Valve Removes Treasure Keys from Dota 2, Causing Economic Upheaval

Valve has removed Treasure Keys from Dota 2, prompting traders and would-be item collectors to hunt for a new common currency to deal with. 

As of August 13, 2014, Valve no longer sells Treasure Keys on the Dota 2 store. Correspondingly, all basic treasures that were previously opened with a Treasure Key have been removed from the game and the Steam Community Market. 

All treasure keys will expire and be removed from the game one year from now on July 1st, 2015. Keys must be redeemed by that time.

Here's how the new system works:

Treasure Keys can now be redeemed for a free unlocked Treasure of your choice. When you use the treasure key a new redemption menu will open. Immortal treasures and some older special event treasures are excluded from this menu, but otherwise the list of treasures is unrestricted. One key can be exchanged for any one treasure. As new treasures are added to the game, they will also be added to this menu.

Does it mean anything to regular players? Nope. Unless I'm mistaken, regular players who aren’t big in the trading scene will simply have to pay a nominal fee to unlock their treasure. Valve has simply removed the hassle of buying keys to unlock the items beforehand. 

However, due to the fact that keys are used as a currency in trading goods such as skins and other vanity items, traders are going to face no small amount of difficulty in performing their future transactions. 

Fans speculate that the removal of the keys is due to Valve’s running of the China version of the game, as the country has much stricter rules when it comes to selling content in games.