Why Are CS:GO Skins So Expensive? (2024)

Ten years ago, if we had told you that people would be willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few pixels, you would probably call us insane. However, with the release of Counter Strike: Global Offensive in mid-2012, things changed. Valve’s competitive shooter provided fans with new and innovative ways to spend money on, as the player base could purchase “skins” directly from the market or by opening cases from the in-game store. The price tag on these skins range anywhere from only a few cents to over $100,000. In fact, some particularly rare CS:GO skins have also been sold for over $150K in the past, which is quite fascinating to say the least.

So what’s really going on with the price of these CS:GO skins, and why are people looking to spend such a huge sum of money on these in-game cosmetics instead of purchasing tangible items like, let’s say, a brand new car? Let’s take a look at the reasons that fuel the price of these CS:GO skins, and why these can often be extremely smart investments to make.

The Most Expensive CS:GO Skins

Before we check out the reasons behind the high prices of CS:GO skins, let’s determine which skins are considered “expensive” in the world of CS:GO. Generally speaking, knives and gloves are considered to be the most expensive skins in CS:GO, the reason being that they’re pretty difficult to unbox and can only be obtained by opening cases. The cheapest CS:GO knives can be found around the $100 range, but extremely rare knives being priced at over a million dollars is also not unheard of in the CS:GO community.

However, knives aren’t the end of the world if you’re looking to invest in CS:GO skins. In fact, some exceptionally rare CS:GO skins have price tags that are much heftier than most of the knives in the game. Some good examples of these skins would be the AWP Dragon Lore, M4A4 Howl,or the Katowice 2014 Stickers, each of which can’t be obtained anymore by usual means and must be purchased directly from the Steam Community Market or other third-party websites.

Factors That Influence The Price of CS:GO Skins

Now that we’ve seen just how expensive some CS:GO skins can be, this brings us to our previous question: Why are CS:GO skins so expensive?

To understand this, we must first inspect the factors that impact the price of CS:GO skins. Here are some of the key factors that affect the price of any CS:GO skin out there:

Rarity

If a skin can be found or unboxed pretty easily, then its value automatically drops by a huge margin. For the same reason, knives are generally costlier than Covert skins, which in turn are costlier than Classified skins, and so on. It goes without saying that skins that can no longer be unboxed or dropped, like the Medusa, Dragon Lore, or Howl, are much rarer, and their price tags promptly reflect their rarity.

Attractiveness

As mentioned earlier, CS:GO skins can often be great investments, but we can’t deny the fact that most CS:GO players buy weapon skins to play simply with them. This is why skins that look attractive, or have features that make them stand out in-game are much costlier than normal skins. These skins are called “Play Skins”, and these are often bought by professional players who use them in tournament games.

Special Variants

CS:GO skins have special variants that are much rarer than their usual counterparts. These variants include the StatTrak™ skins and Souvenir skins, both of which are costlier than the normal skins. When unboxing weapon cases, players have a small chance to get the StatTrak variant of a skin, while Souvenir skins can be obtained by unboxing the Souvenir boxes that drop while completing challenges during major tournaments.

Value as an investment

There are a lot of people who buy CS:GO skins simply as an investment and with no intent of playing with them. This is why certain skins and almost all sticker capsules can be better and safer investments than usual “play skins”. The factors that make CS:GO skins good investments are limited availability and high demand.

Liquidity

Liquidity is also an important aspect that you should consider while purchasing CS:GO skins. There are certain items in CS:GO that are extremely hard to sell since most people don’t want them, while some other items are always in demand in the community. Purchasing items that are more liquid will enable you to resell them whenever you feel like converting your skins to cash, whereas less liquid items might be sitting in your inventory for a long time before you find a potential buyer for your skins.

Conclusion

Now that you know the reasons behind the increasing prices of CS:GO skins, you might be looking to purchase some weapon skins for yourself. If you’re not willing to spend thousands of dollars on skins, there’s always cheaper alternatives that you can look for in the marketplace.

Also remember that the price tags on CS:GO skins are constantly changing, so you’re always running a risk when you decide to invest in these. For instance, if Valve decides to reintroduce Cobblestone to the Active Duty Map pool of CS:GO, the price of the AWP Dragon Lore will almost certainly be taking a massive hit.

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