A Counter-Strike 2 weapon skin, meaning a variant color and pattern for an in-game gun, has sold for more than $1 million of real world money.
CS:GO, now Counter-Strike 2, lets players earn Weapon Cases (loot boxes) through gameplay or by purchasing them in the store, but each also requires a corresponding key to open it. These can, again, be earned through gameplay or purchased in the store.
The competitive first-person shooter is free to play but has an extensive economy surrounding the contents of these loot boxes: weapon skins. Players can buy, trade, and sell them to each other, and the rarer pieces have sold in the past for hundreds, thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The most expensive skin in Counterstrike history was publicly sold this morning, a StatTrak Factory New AK-47 Blue Gem pattern 661
For over $1 million pic.twitter.com/1FdxoNM2ov
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) June 5, 2024
As reported by Kotaku, the StatTrak Factory New AK-47 Blue Gem pattern 661 has blown away all previous records, however, after it was sold by X/Twitter user @roflm0nster for more than $1 million. A look at the gun can be seen in the post above.
The exact amount it sold for is unknown, as the seller is "not at liberty to disclose the buyer or exact amount", according to a post on the platform. But @roflm0nster confirmed to IGN it was a seven-figure number. "What I can say is that $1 million offers were rejected multiple times," they said. "Make your own conclusions."
Such high offers came in as a result of the skin being truly unique, meaning only one exists within Counter-Strike. Its existence was discovered earlier in 2024, when fans marveled at its Blue Gem coloring, which adds a metallic blue look to the gun.
It's also of Factory New condition, which is the rarest form of such a skin. A near identical version of this gun, just with the lesser Minimal Wear condition, sold for $400,000 in 2022, as reported by PC Gamer. Experts therefore valued the Factory New version to sell for up to $1 million, but it's now gone above even that.
CS:GO is a PC classic which remains as popular as ever despite the forced transition to Counter-Strike 2 in September 2023, more than two decades after the original first released.
Image Credit: Jake Lucky on X/Twitter
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
