Introducing the OG NFTs, or CS:GO Skins

Think NFT (It's 2022 so I'll assume you know what an NFT is. Hint: it's not a pixelated monkey portrait), but older, centralized, and more practical. What you're looking at is CS skins.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS) was released 10 years ago as the successor of the time-honored Counter-Strike - some may even argue that Counter-Strike 1.6 is the best competitive video game ever made - and immediately blew up. Legends from the 1.6 era, such as neo, Get_RiGhT, f0rest, and markeloff all jumped ship later.

It was a year after CS's release. With the Arms Deal update, Valve introduced custom skin finishes - as in 'Designers from Valve pick artworks from the community and rename or rework it however they want. They also introduced two seemingly inconspicuous features - skin patterns and float value (the amount of wear on skins). Little did they know, they just created some NFTs - and probably the longest-standing ones.

Each CS skin is different from the other, even if they're under the same name tag such as 'AK-47 | Case Hardened (Factory New)'. Each skin comes with 1 of 1,000 different patterns (some designers opted for only 1 pattern but there are still a considerable number of skins with 1,000), a randomly generated float value (14 figures after the decimal point), and randomly generated wear positions. It is technically possible to have two identical skins without exploiting anything but the chance is infinitesimal.

Valve thought people might hold onto their skins like a sheriff with his battle-tested revolver. They even named two skin conditions 'Field-Tested' and 'Battle-Scarred'. But much to their surprise, this was (and still is) how it worked: people buy good-looking, low-float (near pristine) skins and soon get tired of them. Then they resell their skins and buy new ones. It didn't work out the way their designers intended, but the way their financial crew liked. Every day, millions of transactions are made on their community marketplace and with their listing price capped at $400, other trading platforms soon emerged and flourished. All this happened before 2015.

Until now, CS skins bear an astonishing amount of similarities with NFTs: they're both non-fungible, both a bunch of pixels in a digital world, and both traded frequently. But there's more. What if I tell you CS skins are constantly sold at ridiculous prices and billionaires flock to them, driving their prices even higher?

It's true. There was this guy, who goes by the name 'HFB' and a white horse as his portrait. Rumor has it that he's a Dubai prince or something. He bought almost all the rare skins and hoarded them in his inventory. Tragically, just four months ago, his Steam account was hacked and he lost all his skins. He single-handedly drove up the prices of almost all the top-tier skins because he drained their supply. There were deezNuts23, Newb Rage, skyliner before him. And there will surely be others after him. They are part of the reason why the CS skins market has been booming over the past few years.

But you may ask, does any of those make CS skins better than NFTs on blockchains?

No. CS skins are better because:

they have more functions other than being used as portraits - you can wield them and shoot other people in their heads in CS!

their prices crash sometimes, but 50% at most. You retain at least half your inventory value even after a major crash. It's the more financially responsible choice (it is, trust me).

they're much more liquid than NFTs. Some of the skins were even used as currencies in trades simply because they are so easy to resell and their prices are so stable.

a super powerful sniper rifle with a dragon painted on it? Any normal man will love it!

Please, for the sake of competitive gaming, your childhood dream, and your wallet, try CS skins. You'll find them more aesthetically pleasing and better investments than pixelated apes (yeah, I know they're apes now).

Disclaimer: nothing in this article constitutes professional and/or financial advice. Always do your own research before doing anything. Play CS every now and then. It's good for your health.