Counter-Strike is a very popular multiplayer tactical first-person shooter game where terrorist teams compete to carry out attacks while counter-terrorists attempt to prevent them. Counter-Strike, the first game in the series, was initially released in 1999 for Windows.
Counter-Strike is regarded as one of the most significant first-person shooters in history. The series has a strong competitive player base and has become synonymous with first-person shooters. Counter-Strike games are also known for having a large market of skins and other cosmetic products.
What are skins in the Counter-Strike games?
The massive skin market in the Counter-Strike games is for those players who want to collect a wide range of customizable items, including weapons and knives, agents, badges, cases, and stickers. These skins are nothing but weapons that have various graphics and can be equipped in-game. The skins are strictly used for decorative purposes, with no gameplay function.
Skins were first introduced in the series in the Arms Deal update of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Since then they have become very popular in the community. There are several ways to get a skin, the most common being when a player drops it. The second most popular way of getting the skins is by buying them on Steam or a third-party website.
When Counter-Strike 2 came out last year replacing CS: GO, players were happy to know that all the skins from the 2012 game had been carried over to the new game. However, the introduction of these skins in CS 2 has increased skin prices even further.
While the CS 2 game today has a huge number of skins, few skins do stand out for their astronomical prices. Even though these skins add no value to the gameplay, they are in high demand because of their rarity, pattern type, wear level, or unique characteristics.
The most expensive skin in CS 2
When it comes to the most expensive skin in the game, the title is taken by the Karambit Case Hardened. To be more specific, this is the Case Hardened Karambit, Factory New condition, pattern 387 (blue gem) skin. It was purchased in 2016 by a Counter-Strike player for slightly more than $100,000 but is now worth substantially more.
The Karambit is known for its curved blade which looks similar to a tiger’s claw and was developed as part of the Southeast Asian martial discipline of silat. This particular knife has been color case-hardened through the application of wood charcoal at high temperatures.
Although it has not yet been sold, the owner of the Case Hardened Karambit knife rejected an offer of about $1.5 million in 2016. This may therefore imply that someone would have to pay more than $1.5 million to purchase it or the owner doesn’t want to sell it yet. The price will have only gone up by now, and it may be worth more than $2 million today.
Part of the reason for the astronomical price of this is that the likelihood of getting the same knife from multiple cases is approximately 1 in 371 million. It’s a blue gem Karambit with the best pattern and the only one in factory new condition available in the game.
