On the afternoon of 25th of July 2019, a TF2
developer at Valve pushed a routine update to the game, shortly before logging off and
going home for the day. But what they didn’t realise, is that they
had somehow accidentally introduced a bug that would destroy the in-game item economy. Somehow, they had made the game’s lootboxes
deliver the game’s rarest and most expensive items 100% of the time when the actual intended
chance is less than 1%. It would be around 20 hours before they put
a temporary restriction on trading, but by then it was way too late. 10,000s of lootboxes had been opened and 100,000s
of Steam Community Market transactions and player-to-player trades had already happened… The damage had already been done. So what exactly transpired during that fateful
night, and how was Valve going to mop up this huge mess they had accidentally created? This is the story of The Crate Depression. To understand the gravity of this mistake,
we first need to understand TF2’s lootboxes. I’ll be brief, but please feel free to skip
ahead to the next chapter if you already know this. TF2’s lootboxes are known as crates or cases,
and they are added to the game in numbered series, where each series has a predefined
list of items that can randomly be obtained by opening the crate, with a less than 1%
chance that item is an Unusual hat, a special version of a random regular hat but with a
randomly assigned cool and elaborate particle effect. Crates themselves are free and dropped regularly
to players just for playing, but the only way to open them is with keys which are added
to the game only by spending $2.50 or local equivalent on the in-game store. Due to a combination of their real cost barrier
to entry, low percent chance of actually obtaining one, and their enhanced appearance, Unusuals
are the most expensive and desirable items in the game. They’re equivalent to knives in CS:GO, or
Heirlooms in Apex Legends, or a holographic Charizard in 1998. As new series crates are added to the game,
old series are removed from the droppool meaning new ones can no longer be obtained, but any
crates that players still have in their inventory can be kept indefinitely. Because crates require money to unbox, many
players will have 10s or even 100s of old series crates just sitting in their virtual
backpack gathering virtual dust. So, with that out of the way, let’s rewind. The update has been deployed and Valve have
left the building, and outside the office walls, inside the virtual world, TF2 is going
on as normal. That is until one guy, sitting in a trade
server, opens a crate and gets an Unusual. And then he gets another one. And then he gets another one. For those keeping track - that’s three,
less than 1% chances in a row, in other words 0.00001%. Immediately, the race was on to work out what
the QUACK just happened. With the prize at stake being a near limitless
supply of TF2’s rarest, most desirable and most expensive items, it didn’t take long
for people to figure out the details: somehow, someway, that update that was just pushed
out changed a handful of old now retired cases from less than 1% to 100% Unusual unbox rate. Crate series 1-15, 82-85 and a couple in between,
for some reason now guaranteed an Unusual item when opening. Instead of spending - on average - over $250
to hopefully unbox an Unusual, you could now spend $2.50 and without fail get an Unusual
out of one of these crates. And like a fart in an elevator, it wasn’t
long before everyone knew. With Unusuals now easy and cheap to obtain,
and the crates required to get them now highly desirable and not only limited in number as
they were discontinued, but also disappearing at an alarming rate as people frantically
started to unbox them, the result was a bizarro switcheroo of the game’s entire economy. Unusuals prices fell from 10s dollars at their
absolute cheapest, down to just a single dollar by some reports. On the flip side, crates which are usually
listed for around 5 cents, started going for prices over 20 dollars a pop - a multiple
thousand percent increase. Some estimates based on item tracking website
data put the number of keys used during this event at 25,000. There was even a guy who claimed to make enough
money to immediately buy a $1000 Valve Index VR headset. There was easily 100,000s of dollars of transactions
through the Steam Community Market whilst this glitch was active. This all went on for around 20 hours before
someone at Valve seemed to notice what was happening, quickly fixed the issue and then
trade-locked all the Unusuals obtained overnight and retired to the war room to decide what
to do next. For now, the storm was over, but the dust
was far from settled. Community speculation ran wild about what
Valve’s long-term fix would be. It took about a week of behind closed doors
discussions, but ultimately they settled on the following terms: The first bugged-Unusual a player obtained
