Valve have hired an economist to study and help improve their various virtual economies. Yanis Varoufakis says he'll be writing "weekly reports on our projects, experiences and ideas regarding Valve's various social 'economies'" as he goes.
It's interesting to guess what this could mean. The economies of Valve's games are already linked, in that you can buy their in-game items with real money, and trade them for gift copies of games or items from other games. But trading is rather crude - if your Dota 2 hat is worth more than my TF2 weapon, we can't make a fair deal.
They could be looking into some way to let people sell their items to each other, either for real money or the equivalent as Steam credit. At GDC in March, Valve's Joe Ludwig said players "object pretty strongly" to virtual currencies in a presentation on Team Fortress 2's economy, but the issues stemmed from being forced to purchase this virtual money for real cash. As a supplement, it may make sense.
Anyone want to buy my Community Rocket Launcher?
