Rare Dragon Lore AWP CS:GO Skin Sells for Ridiculous Amount of Money

Weapon skins in CS:GO are arguably the most popular and valuable in game items of the video game world. The rarity of some of these skins has led to a whole business of selling, buying, and gambling with these skins in order to make a profit, complete a collection, or just to have the coolest looking weapon out of all your friends. With the rise of professional CS:GO and the introduction of rare stickers of players' signatures and team logos, that can be attached to skins, has caused the rarity and value of some specialized weapon skins to skyrocket into thousands of dollars. This was the case in the recent purchase of a special Dragon Lore AWP. 

Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham cemented his place as one of the best players in CS:GO with his impressive performance at the ELEAGUE Major: Boston that led to his team, Cloud9, to becoming the first North American team to win a CS:GO Major. Skadoodle is now the talk of the CS:GO world and any in game item related to him has become much rarer. This is one of the main reasons behind why a Dragon Lore AWP skin bearing his signature was recently sold for over $61,000 on the CS:GO weapon skin website OPSkins.  

Cloud9's star AWP player's signature is not the only reason why this skin was able to be sold for the price of a year's salary. This particular Dragon Lore was a souvenir skin, which can only be attained though souvenir packages that are only dropped during Valve sponsored CS:GO tournaments. In addition to the souvenir status of the skin, the Dragon Lore skin itself is the rarest skin that can be obtained in the cobblestone packages. These packages sell for around $30 on the Steam marketplace. It is also a factory new skin with the stickers being unscratched, resulting in a skin that is in perfect condition.   

This kind of transaction for a CS:GO skin is why the weapon skin business is often in the public eye, as the kind of money that can be attained in these kinds of transaction can cause some controversy.  

This was the case back in early 2017 when two popular Youtubers, Trevor “TmarTn” Martin and Thomas “Syndicate” Cassell. Both YouTubers promoted the CS:GO skin gambling site, CS:GO Lotto, on their channels, but never disclosed that they were part of the ownership of the site. This led to suspicion of their videos, as both YouTubers would often win very rare skins worth large amounts of money. With a large portion of their audiences being under the age of 18, many people accused the two YouTubers of promoting a gambling website they owned to viewers who could not legally gamble by showing rigged results of winning rare skins in their videos. Both YouTubers reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that requires both of them to disclose all business ties they have with anything they promote on their channels from now on.  

The world of CS:GO skins is not all negative, as the system allows for fans of the game and the professional scene to directly support both through the purchase of these digital items. This allows for fans to directly show off their support for their favorite players or teams in game. CS:GO skins have also paved the way for the success of e-commerce in the world of video and especially esports. In the same way a fan of the New England Patriots can buy a football that is signed by Tom Brady for their collection, a SK Gaming fan can buy a AWP skin signed by Marcelo "coldzera" David.  

CS:GO skins have had their ups and downs throughout the years, but if someone has the financial ability to purchase and sell these skins through legitimate means, who are we to stop them from doing something they enjoy. This was the reasoning "Drone", the player who sold the Skadoodle signed Dragon Lore for over $61,000, gave in a statement to Polygon when asked about the criticisms of the major transaction. 

"I didn’t originally get into this game solely for profit," Drone said. "I just got very lucky a couple of times, and money is more valuable to different people. I’m very lucky in my financial state to where I can afford to buy these skins and it does not affect me." 

These weapon skins are not going anywhere and with the popularity of professional CS:GO players at an all-time, it will not be a shock to see another skin like the Skadoodle Dragon Lore making its way into the news. If that's the case, a system like Epics.gg digital trading cards for professional CS:GO is going to become an extremely popular with the passionate fanbase.