Counter-Strike: Source tweaked again

A brand new weapon-pricing system for Counter-Strike: Source, the massively popular online teamplay shooter, will kick-start on October 11, and will work like a bullet-loaded stock exchange.

Each week, the most popular weapons will go up in price, while the killing tools that no one buys will drop in cost - making CS:S the most heavily-armed online stock exchange.

Publisher Valve will be gathering stats from every Counter-Strike game around the world to find out what we're buying while we play. Here's how it works: if 10% of all the CS cash spent in a week is splurged on the M4A1 rifle, then next week that weapon will be 10% more expensive. Pistols, however, will be exempt from the price changes so as not to disrupt the "pistol round" at the start of each match.

If you're bamboozled by all this talk of percentage rises, supply and demand then check out thisinteractive example of Valve's virtual weapons market.

September 25, 2006

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.