It's the year 2015. An excited child has just received a $20 Steam gift card from a friend for his birthday. He has been a long time Team Fortress 2 player; and he considers himself a dedicated gamer. He plays a variety of games: Battlefield 4, Halo 5, Minecraft: Reloaded, but his favorite is still Team Fortress 2. He understands what people mean by the term "spycrab" and "pootis". He considers himself a very prolific player in the community; after all, he did kill all those pesky spies on ctf_2fort with his trusty Pomson 6000 and vaporized countless poor souls with his mighty Cow Mangler 5000. Hell, he was such a great Pyro with his Phlogistinator ("I actually spelled it right!" he chuckled to himself), he had earned the honorary title of "fucking W+M1" from his fellow comrades. He had worked hard for that title, and he is proud of it. Sometimes he would join a team, and he would take on a role of the leader, and speak to his fellow men through his microphone. He was so effective and so passionate, he is proud to say that he is often called a "squeaker" for his great efforts in team leadership. He felt like a shining gem in the Team Fortress 2 community.

The only thing that he did feel lacking was cosmetic items. Sure, he is very proud of his beautiful Ghastly Gibus; the Team Fortress 2 community saw what a great player he was, and gave him this hat as a sign of respect and integrity. He wears it with great pride and always has a sense of respect when he meets a fellow veteran toting the rare hat.

The child carefully entered the code, and to his delight, he now has $20 on his Steam account! He entered the prestigious Mann Co. Store, lined up with weapons and hats, with the face of the legendary of Saxton Hale beckoning him to purchase the goods. He felt weird holding this power of money. He bought a few weapons, and added a nice policeman's helmet for the Heavy on top. Heavy seems to be the most popular class it seems. He looked at his funds. He had almost 3 dollars left... what should he buy?

His was scrolling through the endless pages of virtual merchandise when his eyes caught the sight of a glowing item. A Mann Co. Supply Crate Key. For $2.49.

He had heard a lot about keys. His friends told him that keys are important to trading. His friend told him that trade servers are where people trade, and to find one, just type "trade" into the servers bar and you'll find some.

The child checked out, delighted to find that not only he had gotten the Heavy hat, he also received a white baseball cap for all the classes to wear. "Valve must really like me", he decided. He did as his friends told him, and within minutes he joined a server that looked suspiciously like Minecraft. He did not know what to do with the key; he deletes his crates every time he gets them. He was a little hesitant about deleting the Platinum Celebratory Mann Co. Supply Crate #100, but when he got a drop of a cool new Sniper rifle called the Machina he deleted without a second thought. He saw that people were selling a lot of items here. Maybe he should try and sell his.

He typed in chat, "selling a key".

Almost instantaneously, his HUD was bombarded with trade requests. He pressed J, as the requests prompted him to do. A trade window opened up, and the person asked "how much?"

This child is now confused. How much indeed? He wanted to say 10 weapons, but he was afraid that it was worth more than that. Before he could type anything, the man on the other side put up a number of items. The child took a closer look. The man put up a pair of headphones and a hat that resembled a rabbit. He also put up a ridiculously large number of shiny silver metal gears. He put up a beret that said it belonged to a gentleman named Bill, then finally said,

"this good?"

The confused child was about to say yes when the man threw up a hat. This was unlike the others; this hat did not have a yellow outline, but instead had a purple one. A few weapons were also added, but they seem to have Christmas lights on them. Some of these Christmas weapons also have orange outlines to them. The child was delighted. "Finally something good", he said to himself. He liked weapons, and he liked Christmas.

"im overpaying right now, pls let me have a key"

The delighted child added his key and clicked on the big green button. His backpack now flooded with goodies, he left the server.

Soon after his departure, the man boasted, "yoo I scammed a noob today I only spent 250 ref on that key try finding one for 300 gg fags gonna cashout now see ya bitches" and left the server shortly after, leaving the remaining players moaning and complaining about keys being 100 ref a few months ago.

tl;dr keys