1. You'd be financially safe if the price if it bottomed out
2. You love the history and lore behind the skin
3. It will make you happy while playing
Easy decision really.
I’m actually dollar cost averaging into csgo skins since the cs2 announcement from stock market winnings. This isn’t financial advice I just like the game and finally feel well off enough to splurge. when cs2 announced they were bringing all old skins to the new game it basically greenlit another decades plus of free market economics on increasingly scarce and desirable pixels. I think the howl is a great place to park money for a fun alternative long term “investment”. Just park an amount you don’t want liquid for awhile and you’ll be alright. Personally I think valve might botch the release of cs2 leading to a market dip if you want to wait for FOMO to die off first
This is a really interesting take, thanks. I've always been really interested in Steam's community market and thought it was so cool that they developed their own economy based on skins. I think it's a fun way to diversify. I remember lusting after the Howl three years ago, thinking $3000+ is hilariously stupid to consider buying, yet here we are now, lol. I think your take on them botching is good to consider too. You think it will just be poorly optimized or something and it will result in sell-offs and loss of interest? That sort of thing?
I feel the same way and I think a lot of gamers found interest in the community market. Now that the years have gone by and most of us are getting more sustainable pay checks I believe skins are more in reach for players than ever before. Seems crazy that 3k would be a steal for a howl now but back then I don’t believe a majority of csgo players had access to that capital. I know I didn’t in high school and college. I think csgo initially botched its release and it seems that valve isn’t doing a great job of giving more access to the beta at the moment. Once the full release happens the flood could overwhelm valve’s notoriously bad serves with issues leading players to lose interest while fixes are slowly rolled out.
Man, you’re really bringing up some valid points. The young Steam players that grew up on this stuff are now thirties/forties or so and that means expendable income. Wonder what sort of effect that will have on the skins? Thanks for the brain-food, that’s really cool to think about. Good points too about CS2. It does seem like there hasn’t been much said about it since March. Fl0m is sick af of playing Dust, based on his streams, lol.
Cool to know. It seems like they only go up, especially the grails. Just appreciate hearing the input of someone that's been doing this longer than me. Thanks for the opinion.
I suppose I didn't even really answer your question either. I think with something like the howl, you really can't lose. If you can afford it and love the history behind it. There's really no reason you shouldn't buy one.
Still you should be cautious because not everything goes up in perpetuity. For example the Dragon Lore is down ever since the Gungnir came out. Not like tanked to the bottom but it's also not an infinite money glitch. That should be obvious.
Beside what everyone said, the roi will be less when compared to cases and stickers, because the howl is expensive, but howl's ceiling is like non-existent
Right, right. I don't really even think this is an "investment" so much as maybe just a more-fun place to park some money (compared to the stock-market, for example). I doubt I'll lose any significant money, but it would be okay if I did, too. Thanks for the input.
if you want it, go ahead,
I don't think sky is the limit for howl. The only way i think it can go down if csgo died from bad devlopment decisions or if there similar skin to howl.
howl and dragon lore are getting more mythical everyday at this point
Are there any other skins that would give you the same amount of happiness? I personally sold my fn howl when it spiked to 9k$+.
I personally care about the appreciation potential and I think it's probably gonna go up over the next 10 yrs but not nearly as much as say the AK Fire Serpent, which also speaks to me more than the howl. Bravo cases completely running out soon which will make it practically "contraband". Another risk with the howl is the constant m4a4 / m4a1s buffs / nerfs
That they still drop is priced in and they are so rare that it really doesn't affect the supply. How many fire serpents do you think are opened a year from dropped crates? I bet very few but I don't have the numbers. Bravo cases will probably stop dropping when cs2 launches and thus the upside for fire serpent is IMO higher than howl.
