10 Most Expensive In-Game Items EVER
From hats to... entire planets?!
Since its humble beginnings with the classic two-bit arcade classics, gamers and the gaming space have changed immeasurably.
From crowding around the latest $1 machines to constant online play in the cloud, games have become so much more than just a hobby enjoyed by anyone with free time over the weekend.
Perhaps the most defining change in the industry has been the rise of microtransactions; in-game purchases that players can make to obtain various items.
Most of the time these in no way improve a player's skill level or even enhance the experience that much, but there have been a few outliers where these purchases have had a profound impact on someone's real-world credit score.
Whether it be through balance-breaking builds, ultra rare cosmetics or some of the most eye-watering investments that see games branch out into realms of stocks and shares, these are some of the best examples of gamers with too much money on their hands.
10. Javelin - Star Citizen ($2,500)
Star Citizen's Javelins are one of the best examples of gamers trusting in the 'long-term investment' model. Whilst it certainly wasn't the first title to have in-game items double up as currency, the amount developers Cloud Imperium Games have been able to raise for a game still in development is staggering.
The items that have made the biggest splash over the course of the game's lifetime have been Javelin Destroyer spaceships.
According to Cloud Imperium, these 1,132-foot-long Javelin Destroyers come with four primary thrusters, private rooms for the captain and officer, a hefty hanger bay capable of housing a Gunship, twelve manoeuvring thrusters, a heavily armoured bridge and a lifetime insurance warranty.
Players were also told that these ships were 'battle-hardened', meaning they would also have to fork out on the missing twenty gun turrets and two torpedo launchers. The end total needed to get these ships in working order? $2,500 real-world US dollars.
Not that that stopped the game's investors, however; within a minute of the auction going live, all two hundred Javelins had been sold, raising over half a million dollars for Cloud Imperium Games.
All of this in a game that STILL hasn't been released, even after a decade in development.