Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a legendary video game not only for its quality and being a tremendous tactical FPS but also for the multimillion-dollar scene created around it with the theme of skins, their rarity, and their value in a third-party formed market. However, this also benefits Valve significantly, so much so that it raked in a fortune last year, according to a report.

Related Video: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - Gameplay

Valve earned almost $1 billion USD from CS:GO key sales

According to information from Insider-Gaming, the site CSGOCaseTracker.com presented its annual report revealing the commercial activity related to CS:GO crates and how much was spent on keys to open them. According to the presented data, in 2023, 400,318,821 CS:GO crates were opened, using 359.6 million keys, a virtual item for which tactical FPS users or those interested in trading pay to open the crates.

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CS:GO skins can be worth millions of dollars

It is revealed that direct sales of keys from Valve for CS:GO generated $980 million USD last year. Of that total, 49.79% was allocated to opening crates that are in active availability, 38.54% in those considered rare crates, while the rest was distributed among those that can be purchased and those that are already discontinued.

Interest in buying keys to open CS:GO crates comes from various communities. A recent example is the appearance of a skin considered very rare after 10 years, with a value that could reach up to $1 million USD. There is also the case of a novice player who obtained a rare knife valued at $150,000.

However, this type of market and its lack of regulation have caught the attention of organized crime, and various reports indicate money laundering activities taking advantage of the CS:GO trading scene to better evade authorities.

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Source 1, Source 2