam levels and badges.

There's really no difference. What is worthless to you, may be worth gold to others.

[wildschweinreiter]

Then how do you buy 16.67 games per month? And about the same amount of DLCs? How do you even play them? You need to buy that many games per month to get to the 2000 games and 2000 DLCs the Lvl 160 users have. For each market transaction you get an e-mail from Steam. For the level 160 you need to do 7000 to 10 000 transactions. I want to see that e-mail box with 10 000 e-mails from Steam. Why would you buy 2000 games when you only play about 1/8 of them?
You are level 60 which means you must have spent about 10*6*7/2 Euros = 210 Euros just on the cards to level up? For a number, for nothing more.

[Lunacinda]

Nope, I've spent roughly 100 euros. You forget that you can make quite a bit of money back on selling rare drops.

Also, like I said, for some it's a hobby. There is no logic to it. In your eyes those steam levels and games may be worthless, but to some it's a passion and something they enjoy collection "just because".

Do you also berate people who collect stamps, or stones, or sea shells, or toys? It's all about perspective =)

Just because you think it's silly and worthless doesn't mean it is to others. And what harm can it possibly do to you that some people want to be as high level on steam as possible? Does it make your life worse that they spend 1000+ euros on their steam account?

[Meatbug]

wildschweinreiter の投稿を引用：

Then how do you buy 16.67 games per month? And about the same amount of DLCs? How do you even play them? You need to buy that many games per month to get to the 2000 games and 2000 DLCs the Lvl 160 users have. For each market transaction you get an e-mail from Steam. For the level 160 you need to do 7000 to 10 000 transactions. I want to see that e-mail box with 10 000 e-mails from Steam. Why would you buy 2000 games when you only play about 1/8 of them?
You are level 60 which means you must have spent about 10*6*7/2 Euros = 210 Euros just on the cards to level up? For a number, for nothing more.

What Vampyre said...


Some people spend hundredthousands or millions of dollar for art.
It's also just some fabric with paint on it..where is the difference?

And still, if these people are happy with it, fine.
You don't need to understand or share other peoples habits, passions and hobbys.

[wildschweinreiter]

Vampyre の投稿を引用：

Do you also berate people who collect stamps, or stones, or sea shells, or toys? It's all about perspective =)

Yes, of course, I do that. I even hit eggs out of the hands of people who open them from the wrong side. Order is just very important. How would you feel as an egg when someone tried to open you from the bottom side? This world is just flooded with crazy people and that makes me crazy as hell!

[Lunacinda]

wildschweinreiter の投稿を引用：

Vampyre の投稿を引用：

Do you also berate people who collect stamps, or stones, or sea shells, or toys? It's all about perspective =)

Yes, of course, I do that. I even hit eggs out of the hands of people who open them from the wrong side. Order is just very important. How would you feel as an egg when someone tried to open you from the bottom side? This world is just flooded with crazy people and that makes me crazy as hell!

I'm going to choose to believe that you are just being silly on purpose now :p

[wildschweinreiter]

Meatbug の投稿を引用：

Some people spend hundredthousands or millions of dollar for art.
It's also just some fabric with paint on it..where is the difference?

When you buy art, in contrast to Steam items, you can sell it again. So your money is not completely lost, sometimes trading art can even overcompensate the inflation. In Steam you cannot sell, the badges cannot be sold, the games cannot be sold, the Steam account must not be sold.

[sfnhltb]

wildschweinreiter の投稿を引用：

Meatbug の投稿を引用：

Some people spend hundredthousands or millions of dollar for art.
It's also just some fabric with paint on it..where is the difference?

When you buy art, in contrast to Steam items, you can sell it again. So your money is not completely lost, sometimes trading art can even overcompensate the inflation. In Steam you cannot sell, the badges cannot be sold, the games cannot be sold, the Steam account must not be sold.

So in your view all hobbies and activities must be profitable in some way, otherwise people should not engage in them. You sound German (well the name also helps guess that of course).

Someone at work just bought a brand new car for £28000 last month, which lost probably half of that value the moment he drove it away. I would never do that, consider it fairly crazy, but what he wants to do with his money is up to him.

[Meatbug]

wildschweinreiter の投稿を引用：

When you buy art, in contrast to Steam items, you can sell it again. So your money is not completely lost, sometimes trading art can even overcompensate the inflation. In Steam you cannot sell, the badges cannot be sold, the games cannot be sold, the Steam account must not be sold.

But thats not the point.
Thing is, people enjoy different things as hobby.
Some like to collect stamps, some like to spend hundreds of dollars for their games, others just buy games and won't play them cause they like to collect or support developers, others like the badges more than the actual games...

It doesn't even need to make sense to someone else, if that one person is happy with what he or she is doing, then everything is fine.

And actually..i don't even really get your point on this...so you just don't understand why people spend money on badges which are useless for you?
Well, as already said, different people, different passions, different habits.

[WinterMute 0101]

Stopped reading, sorry if already said, but I think you're forgetting that xp goes up with badge level. Level 1 badge = 100 xp, level 2badge = 200 xp, level 3 badge = 300 xp etc so your math seems to assume every badge is 100 xp.

Unfortunately, this variation does not lend itself to a good formula you can compute without input. You could run a probability scenario but without knowing if someone crafts a game badge to level 5, another to level 3 and 12 more badges to level two (or whatever!), it becomes very hard to compute.

Confucious say: "The difference between knowledge and wisdom: Knowledge is knowing tomatoes are a fruit......wisdom is not putting them in fruit salad."

[wildschweinreiter]

You are wrong. For the first level badge you get 100 XP, for the next level you get 100 XP on top of what, which is why it then displays 200 XP for that level. You won't get 200 XP on top of it. What, however, is growing, is the amount of XP you need per level. And I have considered this in my calculation as you can see in the 1+2+...+16 part (-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_%2B_2_%2B_3_%2B_4_%2B_%E2%8B%AF)