You can “sell” stuff that you get as random drops from playing various eligible games on Steam. There are three major categories of items:
* Steam Trading Cards
* Skins / In-Game Items
* Crates / Loot Boxes
Here’s the thing, though; there’s no way to directly extract cash value from these things, as if Valve allowed that then they would become a financial services company under the law and would have to be regulated like one. You simply get e-bucks in your Steam Wallet, which you can use to buy Steam’s various games / software / music / movies.
However, because of the wonders of third-party access to the Steam API, there are several (unregulated and inherently risky) ways to turn virtual Steam goods into real cash. We’re not endorsing any of these sites, just noting their existence as examples of what is possible.
These are:
- Sites where you can sell items and skins directly for cash (ex: Skins.cash, Gameflip )
- “Skins betting” sites that let you deposit and gamble with skins, some allow real money withdrawals
- Build up a “burner” Steam account to sell in its entirety (facilitated by a number of sites like G2G and PlayerAuctions)
OK, now before you go running off full tilt into these methods, here are some very important safety items to note:
- Valve frowns upon these shenanigans and many violate the Steam Terms of Service, which can mean an account ban (and sudden loss of all your value)
- They are all totally unregulated and if someone rips you off, you’re probably ass out with no recourse
- As far as gambling goes, most developed country governments that ban it will go after financial services companies that enable it rather than individual bettors. HOWEVA. There are some more backwards/totalitarian countries where they may like cane the shit out of you or something for breaking online gambling laws. So know what you’re getting into there.
How about relative item value? Well, to give you an idea:
Trading cards – Most are worth literal pennies. Even rare cards usually aren’t worth more than $1 USD each. In fact, there are about 10 trading cards that go for over $1,700 USD, and then everything else in the whole market is lucky to get over $2 USD at best. If you’re curious as to what the 10 cards are that go for big bucks, basically for all of them there is either just one or none currently on the market and they are from a game that was either removed or will never drop another one of those cards.
Skins / items – These have a similar min/max value to trading cards, but there is a much larger middle ground of varying value. The most expensive items are one-of-a-kinds that approach $2000, the cheapest are worth two or three cents. But there are quite a few items for the popular games (like Dota 2 and CS:GO) that are worth in the tens or hundreds of dollars and are realistically attainable.
Crates / keys – Value is surprisingly poor on these – they’re usually worth around $2.50 at best
Links Out:
How To Make Money on the Steam Marketplace
Reddit — Best Way to Make Money Off Steam