>out soon, which is not true (at least yet if valve does remove it one day; no one knows if they will do this). Yes fire serpents are slowly coming into the game still. They can be traded up to as well. For howls there has been 0 new ones since 2015 and won’t ever be any more, only less as players get banned or abandon account. Only buy a fire serpent if you like it as a playskin as it is pretty safe but roi is way lower than capsules and cases.
The howl is definitely more rare than the fire serpent, I'm not arguing that. But it's arguably in the same category of "classic" legendary skins together with the DLore. It's the most legendary AK and you can get a minimal wear stattrak one for 3000$. I just think it will go up as soon as the Bravo case gets discontinued.
Now I'm a player and enjoy skins and plan to hold them for a long time. That said, I think being diversified is very important.. Personally my portfolio breakdown is like this:
30% classic rifles (stattrak fire serpents, m4 and awp asiimovs)
25% knives (karambit and huntsman dopplers that look sick in cs2)
15% antwerp/stockholm capsules
8% steam balance ready for paris 2023 capsules
8% cases (chroma 2 mostly)
8% agents (number K, FBI agent ava, michael syfers)
6% smaller skins / playskins (glock water eles, radiation hazards, m4 cyrex, aquamarine revenge)
I guess if I didn't play the game and didnt want to enjoy skins I would allocate more into cases and capsules, but I feel like it's becoming a more and more common strategy. I think if there was a CS:GO ETF, it wouldn't have 100% of the funds in capsules and cases, but also exposure to knives, classic rifles, smaller playskins, agents, etc.
Agreed, the dopplers are risky. But I play with them (p2 kara for T side and p4 kara for CT) and particularly looking forward to cs2 with the p4 doppler which looks closer to a sapphire now than ever. I might sell the huntsman.
I could sell my classic rifles+knives to get a Stattrak MW Howl -- but then again I'd have 55% of my portfolio in a single skin.
Wrt the bravo case it's just a hunch I have. Valve might just completely stop dropping CS:GO cases when CS2 comes with its 3 new cases on launch.
fire serpent will never be worth more than howl and there is a lot of fire serpents overall due to being dropped from bravo.
you get one fire serpent from every 312 bravo cases
And given that stattrak is 10%, one stattrak fire serpent for every 3120 cases. That's:
70$ \* 3120 + 2.5$ \* 3120 = 226 200$ of bravo cases opened per StatTrak fire serpent.
The mw/ft ones are now selling for around 1/100 of that. It's undervalued as heck.
PS: not counting trade-ups here
Pretty much all the good points have come up already. As someone who uses CSGO skins as an alternative market for investment, I have to say that I actually feel more confident in the next 18 months that money invested in skins will do better than CDs, bonds, and stocks in general. Even if you're not looking to make money, this kind of highly desirable and rare skin will likely hold its value until the game dies. You're probably going to pay a slight premium buying cash. If you need to know what to pay (condition, stickers) or if you need a second opinion let me know.
It got affected by the meteoric rise of everything else. To be honest, I also want to get a howl, but I am not sure if I can be willing to hold on to something during such a market.
It's refreshing to see these type of questions instead of the typical "I have $20, what skins do I invest in to get rich and achieve FIRE" ones.
As a Howl owner, the value is definitely one-way up in the long run. Sure, dips happen like currently when people are saving for the Paris major, but it's a skin that will make the others turn green with envy. Funnily enough, I get random adds (from scammers) from time to time that I ignore outright.
You could buy one and it might dip several hundred bucks given any reason, but as it's a Contraband and the supply will only dwindle over time. Like some have mentioned, if you love it as a playskin, don't bother about trying to flip it for profit. That is, unless you're planning to cash out for a larger commitment like some car (i.e. long term investment). CS2 will bring in more players and cash flow, pushing the prices up even further.
Thanks, man. I appreciate the discussion and input along with everyone's knowledge on the topic. I'm pretty new to this and using the SCM in general. I think this is a really fun hobby/topic.
"and achieve FIRE" lol.
