CS:GO skins analysis – the most expensive CSGO skins
Skins, skins, skins. And even more skins. Oh, whats that? You want more skins? Well lucky for you popular game developers can’t seem to stop pumping them out.
At the top of the ladder in regards to skin markets are the two esports giants – CS:GO and Dota 2. Both of these games have thriving and ever-growing skin economies with the value of some pixels rivaling that of many cars or even houses in some cases.
What is the most expensive CS:GO skin ever?
It should not come as a surprise that the most expensive CS:GO skin ever sold is of course, a Dragon Lore. But there are a lot of factors that come into play when dictating the final value of an iconic ‘D’lore’. Similar to other skins, the wear and float value definitely have an impact on the value but the variation of stickers (and their placements) also come in to play.
In 2018 a Cobblestone Souvenir package was opened containing a Dragon Lore with the combination of ‘PGL’, ‘G2 Esports’, ‘Cloud9′ (the team that won the major) stickers and a signature from ‘Skadoodle’ (MVP of the winning team) – which went on to be sold for a ridiculous $61,000.
How many CS:GO skins are there?
At the time of writing this blog post there are currently 1680 different skins on CS:GO. This is inclusive of different Phases on Doppler / Gamma Doppler skins. For those of you interested in knowing how many different skins there are for each weapon, I got you –
AK-47 – 30
AUG – 24
AWP – 26
Bayonet – 35
Bloodhound Gloves – 4
Bowie Knife – 26
Butterfly Knife – 25
CZ75-Auto – 22
Desert Eagle – 26
Driver Gloves – 8
Duel Berettas – 22
FAMAS – 20
Falchion Knife – 25
Five-Seven – 26
Flip Knife – 35
G3SG1 – 23
Galil AR – 24
Glock – 27
Gut Knife – 35
Hand Wraps – 8
Huntsman Knife – 25
Hydra Gloves – 4
Karambit – 35
M249 – 11
M4A1-S – 24
M4A4 – 28
M9 Bayonet – 35
MAC-10 – 26
MAG-7 – 21
MP5-SD – 5
MP7 – 24
MP9 – 23
Moto Gloves – 8
Navaja Knife – 26
Negev – 14
Nova – 26
P2000 – 19
P250 – 33
P90 – 26
PP-Bizon – 25
R8 Revolver – 10
SCAR-20 – 18
SG 553 – 21
SSG 08 – 17
Sawed-Off – 25
Shadow Daggers – 25
Souvenir Tec-9 – 1
Specialist Gloves – 8
Sport Gloves – 8
Stiletto Knife – 26
Talon Knife – 27
Tec-9 – 28
UMP-45 – 25
USP-S – 23
Ursus Knife – 26
XM1014 – 23
How much is the in-game item economy worth in total?
I want to preface this final section of the blog post with the confession that exact stats on this is impossible to obtain. The information gathered is purely speculation from passionate members of the in-game skin community as a whole.
It has been estimated that the CS:GO skin economy is valued at around 500 million dollars alone. Bare in mind that this estimation is now a year or so old and was estimated based on stats and figures given by popular marketplaces at the time.
Take into consideration the size of Dota 2 in comparison to CS:GO, the addition of smaller games that have open skin markets (Rust etc), and the number we are looking at is EASILYover one billion USD (that’s $1,000,000,000). If you include games with closed-off marketplaces such as Apex Legends and Fortnite then that number sky-rockets even higher.
We currently live in a world where virtual items in games can be valued higher than your car or in some cases even more than your house. An entire market and economy has spawned around items with no value other than a gamer’s desire to own it. This economy has in turn led to businesses being created (such as LootBear) that provide jobs and security for people all over the globe.
Love them or hate them, skins and in-game items are here to stay and we at LootBear can’t wait to see what the future has in store.
We hope you found this article interesting. If you think we miscounted the CS:GO skins, or if you are brave enough to take on the task of counting the total number of Dota 2 skins in existence, please let us know!