Image: Valve
Some people are willing to spend quite a bit on CS:GO skins.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players will often shell out huge amounts of money for skins via secondhand marketplaces online, but those transactions hit a new peak this week. A player paid $160,000 to get their hands on an AK-47 skin this week that features flowers and unique stickers, and it still isn’t even the most expensive CS:GO skin currently available.
$160,000 is a jawdropping amount of money to spend on anything, let alone a floral-themed virtual weapon skin, but we’re not here to judge. The buyer made the purchase on the Chinese version of Buff, which is an online marketplace where Steam users trade secondhand CS:GO skins. The reason this particular skin went for such a high price isn’t even due to it being a rare ‘Wild Lotus’ skin introduced back in 2019. It’s the stickers on the skin that really fetch a high price.
CS:GO skins, much like Team Fortress 2's silly hats, offer only cosmetic value to players but receive inflated prices on online marketplaces anyway. Their exact pricing comes down to their appearance and rarity. CS:GO doesn’t just have weapon skins, but even rarer stickers that can be placed on said skins to maximise their value. This AK-47 White Lotus skin is one of less than 3000 of its kind in existence, and has four Reason Holo stickers from CS:GO’s Katowice 2014 Major applied to it. Each one of those stickers costs around $40,000 now, and since they look great on the gun and have so much combined value, they pump up the overall price of the skin.
CS:GO’s weapon skins go through a number of factors before sellers can assign a value to them, from their quality grades to their paint variations. One skin was almost purchased for $1.3 million, before its seller turned down the offer for being too low. You’ll probably see this skin get trotted out during upcoming CS:GO tournaments, as skin collectors usually loan their skins out to professional players to expose them to larger crowds of people and increase their value to even greater heights.
Anyway, here’s the skin in question. You tell me if that’s worth $160,000:
