10 Most expensive in-game items ever
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00:00are the 10 most expensive in-game items ever.
00:03Number 10, Javelin, Star Citizen, $2,500.
00:07Star Citizen's Javelins are one of the best examples
00:10of gamers trusting in the long-term investment model.
00:13While it certainly wasn't the first title
00:15to have in-game items double up as currency,
00:18the amount developers Cloud Imperium Games
00:20have been able to raise for a game
00:21still in development is staggering.
00:24The items that have made the biggest splash
00:25over the course of the game's lifetime
00:27have been Javelin destroyer spaceships.
00:30According to Cloud Imperium,
00:31these 1,132-foot-long Javelin destroyers
00:35come with four primary thrusters,
00:37private rooms for the captain and officer,
00:40a hefty hangar bay capable of housing a gunship,
00:4312 maneuvering thrusters, a heavily armored bridge,
00:47and a lifetime insurance warranty.
00:48Players were also told that these ships were battle-hardened,
00:52meaning they'd also have to fork out
00:54for the missing 20 gun turrets and two torpedo launches.
00:57The end total needed to get one of these ships
00:59in working order?
01:00$2,500 real-world US dollars.
01:04Not that that stopped the game's investors, however.
01:07Within a minute of the auction going live,
01:09all 200 Javelins had been sold,
01:11raising over half a million dollars for Cloud Imperium Games.
01:15All of this in a game that still hasn't been released,
01:18even after a decade in development.
01:20Number nine, Blue Party Hat, RuneScape, $4,000.
01:25Going from a juggernaut spaceship
01:26capable of conquering entire galaxies
01:28to something far more humble,
01:30RuneScape's famous Blue Party Hat
01:32once set a player back over $6,500.
01:36In 2001, developers Jagex decided
01:39to hold a special Christmas celebration in RuneScape,
01:42spreading the season of goodwill
01:43by dropping Christmas crackers to players,
01:45which, when pulled,
01:46would result in the winners getting items
01:48and the losers getting a consolation party hat.
01:52Despite all being a bit of fun
01:53that wasn't really worth more than a few pennies initially,
01:56ultimately, these party hats were discontinued
01:59and not obtainable after the celebration.
02:01The value of these hats subsequently began to soar,
02:05far eclipsing the maximum value allowed
02:07at the in-game Grand Exchange Marketplace.
02:09Price estimates for the items
02:11still value the Blue Party Hat
02:13at over two billion RuneScape gold,
02:16with recorded sales roughly equating
02:18to over $4,000.
02:19And with no other hats being introduced since,
02:22it seems these incredibly rare items
02:24will only continue to rise in value over the coming years.
02:27Again, though, it's just a paper party hat.
02:30Number eight, Zuzo, World of Warcraft, $9,500.
02:35World of Warcraft is the world's most popular MMORPG,
02:38home to some of the most dedicated gamers
02:41that the industry has ever seen.
02:42Back in 2007, one of these players
02:44took dedication to the game
02:46to a staggering new height
02:47in a transaction that would see Blizzard
02:49clamp down on their character.
02:51Zuzo was a level 70 night elf rogue in WoW
02:54who managed to sell his character
02:56to a player called Shaxx for roughly 7,000 euro,
03:00about $9,500 at the time.
03:02The justification for this life-changing amount of money
03:05was that this rogue came with
03:06the legendary Twin Blades of Azinoth,
03:09which could only be looted off Illidan Stormrage's corpse
03:12in the Black Temple.
03:13Zuzo then continued to play the game
03:15for years after the sale with a different rogue build.
03:18As for Shaxx, the character quickly disappeared
03:20from the game, with most assuming
03:22they'd probably been banned.
03:24Blizzard have always been firm on their policy
03:25of selling accounts being a big no-no,
03:28so it's safe to say this might not have been
03:30the smartest of investments from this not-so-slick buyer.
03:33Number seven, Burning Killer Exclusive, Team Fortress 2,
03:37$12,000.
03:38The Killer Exclusive is an in-game cosmetic item
03:41for Team Fortress 2 made by its community.
03:44Named after the term for a juicy breaking news story,
03:47this item is a light beige fedora
03:49that can be worn by all classes
03:51with a card saying Press sticking out the front.
03:54The item was initially just a promotional tie-in
03:57launched with PC Gamer,
03:58but soon found its way into the game as a cosmetic,
04:01with the flaming variant quickly becoming
04:03one of the rarest pieces of equipment on the market.
04:06The Burning Killer Exclusive stock
04:07continued to climb over the following years,
04:10eventually being sold via TF2's marketplace
04:12for 400 bucks in 2014,
04:15as some which, when converted, works out to around $12,000.
04:20The trade was made between a player known as Shadow
04:23and the buyer Gora,
04:24and became endemic of the impact community marketplaces
04:27can have on virtual items.
04:29It remains the highest value trade ever
04:31in the Team Fortress 2 community,
04:32and as a result has become pretty famous, or infamous.
04:36Number six, Echoing Fury Mace, Diablo III, $15,000.
04:42With the highest damage of any one-handed weapon,
04:44the Echoing Fury Mace's discovery in Diablo III
04:47was a watershed moment in the game's history.
04:50Requiring a character level of 60 to drop,
04:52this infamous mace gained a reputation
04:54for exploiting a damage allocation bug,
04:57so naturally it was pretty sought after.
04:59With 1,166.2 to 1,433.8 damage per second,
05:06and 1.25 to 1.26 attacks per second,
05:10the Echoing Fury Mace is the ultimate DPS dealing machine.
05:14Following the 2.6.6 patch,
05:16the weapon gained a unique stacking element
05:19that increases attack speed and movement
05:21by 75%, 25% in total for every enemy killed,
05:26just in case it wasn't powerful enough.
05:28The original owner of the weapon
05:29famously sold the Echoing Fury Mace for a few thousand dollars
05:33to allegedly help pay their rent,
05:35but that didn't stop its stock
05:36from soaring in the years since.
05:38A bid of 40 billion in-game gold
05:40was later offered up for the weapon,
05:42which, when you work out the conversion, is about $15,000.
05:46Number five, Dragon Slaying Saber, Age of Wulin, $16,000.
05:51Snail's Age of Wulin slash Wushu
05:53launched in China in August of 2012,
05:56but shot to the gaming world's attention
05:58with an auction in China on Christmas Day of 2011.
06:01The auction was held to various digital in-game items
06:04that players would be able to use when the game launched.
06:07Various items were listed and commanded decent prices,
06:10with the likes of the Hook of Departure,
06:12of which there's only 10 in the game,
06:13and a Lordly Spearsheath, of which there's only five,
06:16selling for 10,000 yuan, which is about 1,600 US dollars,
06:20and 18,300 yuan, which is about 2,500 US dollars,
06:25respectively.
06:26However, the biggest lot of the auction
06:28was a scabbard called the Dragon Slaying Saber,
06:30which ended up going for 100,000 yuan,
06:33which is about 16,000 US dollars.
06:36With the game still in beta at this point,
06:38it was an astonishing moment,
06:40but the promise of it being a one-of-a-kind item
06:42that would only have one owner in its lifespan
06:45managed to coax someone into burning
06:47a very big hole in their wallet.
06:48Number four, Gold Magnate, EVE Online, $33,000.
06:53In January of 2020, YouTuber Scott Manley
06:56broke internet headlines everywhere
06:58when he lobbed a whopping $33,000
07:01on a Gold Magnate in EVE Online,
07:04making it the most expensive ship sold in the game.
07:06One of the rarest ships, these powerful frigates
07:09have only ever popped up sporadically
07:11over the course of EVE's history,
07:13and have only been obtainable via in-game tournament rewards.
07:16The historic purchase actually came
07:18during CCP Games' Plex for Good campaign,
07:21which was an initiative run to help raise money
07:23for the Australian bushfire effort.
07:25The YouTuber purchased this Gold Magnate
07:27from user KeylonDarklight's auction
07:29with a bid of 1,001,001 Plex.
07:33For reference, Plex is an in-game currency in EVE,
07:35with 1,000,000 Plex worth approximately
07:38$32,500 in real-world money.
07:40That 1,000,000 Plex is worth about 3.3 trillion ISK,
07:45the game's primary currency that most players deal in.
07:48Given the fact players start off
07:49with a ship worth around 5,000,000 ISK, about five cents,
07:54that makes this sale worth about 170 years of time in-game.
