Valve Corporation have today released its Steam Community Market public beta where you can now sell Team Fortress 2 items for Steam Wallet money which can’t be taken from the Steam system.
As it’s currently in beta only categories available in the Market place is for Team Fortress 2 items such as crates, keys and tickets. Valve have said they “may expand to include additional items from Team Fortress 2 as well as items from other games” after beta.
One thing to watch out for is that items carry a 5% anti-fraud transaction fee and a 10% Team Fortress 2 fee which is collected by Steam (usually the publisher). At the moment the most you can pay for something is $200 and currently it seems that only $ USD is being traded but expect other currencies to be supported eventually.
The main problem I can see from the whole Steam Community Market idea is that everything is currently restricted to Steam and the Steam Wallet. So if you happen to make a lot of money from the Steam Community Market for example selling tons of Mann Co. Supply Crates then all you can do with that money is buy more Team Fortress 2 items (Mann Co. Supply Crates) or games from the Steam Store. It’s just a vicious circle, once money is in the system then it’s not coming out. Of course this isn’t a strange concept seeing as some real life banking and stock trading is virtual in the same sense. However this question comes to mind, why bother paying real money for virtual items which in turn you can sell to buy more virtual items?
Currently I don’t see the point of the Steam Community Market but I guess it complements the trading systems and store already put in place for games such as Team Fortress 2.
Some of my other Valve Corporation posts:
- Valve Corporation Has Confirmed a Steam Box Console.
- Video Game Making Software Now Available on Steam.
- Developers will Now Need to Pay $100 to Get Listed on Steam Greenlight.
- Steam Greenlight is Available.
- Steam is Going Beyond Just Video Games.
- Steam Mobile Application Closed Beta has Started. Also Nine Screenshots of the Steam Application [Updated!].
- Impressive Steam Statistics.
King Toko 
Well, I’m not convinced to this idea. At one side, it may be really useful for those who need certain items for their sets or want to buy something special, unavailable in shop, however I believe there will be too much garbage there.