Counter-Strike skin sells for over $1 million

A Counter-Strike 2 weapon skin, that is, a color and pattern variant for an in-game weapon, has sold for over $1 million in real money.

CS:GO, now Counter-Strike 2, allows players to earn weapon chests (loot chests) by playing or purchasing them from 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 around the contents of those loot boxes: weapon skins. Players can buy, trade, and sell them among themselves, and the rarest pieces have sold in the past for hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The most expensive skin in Counterstrike history was publicly sold this morning, a new AK-47 Blue Gem 661 model from StatTrak Factory.

For over a million dollars pic.twitter.com/1FdxoNM2ov

– Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) June 5, 2024

As Kotaku reports, StatTrak Factory's new AK-47 Blue Gem 661 model has shattered all previous records, after being sold by X/Twitter user @roflm0nster for over $1 million. A preview of the weapon can be seen in the post above.

The exact amount of the sale is unknown, as the seller is “not free to disclose the buyer or the exact amount,” according to an article published on the platform. But @roflm0nster confirmed to IGN that it was a seven-digit number. “What I can say is that million-dollar offers have been repeatedly rejected,” they said. “Make your own conclusions.”

Such high bids are because the skin is truly unique, meaning there is only one in 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 is also in Factory New condition, which is the rarest form of such a skin. A nearly identical version of this weapon, just with less minimal wear, sold for $400,000 in 2022, as reported by PC Gamer. So experts estimated that the Factory New version would sell for up to $1 million, but it has now exceeded that figure.

CS:GO is a PC classic that remains as popular as ever despite the forced transition to Counter-Strike 2 in September 2023, more than two decades after the original was first released.

Image credit: Jake Lucky on X/Twitter

Ryan Dinsdale is a freelance journalist for IGN. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.