http://steamcommunity.com/groups/strangegunslingers Are groups like this ok? should they be tagged?

Similarly to the BMOC "scandal" that occurred earlier this year, I have stumbled upon a group that is colluding to artificially drive up the price of items in TF2.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/strangegunslingers

In this case, their goal is to drive up the price of Strange Gunslingers.

I am a strong believer in a free flowing and open economy, and groups like this disgust me.

What's the steam rep's staff and members opinion of this?

My opinion? Completely and utterly despicable. However, if somehow all the S. Gunslinger owners all pitched into this goal of driving up the prices of gunslingers... Well, they are in control of the price of the S. Gunslinger. I say this simply because there's no one else to set the price for the gunslinger. In this particular case I'm describing, we are basically at their mercy... if we wanted S. Gunslingers...

If you tag these guys, then you have to tag all hoarders, and if you tag them odds are they will just delete the strange gun slingers.
They have the right to hoard if they want to.

While anything like this is childish, you're banning about 25% of the economy just by tracking down people who do this. It's not scamming, but merely trying to price fix in an economy where prices are based off users.

Spreading FUD is more or less on the same level as sharking, as they are misrepresenting actual information ("they are being cherrypicked off by hoarders! BUY IT FOR 400% THE PRICE!")

So, no. Most of their efforts are usually in vain anyway.

Price influencing happens daily, by groups or individuals. There is no way that we would start "monitoring" such, and even less likely for us to "mark" for that. Prices fluctuate, and as its about stranges, lol, uncrate some, its their loss, for any "hoarding" of a abundant article will make them poorer. Buy some, and wait till you think there is a peak, and sell to them... they'll find out fast that once it goes down again for new crates or w/e they are on the losing side.

If I wanted to buy Strange Gunslingers cheaply, then I'd set up a group just like this. And just like this one, I'd make it really, stupidly obvious that we were trying to manipulate the price.

Then I'd allow it to be discovered, wait for the inevitable backlash from the furious mob, with buyers losing confidence in Strange Gunslingers, followed by panic sales... and watch as the price of Strange Gunslingers crashes.

I assume the guys running this group are simply stupid though, not devious, and they're probably going to regret it.

Price fixing and collusion in the real world are most certainly crimes in most jurisdictions, however TF2 is not Wall Street

This particular group, if it wishes to extoll the virtues of a particular weapon, can most certainly withhold selling until it reaches a certain price (or not as the case may be). Given there are so few of them, I doubt their fanciful scheme will have any impact whatsoever

I should mention that what Papa Smurf and his cronies did with the BMOC was on another scale altogether, since that involved clear attempts to deceive with a plethora of fake bids and misinformation. Certainly such widespread activities fall within the accepted definition of scamming, but SR must perforce restrict itself to a clearly defined subset, and I don't blame them a bit, they are flooded with reports as it it

No one will ever pay 2 buds for a strange gunslinger. I can imagine 1.5 buds or so around christmas, when theres a LOT of people playing, and people want the gunslinger because derp mini sentries, but they'll go back to 30 ish keys in the new year.
As for if these guys should get marked on steamrep, no. It would be too time consuming and annoying to find each individual and try and convict them of price gouging which isn't even against the rules of any website to begin with.

Wanna friendly wager that'll go to 2 buds? People paying 40ish for s kritz right now, that'll probably be more soon. Though past 2, I don't see how it'd continue into that until way in the future.

As for the group, my sentiments echo that of the posters above. I think its clever if you see a trend before it develops and profit from it, though trying to force the price higher via manipulation is wrong on multiple levels.

Kinda falls into that weird grey area of unethical but not immoral. The things people will do for a virtual buck........

I think that groups that want to push a price by appealing to "rarity" and other such factors to drive a price up, although the motives are selfish (profit via hype), they are in fact quite harmless as far as "scamming" or "fake bidding" is concerned. Creating a FALSE demand via fake bids is a form of scamming and is breaking the rules.

Creating a group where a bunch of people discuss and try to inform others that an item is undervalued is not wrong. If someone create a group about the few new key sellers that think that 2.77 ref per key is acceptable and trying to break the invisible 2.66 barrier that has been around for almost 2 years now (yes we hit 2.66 on other major holiday seasons in the past) is not wrong. I think that 2.33 is the honest to god proper value of keys, but it does not make their want to sell for 2.77 wrong. If you took every key seller on outpost and put a group together and started preaching 3 ref a key, i would not imagine they would be accountable for any fraudulent activity. In fact, it would be nothing short of a miracle if they succeeded. These groups have been created for almost every single new genuine item / set that came out trying to keep prices up. It happened with the diaries, the uncraft weps fiasco, the gen balloonicorn, the gen archimedes, and in fact its a regular popular trend now with ANY new items coming out. It's just a new form of economical preaching in an ever evolving mannconomy. We just have to adjust to it, or quit trading. The choice is always in our hands.

also a factor is that ppl ar trying to get past the buds as part of a currency. We need a new "currency" item that does scale up slowly.

This comment is not associated with gunslingers, but it's still relevant to hoarders. Most of you may have heard of "Docks", I don't know how he is able to constantly buy Strange Rocket Launchers and such, he must deal drugs. Anyways, he is clearly hoarding and he is the single reason why B.M.O.C.s rose so much in price, here's a link to his main account:
http://steamcommunity.com/id/docks/
And to his Alt:
http://steamcommunity.com/id/DocksAlt

Just look at those and you'll see. I do not support hoarders, and their attempts seem futile and not-to-be-thought-upon-able.

