Ever since TF2 had their "MANCONOMY" update, some really hilarious things have happened.
1) Vintage hats (Hats that were aquried before the update) seem to sell between 5-15 dollars. Like people buy them, through paypal. I have like $50-$60 worth of hats in my backpack right now. If I sold them, i'd make back the money I spent on my Orange box, my friend's who I gifted and have money left over.
2) Sam and Max items, which you got for preordering Sam and Max:A Devil's Playground sell for a lot. The Head sells for $50 or so, and the whole set sells for $100.
At the time I think Devil's playground cost $30 dollars... and nobody got it, and everyone thought the Sam and Max items were stupid. Now people want them soley because they are the rarest exclusive item.
3) Unusual hats. People are obssessed with them, they are just like regular TF2 hats, but they have a particle effect, like fire, ghosts or a TF2 logo.
Now you get these out of crates you can only open by paying $2.50 for a key. There i a 1% of finding a hat about. So your spending about $250 to find an unusual hat if you are neither unlucky or lucky.
These hat's depending on the effect can sell from anywhere between $20 to $250 dollars.
Yes, people are paying $250... on a hat with a particle effect, for a 3 year old game.
It's stunning really, and interesting to see what will happen. There is a general flaw with "virtual" economies, that is generally there is massive inflation. This is because well, value NEVER leaves the system... because gold is just "magically" created via killing blobs. So armour that could net you $20 real dollars today, will only net you $10 a year from now.
It will be interesting to see if market principles follow TF2 the same way with the Unusual hats... On the one hand it should, on the other hand, people are paying real money for the keys so this may effect the model.
Vintage hats also theoretecially should rise in value, since they can never be gotten again, and as regular hat's value decrease and possibily unusuals, their value will increase.
Of course the big "what if" factor though is that it's a 3 year old game. How long can TF2 stay popular? The more it loses players the more items lose their value as their are less "customers" after the same items. Then again it's STILL one of the top 10 most played games daily on steam.
Veeeery interesting stuff though. "Vitrual" Economies very well may end up the "wave" of the future. Some real life investors actually do deal in virtual real estate.
