Counterstrike Global Offensive is one of the biggest Titles when it comes to virtual Item markets. But what are Skins? Why are some of the so expensive? How does all this work. I will try to give you a brief overview.
What are Skins?
Skins are basicly custom paintjobs on the weapons in the game, whether it’s a firearm, a knife or a glove. Skins do literally nothing - Except making the items look fabulous, that's it.
A skin in CSGO is a purely cosmetic item, meaning that it only affects the look of a weapon, not its firepower or charactaristics.
There is a ton of different skins in CSGO. Some are worth a few cents, some are worth 1000s of Dollars. But lets start somewhere.
The characteristics of skins
Every Skin has different attributes that affect the value of a skin:
Quality Grades
Skins are available in a number of quality grades, which signify a skin’s rarity and that affects its value.
(From low to high)
- Consumer Grade (Common)
- Industrial Grade (Uncommon)
- Mil-Spec Grade (Rare)
- Restricted (Mythical)
- Classified (Legendary)
- Covert (Ancient)
- Gold (Exceedingly Rare)
The Wear aka Float
Every skin has a wear or a float. It is the value of how "used" the skin looks. Basically it is from 0 to 1. (or from 100% coverage of the "paint" to 0% Coverage) 0 is brand new, no scratches, everything is shiny and new to 1 and that's totally fucked up. The wear has 5 different categories:
- Factory New 0.00 - 0.69
- Minimal Wear 0.07 - 0.14
- Field-Tested 0.15 - 0.36
- Well-Worn 0.37 - 0.43
- Battle-Scarred 0.44 - 1
Not every Skin starts at 0 and ends at 1 - some have floats like 0.07 to 0.46, so this skin doesn't exist in Factory New then. Some other Skins are not affected by their wear. They look the same in FN and in BS, like the "Black Laminate" Skins.
The Wear of a Skin doesn't change, it is fixed, no matter how often you use it in game.
the 3 Kinds of Skins
Finally every weapon could be marked as
- Normal
- StatTrak
- Souvenir
A Normal Skin, as the name says, is the weapon with the custom finish. A StatTrak Skin has a small 5-digit counter on the side of the weapon to count the kills that are made with it. And Souvenir Skins are dropped at Major Games and big tournaments, they have stickers from the event, the team and the MVP of the round they dropped on it.
Patterns
Because Float, Rarity and Design of a skin is not enough, there are also Pattern based skin designs. A pattern based design has 1000 different variations of the look of the skin. Best example: CASE HARDENED SKINS.
There are different Weapons that are available as CASE HARDENED, lets use the AK-47 CASE HARDENED as example.
This is the Design File of the Case Hardened Skins:
The AK patterns are made in a "cookie cutter" type fashion from this Design File. The cookie cutter design allows for duplicates, which means that any of these patterns can come in different quality (ex. field tested) StatTrak and non StatTrak.
Some, Patterns are worth more money than others. In this case, there is one rule: the more blue, the more money.
An example: the most expensive pattern at the AK-47 Case Hardened is the Pattern Number 661:
This AK-47 in Factory New was sold for $20,000.
Here is a Full Guide for Case Hardened Skins.
Phases
Some Knife Skins have Phases too. The "Doppler" and "Gamma Doppler" Skins. There are:
Doppler:
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
Ruby
Black Pearl
Gamma Doppler:
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
Emerald
Saphire
The Prices are totally different for every phase. A Karambit Doppler Phase 1 is like $200 and a Karambit Doppler Black Pearl is like $1800.
Here is a full Guide for Doppler.
Stickers
There is also the possibility to put stickers on you Gun. And stickers can be expensive too. There are some stickers out there, that are just for fun. 90% of the stickers are from a huge tournament and from pro players (at the tournaments).
The most expensive stickers are from the CSGO Major in KATOWICE 2014:
Left: a TITAN HOLO (around $4,000)
Right: a iBuyPower HOLO (around $6,000)
If a stickers is applied to a Skin, it can not be removed (it can, but then the sticker is destroyed). Guns with rare stickers like IBP Holos from Katowice 2014 are really expensive, like this AK-47 Red Line:
Without the Stickers this StatTrak AK-47 Red Line Minimal Ware is worth around $110
With these 4 IBP Holo Katowice 2014 Stickers it is worth $12,500
TLTR: Its complicated, some stuff is expensive.
I am pretty sure I forgot stuff and I am aware that there is some more to talk about, but I think for the first impression, this is enough. Oh, and I think this post will give you a good first overview about the world of skins. If you have any questions, just ask me.
If you need help with an item, hit me up.
ATTENTION: There are a lot of scammers out there, always be carefull when trading skins!