What Is Valve Thinking? CS2 Genesis Collection Skin Costs $1500 USD

Last night, September 16, with the latest update Valve released the Genesis Collection and, with it, debuted a new way to get skins in Counter-Strike 2: the Arms Dealer Uplink Terminal. The kicker here is the price of the skins offered, with ST Coverts (Reds) costing $1500.

Counter-Strike 2 Update: Genesis Collection, Arms Dealer Terminal, Improved Subtick Shooting (Credit: Valve)

$1500 for a Red?

To the uninitiated, the Genesis Uplink Terminal essentially provides you with five skin choices as offers from the Arms Dealers. If you choose to accept the offer, you pay the suggested price and receive the skin.

While the terminal itself and unsealing it does not incur a cost, you have to pay a flat fee from your Steam balance to receive the skins. The offered price for a skin depends on its rarity and wear rating (float). The collection also features StatTrak versions, which are priced higher than the standard.

This feature was initially leaked as a volatile case, giving the community hope for affordable and playable skins. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, as the prices of the Covert (Red) and Classified (Pink) are extremely high.

This is especially the case with the StatTrak versions, with a Factory New StatTrak Covert costing upwards of $1500. The non-ST FN version costs $300, which is still exceptionally high for a single skin. These price tags are comparable to some gold-tier skins available on the community market.

There is a significant price drop from Factory New to Minimal Wear, but these still cost $500 and $60 for ST and Non-ST respectively—still higher than the industry standard.

Is the Outrage Justified?

Counter-Strike skins have historically boasted big price tags, with some skins costing up to a million dollars. So, the community should not be outraged about the $1500 or $300 price tags in isolation.

However, community market prices are usually a reflection of the price of the case, the demand, and the availability. This makes it so that rarer/older skins are expensive, but newer, currently in-rotation skins are much cheaper and more accessible.

Moreover, market price is largely controlled by the community’s perception of the skin. A Covert can still be affordable—for example, the Fracture Collection’s Legion of Anubis costs only $80 for the Factory New version. This is largely why the $1500/$300 stings and has erupted the way it did.

Valve, being Valve, did not elaborate on the process of deciding the prices, nor the reasoning behind the decision. And with ongoing struggles with anti-cheat and lack of content (outside of skins), the community is especially disappointed with the devs. This update feels like another money grab attempt from Valve, which only adds to the fire.

It’ll be interesting to see how Valve responds—not in a statement, but by adjusting the price of future collections. It’d be a surprise if they change the price for the current collection.

Update: With the September 17th update, Devs clarified the pricing for the Genesis Collection Skins. These prices are dependent on community demand. Multiple rejection of offers for a specific skin will lead to decrease in the price. 

For now, the Arms Dealer Genesis Uplink Terminal is a disappointment for the community.

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Featured Image Credit: Coco // Valve