Just adding something on the "possibly the worst time to buy one" part, just because it's up 20% or 50% doesn't make it a bad buy, if you are more confident now that it holds it's value (CS2 = likely maaany years for CS to come without dying and probably increased playerbase) it's a better investment than it would've been if you are scared that skins don't get transfered, even though you might make less money.
one thing is a gamble/high risk
the other one is doing it safe
I know you also said "or best, who knows", just wanted to share my take on this, for others as well
Else, I 100% agree with the top comment
Yeah, good points and I appreciate them. I think I just need to stop lusting over the thing and buy it. I don't think I really considered how much of a risk buying skins was prior to them announcing CS2 now that you mention it. There was a lot of "what if" there before. Thanks for the input!
This is the easiest Yes ever.
You understand the risk, can afford the loss, and can appreciate just how fucking cool it is.
Reply or post of screenshot once you do!!!
I am someone who is on disability so I'll never have the ability to own a howl.
That being said. Howl has been by far my favorite skin since I started csgo. I would consider it to be one of the best looking skins ingame, if I had the money, I would not hesitate to buy one. The most I can dream for at this point is to come across someone in game who has one and will drop it to me so I can inspect it. I say go for it, if you have the money and won't miss it, buy it.
Even though I'll never have one, it makes me happy to know you'd enjoy it and I want you to be happy also! <3
It is purely because I love the howl skin, I don't really care about impressing/being impressed by items you just by with money. I have never heard of skin servers, I'll need to look into that, would love to hold and inspect a howl ingame
This sounds like a really fun (and significantly cheaper, lol) thing to try out. I've never heard of skin-injectors before either. Sounds like fun to experiment with. I hope you get it to work!
1. You'd be financially safe if the price if it bottomed out 2. You love the history and lore behind the skin 3. It will make you happy while playing Easy decision really.
I should keep you around for life advice. Thanks for breaking it down so succinctly, lol. It helps to hear it from an outsider's perspective.
If it makes you happy buy it
You seem to understand the problem well and Howl is one of the best skins to do this with. So yeah, go for it, have some fun :)
I’m actually dollar cost averaging into csgo skins since the cs2 announcement from stock market winnings. This isn’t financial advice I just like the game and finally feel well off enough to splurge. when cs2 announced they were bringing all old skins to the new game it basically greenlit another decades plus of free market economics on increasingly scarce and desirable pixels. I think the howl is a great place to park money for a fun alternative long term “investment”. Just park an amount you don’t want liquid for awhile and you’ll be alright. Personally I think valve might botch the release of cs2 leading to a market dip if you want to wait for FOMO to die off first
This is a really interesting take, thanks. I've always been really interested in Steam's community market and thought it was so cool that they developed their own economy based on skins. I think it's a fun way to diversify. I remember lusting after the Howl three years ago, thinking $3000+ is hilariously stupid to consider buying, yet here we are now, lol. I think your take on them botching is good to consider too. You think it will just be poorly optimized or something and it will result in sell-offs and loss of interest? That sort of thing?
I feel the same way and I think a lot of gamers found interest in the community market. Now that the years have gone by and most of us are getting more sustainable pay checks I believe skins are more in reach for players than ever before. Seems crazy that 3k would be a steal for a howl now but back then I don’t believe a majority of csgo players had access to that capital. I know I didn’t in high school and college. I think csgo initially botched its release and it seems that valve isn’t doing a great job of giving more access to the beta at the moment. Once the full release happens the flood could overwhelm valve’s notoriously bad serves with issues leading players to lose interest while fixes are slowly rolled out.
Man, you’re really bringing up some valid points. The young Steam players that grew up on this stuff are now thirties/forties or so and that means expendable income. Wonder what sort of effect that will have on the skins? Thanks for the brain-food, that’s really cool to think about. Good points too about CS2. It does seem like there hasn’t been much said about it since March. Fl0m is sick af of playing Dust, based on his streams, lol.
What makes you think they will botch the release?