@ilhoudne How do you personally define 'hoarder'?

To me, a hoarder is simply somebody who buys a large amount of some item and keeps it for a long time. It's not the same as a price manipulator. Although many price manipulators are also hoarders, for obvious reasons.

However, if a large enough percentage of an item is hoarded by people acting independently, that could push the price up, even without any deliberate attempt to manipulate the price.

Maybe we need some new rules: anyone who owns more than 5 of the same item for more than a month could receive the dreaded SteamRep HOARDER tag?

Here's my terrible confession: I hoard stuff. I often buy large quantities of items that people do not want, because I believe that the value will increase, and they do not. In my experience, people are often desperate to sell these items to me, because they see them as having no value. Some of them probably think I'm a fool for buying their garbage. If I carefully choose the right items to buy, then there's no need to manipulate the price in any way (unless you see refusing to sell something for 3 months as price manipulation), because the price is inevitably going to rise.

BTW, this latest discussion from the Strange Gunslingers Appreciation Society is quite funny: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/strangegunslingers/discussions/0/882965239796460029/

just go to them, telling you have 600 S. Gunslingers on your alt, and are selling them, and thank them for price drive up, and you going to offer them for 25 keys everywhere....

true testament to loyalty. HAHAHA

I won't lie. I'm in that group, and i've done some trolling. I find it horrible the way they want prices it to rise. I got so many spiteful comments for my "quicksell" post. These idiots do not see that the BMOC is an example of hoarding. People bought mass quantities, hoarded, everyone lost interest thus crashing the market for them. One guy I even got a request from, and I basically told him what Datastorm suggests to do - I said i would sell all my s✿✿✿ for gunslingers (sunbeams tossle and other expesnive stuff) and sell them for 20keys flat, that I would personally crash the market if he didn't leave me alone. So that's my 2 cents.

I am the founder of this group. I feel rather confident that with or without us, the "value" of the slinger will easily top 2 buds within a year. And by this I mean there will be people ASKING TO BUY it for 2 buds, or more.
Nothing can bring down the price of this for more than a temporary time period, unless it is re-released in a new crate. Otherwise, this will continue to rise in value when looking at it from a macro viewpoint.
The BMOC is a bad example to compare to this. The BMOC is seasonal, and it had true price manipulators making falsified efforts to artificially raise the price through alt accounts. The slinger, on the other hand, is an all-season weapon which is loved by many. People who are gunslinger engies salivate at the thought of a strange slinger. While most people who invested in BMOC's only did so because they felt the price would go up during christmas time; and it very well might... but what about after christmas? What happens after the season, it will drop very significantly until christmas begins to approach the next year. BMOC's are almost as bad as unusuals to have as an investment... not quite as bad, because at least they have a potential for some growth (unlike unusuals which are destined to keep devaluing over time unless you like to shark people). I have never bought an unusual, and I never will. I view them as overpriced trash, with no potential for growth.
I would find it rather amusing if what DataStorm said actually were to occur. It would be lovely if someone stockpiled them and sold them at an undervalued price, and also do so in the idea of somehow subverting us hoarders. It would be very nice because the only person that would suffer from such a thing is the dumbass who is undercutting himself.
Certainly, for the short term the price would drop from such a thing. The thing is, most of us are in this for the long term so I personally would find it funny when that same person watches those slingers skyrocket (rebound) after the short-term undervalue and wonder if it was worth it.
When I see someone on outpost actually selling the slinger for a low price, I smile... I know that slinger will sell fast because there is a demand. It also helps weed out the ones with little forsight. Better the slinger go to a person who appreciates its value and knows how to wait, rather than someone who is not confident about its real value and waffles a lot.

Many months ago, for the short term, our group did have a minor impact. There was a time when the infamous "spreadsheet" claimed the slinger was worth 18-22 keys; meanwhile you would have difficulty buying one for less than a bud. And even that was not an easy task. We merely consolidated our efforts by agreeing on what the true value of the slinger was, and instead of allowing a silly thing like a spreadsheet discourage us we raised it even higher than everyone else was selling it (which at the time they were selling around a bud; so we would ask 32, then 33, then 34 keys etc etc.). Personally, I put my price up to 50 keys in recent times because I am not very interested in selling it for anything less. And when it's value finally reaches 50 keys, I will be asking for 56-60.
Of course, with any temporary bump above true value; there will be the inevidable (rebound) bump below true value; which will be followed by another rebound going up again. So, I encourage anyone to undercut themselves and sell it cheap if they have little confidence in the product. It will be more slingers for us to buy from you, and hoard for ourselves. Or better yet, it will go to someone who will use it and appreciate it and not sell it at all.

The reality is that this slinger will go up on it's own merits, with or without our group. I think I just find it fun to have a group of us watch it's value grow over time, and remember how we were "right all along".

Have a lovely day. I rather enjoyed this little rant.

It's still colluding and it's still an attempt at price fixing no matter how you coat it. Unfortunately, the price is really set by the community so you guys can do whatever you want, doesn't mean people like it.

You all really think 52 gunslinger owners are making a difference in the price?

If you truly do raise the price of the gunslingers, that means more Crate #30s will be opened, and more strange gunslingers that will exist..then it's value will crash.
I'm still predicting a crash after the holidays.