Weapon Skins in CS:GO

No Skin? No Problem!

Weapon skins in the game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) are nothing more than a form of aesthetic pleasure in-game. CS is a game focused on bringing out individual skill more than unlocks and skill trees. Therefore, guns that starting players can use are the exact same as guns that pros have access to. So, if you do not possess any weapon skins in the game, you are not less likely to get a kill on someone who has a skin. I just wanted to clear that up before I go deeper into the world of weapon skins.

You can acquire skins in CS:GO through random skin drops at the end of matches, earning cases that you can buy keys for and unlock giving you a list of weapons and probabilities for those weapons to be selected (kind of like a slot machine mini-game), trade your skins for someone else's, or just straight up buying skins off of other players for amounts of money dictated by the seller. Skins create an economy surrounding the game, as players will try to trade, buy, and open their way up to a certain expensive skin. Another thing players use skins for is betting them on professional matches through CS:GO Lounge, you can place skins on the team you think is going to win, and if they do win, you can win skins for yourself.

Skins are assigned different amounts of monetary value according to how valuable the player-base thinks the skin is. More intricate skins will be more valuable, whereas less complex ones will be less valuable. Skins can range anywhere from $0.01 to even $2,000.

Another aspect to weapon skins includes knives. There are 7 different knife types including the: Default knives, Gut Knife, Flip Knife, M9 Bayonet, Karambit, Huntsman Knife, and the Butterfly Knife. All of these knives have different skins and are usually very expensive ($100+).

In my opinion, skins shouldn't be in the game, but since they are, everyone gets sucked into them. In some cases it does create some interesting dynamics, but also make scamming and betting a reality in the community.

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