00:00The 10 Most Expensive In-Game Items Ever
00:0210. Javelin Star Citizen
00:05$2,500
00:06Star Citizen's Javelins are one of the best examples of gamers trusting in the long-term
00:12investment model. While it certainly wasn't the first title to have in-game items double
00:16up as currency, the amount developers Cloud Imperium Games have been able to raise for
00:21a game still in development is staggering. The items that have made the biggest splash
00:25over the course of the game's lifetime have been Javelin Destroyer spaceships. According
00:30to Cloud Imperium, these 1,132-foot-long Javelin Destroyers come with four primary thrusters,
00:37private rooms for the captain and officer, a hefty hangar bay capable of housing a gunship,
00:4312 maneuvering thrusters, a heavily armored bridge, and a lifetime insurance warranty. Players
00:49were also told that these ships were battle-hardened, meaning they'd also have to fork out for the
00:54missing 20 gun turrets and two torpedo launchers. The end total needed to get one of these ships
00:59in working order? $2,500 real-world US dollars. Not that that stopped the game's investors,
01:06however. Within a minute of the auction going live, all 200 Javelins had been sold, raising
01:12over half a million dollars for Cloud Imperium Games. All of this in a game that still hasn't
01:17been released, even after a decade in development.
01:19Number 9. Blue Party Hat RuneScape $4,000
01:24Going from a juggernaut spaceship capable of conquering entire galaxies to something far more
01:29humble, RuneScape's famous Blue Party Hat once set a player back over $6,500. In 2001,
01:37developers Jagex decided to hold a special Christmas celebration in RuneScape, spreading the season of
01:43goodwill by dropping Christmas crackers to players, which, when pulled, would result in the winners
01:47getting items and the losers getting a consolation party hat. Despite all being a bit of fun that
01:53wasn't really worth more than a few pennies initially, ultimately, these party hats were
01:58discontinued and not obtainable after the celebration. The value of these hats subsequently began to soar,
02:05far eclipsing the maximum value allowed at the in-game Grand Exchange marketplace. Price estimates for
02:10the items still value the blue party hat at over $2 billion RuneScape gold, with recorded sales roughly
02:17equating to over $4,000. And with no other hats being introduced since, it seems these incredibly
02:23rare items will only continue to rise in value over the coming years. Again, though, it's just a paper
02:29party hat.
02:30Number 8. Zuzo World of Warcraft $9,500
02:34World of Warcraft is the world's most popular MMORPG, home to some of the most dedicated gamers
02:41that the industry has ever seen. Back in 2007, one of these players took dedication to the game
02:46to a staggering new height, in a transaction that would see Blizzard clamp down on their character.
02:51Zuzo was a level 70 night elf rogue in WoW who managed to sell his character to a player called
02:57Shaxx for roughly €7,000, about $9,500 at the time. The justification for this life change
03:04amount of money was that this rogue came with the legendary Twin Blades of Azanoth,
03:09which could only be looted off Illidan Stormrage's corpse in the Black Temple.
03:13Zuzo then continued to play the game for years after the sale with a different rogue build.
03:18As for Shaxx, the character quickly disappeared from the game, with most assuming they'd probably
03:22been banned. Blizzard have always been firm on their policy of selling accounts being a big no-no,
03:28so it's safe to say this might not have been the smartest of investments from this not-so-slick buyer.
03:337. Burning Killer Exclusive – Team Fortress 2 – $12,000
03:38The Killer Exclusive is an in-game cosmetic item for Team Fortress 2 made by its community.
03:44Named after the term for a juicy breaking news story, this item is a light beige fedora that
03:49can be worn by all classes, with a card saying Press sticking out the front. The item was initially
03:55just a promotional tie-in launch with PC Gamer, but soon found its way into the game as a cosmetic,
04:01with the flaming variant quickly becoming one of the rarest pieces of equipment on the market.
04:05The Burning Killer Exclusive stock continued to climb over the following years, eventually being
04:10sold via TF2's marketplace for 400 buds in 2014, a sum which, when converted, works out to around $12,000.
04:19The trade was made between a player known as Shadow and the Biagora, and became endemic of the impact
04:26community marketplaces can have on virtual items. It remains the highest value trade ever in the
04:31Team Fortress 2 community, and as a result, has become pretty famous – or infamous.
04:35With the highest damage of any one-handed weapon, the Echoing Fury Mace's discovery in Diablo 3 was a
04:47watershed moment in the game's history. Requiring a character level of 60 to drop, this infamous
04:53mace gained a reputation for exploiting a damage allocation bug, so naturally it was pretty sought after.
04:59With 1,166.2 to 1,433.8 damage per second and 1.25 to 1.26 attacks per second,
05:10the Echoing Fury Mace is the ultimate DPS dealing machine. Following the 2.6.6 patch,
05:16the weapon gained a unique stacking element that increases attack speed and movement
05:21by 75%, 25% in total for every enemy killed, just in case it wasn't powerful enough.
05:28The original owner of the weapon famously sold the Echoing Fury Mace for a few thousand dollars
05:32to allegedly help pay their rent, but that didn't stop its stock from thawing in the years since.
05:38A bid of $40 billion in-game gold was later offered up for the weapon,
05:42which, when you work out the conversion, is about $15,000.
05:46Number 5. Dragon Slaying Saber – Age of Wulin – $16,000
05:51Snail's Age of Wulin slash Wushu launched in China in August of 2012,
05:56but shot to the gaming world's attention with an auction in China on Christmas Day of 2011.