would become tradable again, and function completely normally. If a player owned more than one bugged-Unusual,
the others would remain permanently trade-locked, but otherwise be equipable in game like any
other item in a player’s backpack. Anyone who deleted bugged-Unusuals in a panic,
thinking they might get in trouble for abusing a glitch, would have their Unusuals restored,
with assurance from Valve that they aren’t in trouble, and did nothing wrong in Valve’s
eyes. Bugged-Unusual owners could choose any number
of their bugged-Unusuals, keys, or crates bought in-game or on the Steam Community Market
to be deleted, and receive a full refund instead. The result of this was that only around 1
month of Unusuals would now be made tradeable and potentially re-enter the market. Whilst a month's worth of rare and expensive
items appearing in one-day might sound a lot, the general consensus was that this was a
reasonably graceful solution that wouldn’t cause any long-term impact on the economy,
and indeed 3 years later we can thankfully say that does indeed seem to have been the
case. However, this approach still came with its
share of winners and losers. In an approximate winnerest to loserest order,
at the top we have the people who sold crates and the people who unboxed and sold Unusuals. Valve was doing nothing to these people - every
penny they earned could be kept, and any items they traded their crates or Unusuals for could
be kept. Remember, a guy earned enough to buy a $1000
VR headset doing this, and Valve in-effect gave him their seal of approval. Next were the people who bought an Unusual
they genuinely wanted and for a low price. Remember, the first Unusual obtained was now
completely unrestricted and normal, so these players just had a huge discount on an otherwise
expensive item that they sincerely wanted, and one they could still theoretically decide
to sell in the future for its otherwise full price. Still mostly winning were the people who bought
loads of Unusuals with the intent to sell them later. These stockpilers were basically getting their
money back and being reset to where they were before, with the addition of one cheap Unusual,
or any number of extra ones if they decided they wanted to keep them with no ability to
ever trade in the future. Next in line are the people who did nothing
- either by not being aware, not being able, or actively choosing not to get involved. Whilst these people lost nothing, many purposely
didn’t unbox or buy an Unusual feeling it was the “right” thing to do, and either
feared punishment or expected a reward a la the Cheater's Lament - and if you’re not
familiar with that story please let me know and I’d love to do a video like this one
about that old tale as well. Valve’s decision not to punish bugged-Unusual
owners and to allow them keep their hats left many feeling like they should have abused
the bug after all, if not just to be one Unusual hat richer or make a bit of money to spend
on Steam. But worst affected, were those who had traded
in-game items for multiple Unusuals with the intent to sell them later. Valve’s refund option was only for crates,
keys and Unusuals bought on the Steam Community Market, or keys bought directly from the in-game
store. Anyone who had obtained more than one bugged-Unusual
through trade i.e. had given keys, metal, or other in-game items directly to another
player in return for more than one bugged-Unusual. These people were now stuck with these hats
that they could never trade away, nor get any sort of refund on. For anyone who wanted to keep these hats
permanently just to use in-game this wasn't really a problem. But part of the value of an Unusual hat is its
resale value. And for these players that simply
wasn't an option. And finally, somewhere in the middle of all
this chaos, was Valve themselves. They had just agreed to refund Gabe knows
how many 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars of items, but at the same time had also pocketed
Gabe knows how many 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars of Steam Community Market transaction
fees and in-game key purchases. It’s hard to say how much material impact
this actually worked out to be for Valve if any, but at the very least, it wasn’t a
good look. Unfortunately, they have never done a post-mortem
either, so we will likely never know how the July 25th 2019 patch accidentally caused such
an extreme, yet specific glitch to affect an apparently random collection of long-retired
crates. However, we do know about a whole bunch of
other weird and exciting glitches in the game that you can learn more about here, or why
not watch this video that the algorithm thinks you might enjoy? And don’t forget to subscribe for more interesting
TF2 trivia and stories if you haven’t already. Thanks, and have fun!