07:58This $33,000 purchase certainly made a splash,
08:01but at least in the case of this particular transaction,
08:04it did some good outside the game too.
08:06Number three, Ethereal Flame's Pink War Dog, Dota 2, $38,000.
08:12In Valve's Dota 2, couriers are used
08:14to transport items to and from a base
08:16to players dotted across the map.
08:18Every player gets one.
08:19They're invulnerable when they're in their home fountain,
08:21and they basically get player
08:23for the gold passively throughout the match.
08:25It's safe to say couriers aren't
08:26the most jaw-dropping part of this MOBA.
08:28However, that all changed in November of 2013
08:31when it was revealed a player had forked out
08:33a whopping $38,000 for one of these trusty steeds.
08:37According to a player named Pada,
08:40they sold their Ethereal Flame's Pink War Dog
08:43to another user for that five-figure sum.
08:45The War Dogs are already amongst
08:47the most powerful couriers in the game,
08:48and the Ethereal Flame effect is a striking visual.
08:52But where the value in the item really comes from
08:54is in its rarity.
08:55Allegedly, only four creatures of this kind
08:57existed in the game at the time,
08:59mainly due to Valve not having pink
09:01set as one of its primary 10 colors
09:03on account of glitches that could occur with black skins.
09:06In turn, this made the rarity of the item skyrocket,
09:09and one user was there to capitalize.
09:11Number two, Souvenir AWP Dragon Lore, CSGO, $61,000.
09:18Valve's Counter-Strike Global Offensive
09:20has a whole array of weapon and item skins
09:22available from the Steam Marketplace.
09:24These in no way enhance someone's abilities in the game,
09:27but some of the designs have commanded
09:29a hefty price tag over the years.
09:31The most legendary is the Dragon Lore AWP,
09:33which was added to the game in 2014
09:35as part of the Boston 2018 Cobblestone Souvenir Package
09:39during Operation Breakout.
09:41There are 10 different cases that include the Dragon Lore
09:43that players can grab,
09:44but it does have one of the rarest drop rates
09:47in the game of just 0.64%.
09:49The striking design coupled with this rarity
09:52has contributed to Dragon Lore's price fluctuating
09:54from $2,700 to $8,600,
09:59depending on its attached quality stat.
10:01For one particular player, though, that wasn't sufficient.
10:04Following the release of the Souvenir Package
10:06in the wake of the Boston Major,
10:07one player forked over a hefty $61,000
10:11for the Souvenir version of this legendary sniper rifle.
10:14Number one, Planet Calypso, Entropia Universe, $6,000,000.
10:20From its launch, MindArk emphasized
10:22that Entropia Universe would prioritise capitalism
10:25over gameplay.
10:26The game's open marketplace allows players
10:28to redeem the in-game project Entropia dollar
10:31for US dollars at a fixed 10 to 1 exchange rate,
10:35which has led to some hefty investments
10:37into various in-game items.
10:38The game has seen in-game items such as a nest egg,
10:41holiday resort and sections of a space station
10:44all auctioned off for tens of thousands of dollars.
10:47However, the biggest investment of all
10:49was reserved for its very first piece
10:51of major content added, Planet Calypso.
10:54Having attracted over 950,000 registered accounts
10:57from over 200 countries,
11:00Planet Calypso acted as the centerpiece
11:02to Entropia's universe,
11:03which prompted a mind-boggling $6,000,000 purchase
11:07from fellow developers C Virtual Worlds in 2011.
11:11The studio had planned to turn Calypso
11:13into a wacky tribute to Michael Jackson,
11:16where players could make donations to his various charities
11:19whilst remembering the King of Pop,
11:21but instead channeled that energy
11:22into the thankfully cancelled game, Planet Michael.
11:25Regardless, with $428,000,000 sunk into the game
11:29over its lifespan,
11:31you can see where the developers' lofty valuation came from.
11:34That's the end of our list,
11:35but do let me know down in that comment section
11:37if you can think of any other entries
11:39for the most expensive in-game items ever.
11:42As always, I've been Jess from Mock Culture.
11:44Thank you so much for hanging out with me.
11:46If you like, you can come say hi to me
11:47on my Twitter account, where I'm at JessMcDonald,
11:50but make sure you stay tuned to us here
11:51for plenty more great gaming lists.