06:01The auction was held to various digital in-game items that players would be able to use when the
06:05game launched. Various items were listed and commanded decent prices, with the likes of the
06:10Hook of Departure, of which there's only 10 in the game, and a Lordly Spear Sheath, of which there's
06:15only 5, selling for 10,000 yuan, which is about $1,600, and 18,300 yuan, which is about $2,500 respectively.
06:26However, the biggest lot of the auction was a scabbard called the Dragon Slaying Saber,
06:30which ended up going for 100,000 yuan, which is about $16,000.
06:36With the game still in beta at this point, it was an astonishing moment, but the promise of it being a
06:41one-of-a-kind item that would only have one owner in its lifespan managed to coax someone into burning
06:46a very big hole in their wallet.
06:484. Gold Magnate
06:50EVE Online – $33,000
06:52In January of 2020, YouTuber Scott Manley broke internet headlines everywhere when he lobbed a
06:59whopping $33,000 on a gold magnate in EVE Online, making it the most expensive ship sold in the game.
07:06One of the rarest ships, these powerful frigates have only ever popped up sporadically over the
07:11course of EVE's history, and have only been obtainable via in-game tournament rewards.
07:16The historic purchase actually came during CCP Games' Plex for Good campaign, which was an
07:21initiative run to help raise money for the Australian bushfire effort.
07:24The YouTuber purchased this gold magnate from user KeelonDarkLightsAuction, with a bid of
07:30$1,000,001,001 Plex.
07:32For reference, Plex is an in-game currency in EVE, with 1,000,000 Plex worth approximately $32,500
07:39in real-world money.
07:40That 1,000,000 Plex is worth about 3.3 trillion ISK, the game's primary currency that most players
07:47deal in.
07:48Given the fact players start off with a ship worth around 5 million ISK, about 5 cents,
07:53that makes this sale worth about 170 years of time in-game.
07:58This $33,000 purchase certainly made a splash, but at least in the case of this particular
08:03transaction, it did some good outside the game too.
08:06Number 3.
08:07Ethereal Flames Pink War Dog, Dota 2, $38,000
08:12In Valve's Dota 2, couriers are used to transport items to and from a base to players dotted across the
08:17map, November of 2013, when it was revealed a player had forked out a whopping $38,000 for one of these
08:24trusty steeds. According to a player named Pardar, they sold their Ethereal Flames Pink War Dog to
08:31another user for that 5-figure sum. The War Dogs are already amongst the most powerful couriers in the
08:36game, and the Ethereal Flame effect is a striking visual, but where the value in the item really
08:41comes from is in its rarity. Allegedly, only 4 creatures of this kind existed in the game at the
08:46time, mainly due to Valve not having pink set as one of its primary 10 colors, on account of glitches
08:52that could occur with black skins. In turn, this made the rarity of the items skyrocket,
08:57and one user was there to capitalize.
08:59Number 2.
09:00Souvenir AWP Dragon Lore, GO, $61,000
09:06Valve's Counter Strike Global Offensive has a whole array of weapon and item skins available
09:10from the Steam Marketplace. These in no way enhance someone's abilities in the game,
09:15but some of the designs have commanded a hefty price tag over the years. The most legendary is the
09:20Dragon Lore AWP, which was added to the game in 2014 as part of the Boston 2018 Cobblestone
09:26Souvenir package during Operation Breakout. There are 10 different cases that include the Dragon
09:31Lore that players can grab, but it does have one of the rarest drop rates in the game of just 0.64%.
09:37The striking design coupled with this rarity has contributed to Dragon Lore's price fluctuating from
09:43$2,700 to $8,600, depending on its attached quality stat. For one particular player though,
09:50that wasn't sufficient. Following the release of the Souvenir package in the wake of the Boston Major,
09:55one player forked over a hefty $61,000 for the Souvenir version of this legendary sniper rifle.
10:02Number 1. Planet Calypso, Entropia Universe, $6 million
10:07From its launch, MindArk emphasized that Entropia Universe would prioritize capitalism over gameplay.
10:14The game's open marketplace allows players to redeem the in-game Project Entropia dollar for US
10:20dollars at a fixed 10 to 1 exchange rate, which has led to some hefty investments into various in-game
10:26items. The game has seen in-game items such as a nest egg, holiday resort, and sections of a space
10:31station all auctioned off for tens of thousands of dollars. However, the biggest investment of all
10:37was reserved for its very first piece of major content added, Planet Calypso. Having attracted
10:42over 950,000 registered accounts from over 200 countries, Planet Calypso acted as the centerpiece
10:50to Entropia's universe, which prompted a mind-boggling $6 million purchase from fellow
10:56developers see Virtual Worlds in 2011. The studio had planned to turn Calypso into a
11:01wacky tribute to Michael Jackson, where players could make donations to his various charities
11:07whilst remembering the King of Pop, but instead channeled that energy into the thankfully cancelled
11:12game Planet Michael. Regardless, with $428 million sunk into the game over its lifespan, you can see
11:19where the developers' lofty valuation came from. That's the end of our list, but do let me know down
11:24in that comment section if you can think of any other entries for the most expensive in-game items
11:29ever. As always, I've been Jess from WhatCulture. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. If you
11:34like, you can come say hi to me on my Twitter account where I'm at JessMcDonnell, but make sure
11:38you stay tuned to us here for plenty more great gaming lists.
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