Counter-Strike 2 players are known for spending extravagant amounts of money to create a stacked inventory, and it turns out that one CS2 developer is just as obsessed with in-game skins as regular players.
CS2 skins come with a hefty price tag, making them more of an investment rather than just a commodity. As a result, CS2 traders treat their skins as valuable assets, and it seems that the developers share this sentiment as well. On June 25, CS2 content creator ArrowCS stumbled upon a Valve employee’s profile on Steam stacked with clean and rare skins.
The developer with a Steam profile titled Vitaliy has an inventory worth over $23,000. His profile can be verified by the shiny red “Valve employee” badge that he’s owned since 2013. But that’s not the most impressive part; he’s also the owner of a rare AWP | Dragon Lore with a 0.02 float, which would sell at roughly $11,000 if he ever puts it up on the marketplace.
Vitaliy is not just a skin collector, but he’s actually a dedicated CS2 player. Upon some digging, the account appears to belong to Vitaliy Genkin, a principal software architect at Valve who’s been working on the Counter-Strike franchise for almost two decades.
He’s also the developer who designed the rank-based matchmaking and in-game social and party features in CS. According to CS2 data miner Thour, Vitaliy is consistently playing Premier, as seen on his Steam profile, which indicates that he has logged 5,300 hours in CS2. So, it’s not too surprising he’s also caught the skin fever that is almost inevitable for long-time CS2 players.
Vitaliy has built up an impressive inventory of 79 high-end CS2 skins, featuring not only the coveted Dragon Lore but also other valuable items such as an M4A1-S | Imminent Danger, M4A4 | Howl, AK-47 | Case Hardened, and more. Collectively, his inventory comes close to almost $25,000, including cheap skins that he often trades with fellow Valve coworkers. Some find that practice suspicious for a game developer who may have more helpful information about high-value items than a regular player.
Some fans admire his spending, and others see it as a positive indication of developers investing in CS2 skins. This indicates that the market is stable, as Valve employees trust it enough to invest their hard-earned money.
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