Counter-Strike 2 reportedly earned Valve nearly $1 billion from case openings

Valve has been claimed to have earned around $1 billion from Counter-Strike 2 skin case openings in 2023, according to reports that tracked case unboxings and price trends in the game.

CS2 finally launched towards the end of the year on September 27, 2023, as Valve’s leading FPS title has been well underway with its new era of Counter-Strike.

Since launch, it has remained unbeaten at the top of the Steam charts, and has reigned supreme as the most-played game on the platform. This surge in popularity has also led to a fresh wave of players, creators and streamers flooding into the game to test their luck with buying and opening skin cases.

With many skins and cases being sold for thousands and even millions of dollars, they have become some of the most desired items in gaming. One of which was a Blue Gem AK-47, which was discovered after 10 years and has a worth of around $1 million.

Now, it has been reported that Valve has allegedly earned close to $1 billion from case openings in CS2.

Valve claimed to have made around $1 billion from CS2 cases

According to CS2 Case Tracker’s year-in-review for 2023, Valve’s estimated revenue generated from CS2 cases last year was $980 million.

The staggering figures reported that also over 400 million cases were unboxed and nearly 360 million keys were consumed. Aside from this, case prices were also claimed by the site to have increased in price by 178% in 2023, which contributed to the rise in earnings.

CS2 Case Tracker stated: “Counter-Strike 2’s announcement on March 22nd led to a significant increase in unboxing numbers in March and April, peaking at 50.3 million unboxings in April.” They added: “On April 25, the highest number of unboxings this year was recorded, with an impressive 6.6 million cases.”

The reports from CS2 Case Tracker are estimated figures, based off tracking the number of opened cases from player inventories. These numbers therefore should be taken with a pinch of salt, and they also do not take into account other factors, such as using trade-up contracts and private inventories. If these were recorded, it would push the reported figures for Valve’s earnings from cases to over the $1 billion mark.

However, if these figures are somewhat accurate, CS2 players will be hoping some of this influx of revenue is invested back into the game, after players have became impatient with the lack of updates.