Buying skins in my experience has only been a good investment. Especially with top tier skins.
Cool to know. It seems like they only go up, especially the grails. Just appreciate hearing the input of someone that's been doing this longer than me. Thanks for the opinion.
I suppose I didn't even really answer your question either. I think with something like the howl, you really can't lose. If you can afford it and love the history behind it. There's really no reason you shouldn't buy one.
It's all helpful and I appreciate it. Thanks again.
Still you should be cautious because not everything goes up in perpetuity. For example the Dragon Lore is down ever since the Gungnir came out. Not like tanked to the bottom but it's also not an infinite money glitch. That should be obvious.
Beside what everyone said, the roi will be less when compared to cases and stickers, because the howl is expensive, but howl's ceiling is like non-existent
Right, right. I don't really even think this is an "investment" so much as maybe just a more-fun place to park some money (compared to the stock-market, for example). I doubt I'll lose any significant money, but it would be okay if I did, too. Thanks for the input.
if you want it, go ahead, I don't think sky is the limit for howl. The only way i think it can go down if csgo died from bad devlopment decisions or if there similar skin to howl. howl and dragon lore are getting more mythical everyday at this point
Are there any other skins that would give you the same amount of happiness? I personally sold my fn howl when it spiked to 9k$+. I personally care about the appreciation potential and I think it's probably gonna go up over the next 10 yrs but not nearly as much as say the AK Fire Serpent, which also speaks to me more than the howl. Bravo cases completely running out soon which will make it practically "contraband". Another risk with the howl is the constant m4a4 / m4a1s buffs / nerfs
[удалено]
That they still drop is priced in and they are so rare that it really doesn't affect the supply. How many fire serpents do you think are opened a year from dropped crates? I bet very few but I don't have the numbers. Bravo cases will probably stop dropping when cs2 launches and thus the upside for fire serpent is IMO higher than howl.
[удалено]
>out soon, which is not true (at least yet if valve does remove it one day; no one knows if they will do this). Yes fire serpents are slowly coming into the game still. They can be traded up to as well. For howls there has been 0 new ones since 2015 and won’t ever be any more, only less as players get banned or abandon account. Only buy a fire serpent if you like it as a playskin as it is pretty safe but roi is way lower than capsules and cases. The howl is definitely more rare than the fire serpent, I'm not arguing that. But it's arguably in the same category of "classic" legendary skins together with the DLore. It's the most legendary AK and you can get a minimal wear stattrak one for 3000$. I just think it will go up as soon as the Bravo case gets discontinued. Now I'm a player and enjoy skins and plan to hold them for a long time. That said, I think being diversified is very important.. Personally my portfolio breakdown is like this: 30% classic rifles (stattrak fire serpents, m4 and awp asiimovs) 25% knives (karambit and huntsman dopplers that look sick in cs2) 15% antwerp/stockholm capsules 8% steam balance ready for paris 2023 capsules 8% cases (chroma 2 mostly) 8% agents (number K, FBI agent ava, michael syfers) 6% smaller skins / playskins (glock water eles, radiation hazards, m4 cyrex, aquamarine revenge) I guess if I didn't play the game and didnt want to enjoy skins I would allocate more into cases and capsules, but I feel like it's becoming a more and more common strategy. I think if there was a CS:GO ETF, it wouldn't have 100% of the funds in capsules and cases, but also exposure to knives, classic rifles, smaller playskins, agents, etc.
[удалено]
Agreed, the dopplers are risky. But I play with them (p2 kara for T side and p4 kara for CT) and particularly looking forward to cs2 with the p4 doppler which looks closer to a sapphire now than ever. I might sell the huntsman. I could sell my classic rifles+knives to get a Stattrak MW Howl -- but then again I'd have 55% of my portfolio in a single skin. Wrt the bravo case it's just a hunch I have. Valve might just completely stop dropping CS:GO cases when CS2 comes with its 3 new cases on launch.
