Counter-Strike 2 Already Making Valve Big Money, Case Unboxing Records Smashed Pre-Launch

Counter-Strike 2 hasn’t even officially launched yet, but it seems Valve’s Source 2 update of their venerable shooter is already paying off handsomely for the company as the number of people opening weapon cases in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has exploded since the announcement.

For those unfamiliar with CS:GO, it features a somewhat unique loot-box system. Basically, players may receive a weapon/cosmetic case at end of a match, and you have to pay Valve a few dollars for a key to see what skin is inside. The contents of the cases are randomized and in most cases, you’re going to get something that isn’t even worth the $2.50 it costs for a key, but there are rarer items, and since there’s a marketplace for selling CS:GO cosmetics, there’s actually a financial incentive for opening cases. Some of the skins can be sold for over a million dollars. No, really.

Anyways, Valve is definitely not leaving the case economy behind with the move to Counter-Strike 2, promising all cosmetics will carry over. That said, since this whole economy is based on cosmetics, and Counter-Strike is getting an overall cosmetic overhaul, there are expectations that the skin market is going to be thrown into a certain amount of turmoil. As such, folks are stockpiling before the big shift.

So, just how many people are opening cases? Well, according to CS:GO Case Tracker around 39.5 million cases were opened in March. That beats the previous record of 27.7 million set in February, when people were getting excited about mere rumors of Counter-Strike 2. Before this boom, typically around 20 million cases were opened per month.

Was this Counter-Strike 2 update just a way for Valve to goose the case market? Probably not exclusively, but it had to have been a big motivation. For those who haven’t been keeping up, Counter-Strike 2 is currently in limited testing, with Valve selecting which players are allowed to participate. That said, the game files for CS2 have already leaked, allowing your to play the game offline (playing online with others will still require you to be invited to the beta).

Counter-Strike 2 is set to launch on PC sometime this summer.