The fate of the Eurozone economy," reports IBT, "could well be in the hands of a man who once monitored the sales of virtual goods via micro-transactions in video games Dota 2 and Counter-Strike. Yanis Varoufakis was hired by Valve three years ago to oversee the Steam Market and its fledging economy, and now, as confirmed by Sky News political editor Faisal Islam on 27 January, he is Greece's new finance minister."
The EU economy is so large, any changes to it will impact the global market as well, and so Varoufakis' policies will affect the rest of the world. And just two years ago, as I blogged here, Varoufakis' focus was Valve's virtual hat economy:
Via the common distribution platform of Steam, Valve players can trade in game items known as “hats” — used to differentiate player avatars from each other — for objects in other games, or even for downloaded games that have been purchased but not yet played. But it’s not always clear how to value items from different games, or what would happen if, say, Team Fortress hat-makers flood the market with an overabundance of supply. You have to be careful when you integrate different economies — as has been demonstrated by the unhappy marriage of Germany and Greece: two vastly different economies attempting to coexist under one currency.
Hope he can help get the EU economy working as well as, well, Valve.
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Hats are very important things. I never leave home without one.
The RL economy resembles phantoms betting phantasmal gold (someone else's usually) that another phantom will lose his bet on the flow of electrons we now call "money."
So could one of you explain to me why working for Steam is not the best possible preparation for running an economy?
Greece has good food and coffee, too. I'm sure it beats whatever was given out at Steam.
Posted by: Iggy | Tuesday, January 27, 2015 at 03:51 PM
Now lets see Valve customers adopt the Syriza-coalition anti-austerity stance and demand cancellation of all debts and/or a disguised bailout :)
Actually, this could make fun watching - the dude might actually bring in something that works.
Plus its a nice addition to politics watching, my third favourite pastime.
Posted by: shirc desantis | Wednesday, January 28, 2015 at 12:35 AM
Topical: I just sold all of my TF2 hats and now have about 450 dollars in valve store credit. Shame they don't let you cash out. But now I have some spending money for games for the next few months.
Posted by: Adeon Writer | Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 08:20 AM