So I am asking this because I am very curious to hear what you think on this topic.
Basically, I am talking about in game items that hold 'real money' value.
I will be talking about the game called 'Counter Strike: Global Offensive' developed by Valve and Hidden Path entertainment and it was released on the Steam platform. Now I imagine some of you might have heard of Valve and/or Steam, but I won't be talking about the company behind the game, rather what's in the game.
Short summary of the game (from wikipedia):
The game pits two teams against each other: the Terrorists and the Counter-Terrorists. Both sides are tasked with eliminating the other while also completing separate objectives, the Terrorists, depending on the game mode, must either plant the bomb or defend the hostages, while the Counter-Terrorists must either prevent the bomb from being planted or rescue the hostages. There are six game modes, all of which have distinct characteristics specific to that mode.
Now, in the game itself users have the option to give their gun a better 'look' by buying skins. These skins don't come free, most of them hold 'real world' value. The skin changes the look of the gun, and based on their condition (wear) and rarity they vary in price.
You might say that this is all very interesting, but you don't see the 'investment' part of it, well I'm about to tell you now.
Twice a year, we have so called majors in various cities in the world, where the 16 best teams in the world get to fight over a half a million dollar prize pool. Every team that attends the major has a so called team sticker, which can be used in game to apply to your virtual gun (skins). Every team has 3 sorts of stickers; regular stickers, holographic stickers and foil stickers. These stickers also hold real world value, just like any skin. But the part that makes them interesting is that after the major is over, there is no other way of obtaining these, other than them being unboxed (so called capsules, also limited quantity after the major). The rarity aspect makes them go up in value as there is a set amount of items (kinda like there's a limited amount of Bitcoin).
If you're still here, thanks for reading all this, now let's get to business;
A very good example of a sticker that has been exceptional and will probably never happen again is the iBuypower holographic sticker; The price when they were just released (6th March 2014); ~$5 each
Current lowest price: $5600 > Picture
The fact that it is so high in price is because of numerous factors;
-
Very low supply of Katowice 2014 stickers in general, because they were the first stickers to ever be released.
-
The iBuypower roster (5 man squad) was banned from any other Valve sponsored tournaments (majors) because they were caught matchfixing, thus making a new iBuypower sticker highly unlikely.
-
The general looks of Katowice 2014 stickers are considered to be the best ones around, because of their simplicity.
Many other Katowice 2014 holographic stickers are also very expensive, most notably the Titan holographic sticker, which is currently around $4000.
Atlanta 2017 major
This major ended about 9 months ago today, and I will be showing you the prices of a few team stickers to give you an example that investing in these has proven to be very, very profitable.
Scroll down to see the price development over the last 9 months of these particular stickers and set the graph to 'lifetime'
Why did the prices suddenly drop on the 30th of January? Well, that's because that was the day after the major and all stickers go on sale on the last day. The main reason people buy these before the last day is to be able to play an in game 'pick-'em system'.
That's it, I feel like I am missing so much stuff, but I have so much to say and get sidetracked very easily. If you want me to explain more, be sure to ask in the comments.
If you want to check out all the stickers and their price development, here's some gifs to show you;
Submitted October 30, 2017 at 11:27AM by Nicotjuuh http://ift.tt/2yY7k94
