A few years ago, putting real money into something purely digital seemed to be a con scheme at worst or a way of wasting money by devoted gamers at best. Today, along with the rapid growth of the video game industry, it’s changed its status. It’s a serious business with a lot of opportunities for some serious money-making. But is it only about money? What are the other factors that attract investing players’ hard-earned money into some small graphics files, which don’t even enhance the functionality of a weapon? Let’s find out.
The CS:GO market: early years
Today, the main products bought and sold on the CS:GO market are various weapon and gloves skins. But back in the day, they did not have that privilege. Before November 2019, the case keys had that status. They were freely traded among all players of the game. They had a stable price of about a dollar for a key. That’s why, according to Valve’s official statement, they were used as a means of money laundering at the placement stage.
The statement is called, quite humorously, “Key Change” which indicates that “worldwide fraud networks” are using the keys to “liquidate their gains”. That’s quite a serious state of affairs – just imagine using a digital, collectible in-game item as a means of tax evasion. Unthinkable, but again, according to Valve’s own words, almost every one of the case key transactions was conducted by these networks.
At that time, Valve had decided to bind the case keys with Steam accounts, which deemed them no longer tradable. From then on, the most popular option of investing money in the game was to buy CSGO skins.
The current state of the CS:GO market
Upon the rapid growth of active and regular CS:GO professional and casual players, the number of skin transactions has increased greatly. To buy CS:GO skins was no longer seen as an eccentric money placement for the most devoted fans (like it was in 2013 or 2014, just after the release date of the first set of skins), but a regular, normal thing.
Moreover, today you don’t have to invest a fortune to purchase a great-looking skin – a bit of smart thinking, Skinwallet searching and some luck can get you an inexpensive skin of superior quality. So, the current state of the CS:GO skin market is as follows: it’s very diversified, quite ingeniously designed, and lucrative – at least if you know how to make the right decisions.
Parallels and comparisons
An institution that resembles the CS:GO skin market the most would probably be the stock exchange. There’s a simple reason for that: just like in the case of the pre-2019 keys, the skins’ prices are not fixed in any way. You can propose any price you want for skin and successfully sell it if you find a buyer. It’s a very simple mechanism that introduces some real-life economic phenomena to this interesting market.
The skin prices, just like the stock ones, can be highly volatile. If a particular skin becomes popular among many players and the demand for it will rise, so will the price. There’s a big question to this: how do you predict that skin X will rise in value? Are there any well-grounded methods for that, just like in the fundamental analysis of the stock market?
It turns out that it’s not a pure game of chance. The first factor which determines the price is a rarity. So, if you want to buy CS:GO skins which are hard to find in cases, the prices will most likely be quite high. That’s a very logical conclusion – again, very similar to the stock market analysis. But rarity is an objective factor that can be mathematically presented on a piece of paper. There is another factor that makes the CS:GO skin market so unique and interesting.
Aesthetics as an economic factor
Yes, the looks are very important. No one would value even an extremely rare skin if it would be poorly designed. That’s why selecting skins is like participating in an art auction: there is real money value in it, as well as pure aesthetics. Only time will tell if the value will increase, stay at the same level, or drop.
