SEPT. 28, 2010 • Virtual item sales were added to Team Fortress 2 in an update by Valve Inc.  The 17 unlockable items can be purchased from 49 cents to $4.99, and were created by players. A percentage of each sale will be split with these item creators. Players who don’t want to pay for the new gear can unlock them for free in-game, but there is no easy way to do so. Valve also introduced item trading to the game.

Impact: In the new DFC report, Virtual Property and Real Money Trade: A Business and Legal Survey, we take a look at the issue of companies taking a cut of virtual item sales.  Our overall conclusion is that, while this could be a nice ancillary revenue stream, it probably isn’t worth the hassle for a publisher to try and handle player-to-player trading themselves.  Instead there are services like the Live Gamer Exchange that will handle player-to-player trading in games.  Of course, Valve, with its expertise in digital distribution and basically acting as a distributor, may be a major exception to our rule.