Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Skin Sells For World-Record Amount
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players are among some of the most loyal and invested gamers in the tactical shooter genre. Actually, "invested" may have taken on a whole new meaning, according to recent reports. That's because the new world record for most money spent on an in-game CS:GO cosmetic has just been set by one Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player. You may want to sit down before you hear how much cash was just plunked down for a super-rare weapons skin.
CS:GO-centric Twitter account OhnePixel has confirmed that a Chinese gamer has paid a record-smashing $100,000 for a particular rare weapons skin. The skinned weapon in question, according to Dexerto, is a StatTrak M4A4 Howl with 4 iBUYPOWER Katowice 2014 stickers.
For those of you unfamiliar with all of that lingo, let's break it down. The Howl skin for the gun is already harder to come by, but the stickers on the gun were what put it over the top. These are from the 2014 CS:GO tournament in Katowice, Poland.
As mentioned by Dexerto's Bill Cooney, "the iBUYPOWER stickers from Katowice 2014 ... are rare simply because, back when they came out, the player base was smaller, with fewer people to buy them. Now with the worldwide appeal of CS:GO, they've become some of the hottest collector items on the market." As you can imagine, with how rare these stickers are, having four of them on a weapon skin totally justifies the price tag in the minds of some more hardcore collectors. Tournament exclusive skins tend to be exceptionally valuable and sought after in the CS:GO community.
It's not completely unheard of for CS:GO skins to sell for huge amounts. The previous record for most expensive CS:GO skin was set a few years ago when one of the game's Souvenir skins sold for $61,000. It's worth mentioning that this Souvenir skin also featured an exceptionally rare sticker on it, which drove up the rarity and price considerably. What's wild about this new record is that the gun didn't have a Souvenir skin like the previous record-holder. It was specifically the stickers on the Howl, which cannot be purchased or found in the game anymore, that made it so worth the asking price for this collector.
OhnePixel is also reporting that the collector who purchased the special Howl is already listing it for sale at $130,000. It remains to be seen whether or not the collector who purchased the Howl has had any takers on his big catch, but it wouldn't be surprising to see it gain traction soon. Considering what big news it is that this new record has been broken, the collector may not have to wait too terribly long for someone to express an interest in purchasing it from him. This would not only result in another record-smashing sale, but it would also net the collector a tidy profit on the Howl.
There is real money to be made (and spent) through the world of video game cosmetics and upgrades. A few months back, it was reported that a Chinese Justice Online player had been embroiled in a legal battle after nearly losing a character he'd put $1.4 million into upgrading. Over the course of some years, this player had spent a ton of time and money developing his character in the MMORPG. He then made the mistake of loaning his account info to an unscrupulous friend who was interested in playing the game.
Unfortunately for the owner of the account, his friend then listed the character for sale online and sold it for a ludicrously low 3,888 yuan (around $552 USD). While the friend has maintained at various times that this was a total accident, it led to a legal battle to get the character back and to ensure that something like this never happens again to a Justice Online player.
Luckily for everyone involved in this particular CS:GO transaction, it all seems to be on the up and up. In fact, the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community seems to maintain a rather robust market for buying and selling weapon skins. This is thanks in part to the game's "Arms Dealer" update from 2013, which allows players to trade weapon skins.
Then again, it may frustrate the player who originally sold the gun skin to see that the new owner is already looking into flipping it for a profit, but that's also just how the collectors' market works. Either way, it's always kind of wild to see how much fans are willing to pay for a rare piece of their favorite thing.