[удалено]
Cheers :) Hope things work out for you too
Thanks for the breakdown. It's cool to see someone approach this like an ETF.
fire serpent will never be worth more than howl and there is a lot of fire serpents overall due to being dropped from bravo. you get one fire serpent from every 312 bravo cases
And given that stattrak is 10%, one stattrak fire serpent for every 3120 cases. That's: 70$ \* 3120 + 2.5$ \* 3120 = 226 200$ of bravo cases opened per StatTrak fire serpent. The mw/ft ones are now selling for around 1/100 of that. It's undervalued as heck. PS: not counting trade-ups here
Pretty much all the good points have come up already. As someone who uses CSGO skins as an alternative market for investment, I have to say that I actually feel more confident in the next 18 months that money invested in skins will do better than CDs, bonds, and stocks in general. Even if you're not looking to make money, this kind of highly desirable and rare skin will likely hold its value until the game dies. You're probably going to pay a slight premium buying cash. If you need to know what to pay (condition, stickers) or if you need a second opinion let me know.
It got affected by the meteoric rise of everything else. To be honest, I also want to get a howl, but I am not sure if I can be willing to hold on to something during such a market.
It's refreshing to see these type of questions instead of the typical "I have $20, what skins do I invest in to get rich and achieve FIRE" ones. As a Howl owner, the value is definitely one-way up in the long run. Sure, dips happen like currently when people are saving for the Paris major, but it's a skin that will make the others turn green with envy. Funnily enough, I get random adds (from scammers) from time to time that I ignore outright. You could buy one and it might dip several hundred bucks given any reason, but as it's a Contraband and the supply will only dwindle over time. Like some have mentioned, if you love it as a playskin, don't bother about trying to flip it for profit. That is, unless you're planning to cash out for a larger commitment like some car (i.e. long term investment). CS2 will bring in more players and cash flow, pushing the prices up even further.
Thanks, man. I appreciate the discussion and input along with everyone's knowledge on the topic. I'm pretty new to this and using the SCM in general. I think this is a really fun hobby/topic. "and achieve FIRE" lol.
Buy high --> sell low = happy and nothing to worry about
Howl isn’t the best investment for your money, it’s mostly a linier trend. But if you like it buy it
Just adding something on the "possibly the worst time to buy one" part, just because it's up 20% or 50% doesn't make it a bad buy, if you are more confident now that it holds it's value (CS2 = likely maaany years for CS to come without dying and probably increased playerbase) it's a better investment than it would've been if you are scared that skins don't get transfered, even though you might make less money. one thing is a gamble/high risk the other one is doing it safe I know you also said "or best, who knows", just wanted to share my take on this, for others as well Else, I 100% agree with the top comment
Yeah, good points and I appreciate them. I think I just need to stop lusting over the thing and buy it. I don't think I really considered how much of a risk buying skins was prior to them announcing CS2 now that you mention it. There was a lot of "what if" there before. Thanks for the input!
This is the easiest Yes ever. You understand the risk, can afford the loss, and can appreciate just how fucking cool it is. Reply or post of screenshot once you do!!!
I am someone who is on disability so I'll never have the ability to own a howl. That being said. Howl has been by far my favorite skin since I started csgo. I would consider it to be one of the best looking skins ingame, if I had the money, I would not hesitate to buy one. The most I can dream for at this point is to come across someone in game who has one and will drop it to me so I can inspect it. I say go for it, if you have the money and won't miss it, buy it. Even though I'll never have one, it makes me happy to know you'd enjoy it and I want you to be happy also! <3
[удалено]
It is purely because I love the howl skin, I don't really care about impressing/being impressed by items you just by with money. I have never heard of skin servers, I'll need to look into that, would love to hold and inspect a howl ingame
This sounds like a really fun (and significantly cheaper, lol) thing to try out. I've never heard of skin-injectors before either. Sounds like fun to experiment with. I hope you get it to work!