$2 million of CSGO skins lost after Steam Community ban

One of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s most expensive backpacks has been lost forever following a Steam Community ban.

According to CSGO YouTuber TDM_Heyzeus, Chinese skin trader QKSS has received a direct community ban from Valve. This locks away control of his backpack and leaves his skins inaccessible and untradeable. QKSS’s profile has since been set to private but they were known to have had a slew of extremely rare and expensive skins, gloves, and stickers on their account.

While their full inventory at the time of the ban isn’t known, its value could have been as high as $2 million. Their backpack had previously owned basically every expensive cosmetic item imaginable.

The centerpiece of their collection was a Case Hardened AK-47 with four holo Titan Gaming stickers from ESL Katowice 2014. The price of the stickers combined with the price of the rifle was over $150,000.

Their backpack also contained a factory-new Dragon Lore AWP with four iBuyPower stickers from the 2014 ESL Katowice Major. A factory new Dragon Lore AWP starts at $10,000 and can run as high as $40,000. iBuyPower stickers from the 2014 Katowice Major start at around $3,000 for a regular sticker. Holos are worth over $25,000.

QKSS also had a factory-new Medusa AWP with another four Titan Gaming stickers from the 2014 ESL Katowice Major. The AWP itself is worth around $5,000 while the stickers were worth at minimum another $6,000. If they were all holo, the gun would’ve also been worth over $150,000.

Those three guns are actually just the tip of the iceberg. QKSS also had a slew of knives and gloves worth thousands of dollars each. Alongside this were dozens of other 2014 ESL Katowice Major stickers that weren’t used, which were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars combined. The ban actually wipes out a significant percentage of the known 2014 ESL Katowice Major stickers in existence.

What is a Steam Community ban?

A Steam Community ban is a ban that stems from either poor behavior on Steam Community services or various reports.

Steam Community bans are seemingly manually applied to accounts by Valve. The Steam website lists these as possible infractions that could result in a community ban: 

• The violation of any paragraph of the Steam Subscriber Agreement and Steam Online Conduct
• The use of graphic or otherwise inappropriate avatars, screenshots, artwork, etc.
• Spamming the community
• Inappropriate language
• Harassing other users
• Continuing to post moderated content
• Posting content related to racism or other forms of bigotry

Steam Community bans can be lifted by Valve, which people have successfully pulled off in the past. The fact that they can be lifted, and the vagueness of “violation of any paragraph of the Steam Subscriber Agreement and Steam Online Conduct” stipulation suggests that Valve can also hand them out arbitrarily. What ultimately mobilizes Valve to ban someone is uncertain, as other alleged scammers are allowed to remain on the platform and act with impunity while violating the Steam terms of service.

In QKSS’s case, it’s uncertain what led to this ban. It’s clear that either QKSS or Valve made a very costly mistake, however.