SteamDB revealed on August 7 that there is a new highest-level Steam account in the world, replacing long-standing (and somewhat controversial) champion St4ck. In a recent broadcast, Counter-Strike streamer ohnePixel calculated that this user, stasik, would have had to spend over $500,000 to reach level 5,101, and he has since bumped that up to 5,960. Stasik also has several rare Counter-Strike skins that cost nearly $9,000 each, including ones with crude messages and insults applied to the page via in-game stickers.
If you’re like me, you might be wondering what the heck all this means and why someone would pay life-changing amounts of money to increase their Steam profile level. I’ve had my account for a long time, play a lot of games, but barely interact with Steam as a social media platform, so I’m only at a paltry level 14. The real meta for power gamers is buying trading card boosters and seasonal badges on Steam to increase that number.
This, it must be said, has no immediate practical use, just bragging rights when the top power levelers tracked by SteamDB start using it. It reminds me a lot of NFTs, investing money in a digital signifier with no tangible value but with the potential entry into a weird alternative economy. While it seems largely an absurd form of conspicuous consumption, maintaining a high Steam level also seems to be a form of networking, a way to prove you’re a serious customer among the insanely expensive Counter-Strike skin trading crowd: “I’m not talking business unless you’re above level 100.”
OhnePixel typically estimates the value of a profile’s Steam level by calculating the cost of acquiring badges needed to get there. In this case, he estimated what St4ck paid to reach level 5,000: $500,000 to $700,000. Stasik has since increased the account’s level even further than when ohnePixel signed up, making the total cost even higher – and that’s not even taking into account the value of other items and skins associated with the account.
Speaking of other items and skins, Stasik’s Counter-Strike 2 inventory contains a kind of landmine. Among numerous skins worth thousands of dollars, one can find a “brand new” M4A1 Howl worth almost $9,000, with stickers arranged on the side forming a racist slur. Aside from being extremely vile and tasteless, this gesture also puts Stasik’s account at risk of a potentially permanent community ban, which is a particularly absurd move considering the enormous amount of money that has been poured into the account.
Stasik declined to speak directly to ohnePixel, but has a public Steam profile and a linked Instagram profile with nearly 15,000 followers, both of which link to a “Discord Kitten” – another user with the username “Начальник пыли” (Russian for “Dust Chief”) – with a matching couple profile that links back to Stasik. Both Stasik and his alleged lover list the United Arab Emirates as their country of residence.
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Additionally, Stasik’s Steam account also notes that another user has a problem with them and people who speak Russian. A now-deleted comment by Reddit user Formal_Palpitation14 in a thread about Stasik’s account, preserved in ohnePixel’s video, offers a possible, albeit unconfirmed, explanation.
Claiming to be friends with stasik through Steam, they wrote: “He mentioned to me that he has an ongoing argument with a guy named MoneyLead (the 3rd highest level Steam user) and that he told him that it’s not that easy to level up and maintain 1st/2nd place… then he just wanted to show him how easy it actually is when money is not an issue.”
“Now Moneylead has deleted/blocked everyone on his friends list who was friends with Stasik.”
This shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but it fits with Stasik’s vague post and his sudden rise in the Steam level ranks. As for Stasik’s allusion to discrimination against Russian speakers, MoneyLead has a series of Ukrainian flag emojis on his profile and a bio that says, “Glory to Ukraine. The world must stop this terror.” Further down, there’s the spoiler message: “Do not accept VAC BANED (sic) REP BAN and below level 100 and Russian.”
That’s quite a story, but I’m not sure I can draw any important life lessons from it. I hope that if these conspicuously wealthy gamers are indeed at loggerheads, they learn to give peace a chance, and I also hope that they stop insulting their Counter-Strike weapons.