With the value of the game industry having eclipsed both the movie and music industries combined, there’s now some serious cash to be made for investors and developers shooting for a high score in their bank accounts. Making a game takesa ton of money, but the returns can be equally mind-boggling. That said, it isn’t just big-time stock market traders throwing big bucks at video games.
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True to life, many virtual worlds with in-game economies accrue ultra-rare objects with asking prices so high that even some of the wealthiest gamers willing to invest might have to remortgage their real-life homes to afford them. While most wealthy people would probably prefer to spend their money on a giant yacht or anoutrageously expensive football club, some can’t sleep at night without knowing that the most expensive object in an imaginary world is in their possession, at least until the game’s servers inevitably shut down.
11The Javelin (Star Citizen)
Possibly named to subliminally sway potential buyers to the idea that throwing things away (i.e., silly amounts of money) was fun, the Javelin was an item inStar Citizenavailable for only the wealthiest of players to purchase. A limited number of the ships were put out for purchasefor the low-low price of $2,500, even though the game hadn’t even been fully released yet.
Space denizens were sold on the dream offlying around spaceand blowing up other spaceships with their friends (who would presumably also be on the payroll). This kind of purchase seems risky, considering thatStar Citizenwasn’t released and could have turned out to be a total scam (or worse, just an average space shooter).
10Blue Party Hat (RuneScape)
Once given as a consolation prize to players during the festive season,RuneScape’s legendary Blue Party Hat now stands as a lesson to any would-be hoarders to hold on to absolutely everything, no matter how small. The hats only dropped once during a special 2001 Christmas season event and at no point after. They have since become scarce commodities.
And since humans have an irrational habit of viewing anything of rarity (even useless virtual paper hats) with extreme reverence, this silly cracker crown is now so expensive that its price exceeds the limit set by the in-game trading house. Players who wish to don thisfunctionally useless itemwill need to find a third-party dealer andfork over as much as $4,000.
9Zuezo & The Twin Blades Of Azzinoth (World Of Warcraft)
The tale of Zuezo and the Twin Blades is as tragic as it is legendary. As the story goes, aWorld of Warcraftplayer named Shak coveted the elusive weapon so much that they offered to purchase another player’s character, Zuezo, a level 70 rogue, for €7,000, oraround $9,500 USD.
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In a trade made outside the game, Shak paid the whopping amount of cash for Zuezo, as the weapon was character bound to him upon acquisition. However, such a transaction inWoWwent against Blizzard’s strict terms of service. Having angered the mods, Zuezo and the twin blades were struck down, banned, and deleted from the game.
8Burning Killer Exclusive (Team Fortress 2)
Stop the press! Valve originally designed this brown journalist’s fedora as a jokey tie-in item for readers of PC Gamer during theTeam Fortress 2launch and was later added as a rare drop. The flaming variant seemed to garner a lot of buzz from the community, as the asking price on MarketplaceTF went as high as 400 Buds,or $12,000.
Since style is everything (tips fedora), someone eventually paid the asking price and won the right to wear the hat that set their own hair on fire. The iconic press hat was scooped up by a player in 2014.
7Echoing Fury (Diablo 3)
Behold the most expensive item in theDiablo 3auction house: the one-handed mace, Echoing Fury,once sold for around $15,000, or 40 billion in-game gold. Due to a late-game patch, the mace’s damage output was multiplied thanks to a damage allocation bug (or a feature?), which allows the player to inflict a ridiculous amount of pain on enemies.
The price has come down considerably since — unfortunate for anyDiablo 3players with a spare Echoing Fury kicking about. It can be an expensive venture indeed to fully max-out your character in theDiabloseries. For example, inDiablo Immortal, it can reportedly cost over $600,000 to RNG the best gear in the game through lootboxes.
6Dragon-Slaying Saber (Age Of Wushu)
It’s one thing to be a big fan of a game and shell out big bucks on luxury items, but quite another to drop a wad of cash that could buy an actual real-life car (or approximately 21,120 Hershey bars) before a game even sees its full release.
DuringAge Of Wushubeta, one year before opening its servers to the public, the developers held an auction for rare, in-game weapons, including a one-of-a-kind meat-cleaver-looking slab called the Dragon-Slaying Saber which sold forthe equivalent of $16,000. Hopefully, its big-spending owner had five happy years of dragon slaying as the game shut down in 2017.
5Gold Magnate (Eve Online)
Buying a golden anything (pizza, toilet, underwear) seems pretty tacky by today’s standards. However, in this case, the purchase of a golden virtual spaceship inEVE Onlineactually did some good in the world. British YouTuber, gamer, and astrophysicist Scott Manly opted to buy a gold-plated ship of an already-ultra-rare variety, the Magnate, during a charity campaign created to raise money to mitigate Australian bushfires called Plex for Good.
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Manly paid a million PLEX for his fancy frigate,around $33,500in non-space bucks, earning him some publicity as a bonus. Then again, it would be pretty difficult to miss a gold-plated ship like that, even in the darkness of space,EVE Onlineor not.
4Ethereal Flames Pink War Dog (DOTA 2)
Dogs of an especially rare breed can indeed sell for a high amount, but this breed might be the rarest of them all. InDOTA 2, Players are assigned couriers right from the start of the game (of course, not all of them come in the form ofcute little puppers), who help out by grabbing items from the shops and slowly generating gold.
With a distinct pink coloration (unavailable on other models since one of the game’s early patches), a reputation as being the best kind of couriers in the game, and sporting a glorious mane of flames, thisDOTA 2courier pet set one player backan eye-watering $38,000.
3Amsterdam (Second Life)
The numbers get dizzying in this transaction, but the item itself is even weirder. The item in question is not a weapon or vehicle but rather a city: the Netherlands' capital, Amsterdam.The painstakingly recreated citywas built by aSecond Lifeplayer using actual photographs of the place, including moving trams, shops, and even the “seedier” aspects of the city.
The city was put on auction online and sold to a Netherlands-based media company. The company bought the simulated city fora respectable $50,000. That would pay for one heck of a vacation to the real-life Amsterdam.
2Souvenir AWP Dragon Lore (Counter-Strike: GO)
This one might be considered a wealth flex, but only if the owner isn’t shooting fast, far, or accurately enough. ThisCounter-Strike: Global Offensivesniper rifle can be found in one of the game’s loot boxes, but the meager drop rate makes the gambling approach very risky for players to drop money on.
OneCS: GOplayer (sort of) got around the tedious task of dropping a home-ownership-sized sum of cash on thevirtual slot machinesby simply paying $61,000 for the majestic cumin-colored re-skin. Whether it makes them a better player, rich, or helplessly indebted remains a mystery.
