Don’t you just love it when Valve drops the sticker update right after the newsletter is already finished?

Anyways.

The Cologne stickers are out, and they honestly look pretty cool. We love the lead glass/Cathedral aesthetic, so props to ESL for that one. However, this update is not just a sticker update.

Capsules are gone.

You can get any stickers you want directly from the new in-game Major shop now, which you will have to purchase using “Tokens”, the new version of Souvenir Tokens we’ve had in previous Majors.

But how will the price of stickers be determined? Well, guess the Terminals should’ve been a clue. Valve apparently really are suckers for market capitalism. The price of stickers is now set by you, the consumer.

Demand goes up? Price goes up. Demand goes down? Price goes down. It’s that damned stonks meme all over again.

Valve have been ever so gracious in protecting you from market crashes however. If your sticker loses 25 tokens in value in the 24 hours after you’ve got it, you’ll get an automatic refund for the difference. Thanks Valve, very cool.

Souvenir crates are now also in the past.

To get a souvenir, you must now provide your own weapon from your inventory and select what match, map, and player you want. The game will strip your weapon of any stickers and apply the ones from the match you selected. You can now repurchase your own weapon but with new sticker, again with a price set by demand.

Additionally, there have been some changes to how royalties for these stickers are distributed among teams - it now depends on your VRS standings before and during the Major, and your placement in it once the event is over. Interesting for teams and players, not so much for us.

We get Valve’s idea of moving away from lootboxes, as they’ve become quite unpopular in many countries’ gambling legislation, but this doesn’t feel like the move.