Summary
- A mysterious Steam user owns 13,000 pairs of black combat pants from PUBG.
- Each pair of pants is worth about $0.03.
- The economics don’t add up, but perhaps there’s a deeper meaning here.
An enigmatic Steam user owns 13,000 copies of PUBG: Battlegrounds’ black combat pants, each worth about $0.03 on the platform’s marketplace. Besides that rather startling piece of information, the rest of the user’s profile is completely blank (nice spot, GamesRadar+). As evidenced by the price, this is a rather common drop in PUBG, which raises the question, why would anyone collect so many?
This strange profile was discovered by killmissy on Reddit who asks the obvious question, “What’s going on here?” There are certainly collectors who try and accumulate a game’s rarest items, to either show off or eventually sell for a profit. An extremely rare Team Fortress 2 hat was traded for $40,000 a couple of months ago, the biggest trade in the game’s history. However, I’m not sure anyone is going to find an individual buyer for 13,000 pairs of basic combat pants.
Beyond Mere Economics
If this user were to laboriously list every single pair of pants on the marketplace, they might net around $390. However, I suspect the simple economic machinations of the free market aren’t this user’s motivations. There’s something more mysterious afoot. “He will own them all, and then he will sell them for millions,” writes Killer22250. Considering these pants are a common drop from Survivor Crates and the fact that there are 5000 currently for sale, this user may be stockpiling for quite a while if they want every pair of pants out there.
While there are methods of making money on the Steam marketplace, they usually involve crates because of their speculative element. If players don’t know what’s in the crate, they may pay more for the chance of making a profit on its contents. It’s the same principle that explains why selling unopened Pokémon TCG booster packs is often more financially prudent than opening them and hoping for a big pull. However, there is no speculation surrounding black combat pants. What you see is what you get – black combat pants.
As pointed out by marcus_lepricus, a wise philosopher in their own right, “The one flaw in this plan is that pants are a renewable resource. There’s still fresh supply entering the market. It would be better to corner one of the items with fixed supply.” Perhaps economics cannot explain this user’s actions. Perhaps they just enjoy having 13,000 pairs of black combat pants. The human mind is unknowable, truly.
- Released
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March 23, 2017
- ESRB
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T for Teen: Blood, Violence