Valve Restricts The Resale Of CS:GO Keys To Combat Fraud

You can no longer resell your Counter-Strike: Global Offensive keys. In a cunningly titled "Key Change" blog post yesterday, Valve has declared that "container keys purchased in-game can no longer leave the purchasing account. That is, they cannot be sold on the Steam Community Market or traded." Pre-existing keys are unaffected.

The reason for this change, according to Valve, is that many keys nowadays are sold by fraud networks. In fact, "nearly all key purchases that end up being traded or sold on the marketplace are believed to be fraud-sourced." As such, despite the effect it will have on a few legitimate CS:GO players, Valve has taken this step to combat the fraudsters.

It's a good move to make, but it's worth noting that selling the actual contents of a crate on the Steam Community Market is still an option. That's been a major blow to the oft-quoted "you can't cash out" argument used by those defending loot boxes in games, and one wonders if this action from Valve will have a significant effect on those fraud networks, who will seemingly only have to work a little harder to make their money.