Longtime Rainbow Six Siege players may soon find they’re sitting on a gold mine. Today, Ubisoft kicked off the beta for the Rainbow Six Marketplace, a website that allows players to sell their unwanted cosmetics for R6 Credits. The marketplace is viewable by anyone, but Ubisoft is only allowing select beta testers to buy and sell items for now.
Those beta testers are wasting no time, either. On launch day, the marketplace shows thousands of listings for hundreds of distinct gun skins, headgears, outfits, and charms. Onlookers can’t see the details of individual transactions, but we can see how many total copies of items are for sale, what range of R6 Credits they’re being sold at, and how much the last one sold for. If these numbers are correct, players are already dropping $30, $60, and over $100 on rare cosmetics.
The most sought-after items so far include a line of “Glacier” gun skins that were only available during Year 1 Season 1 in early 2016. At the time of writing, the Glacier MP5 listing has 12 skins up for sale with the latest one selling for 20,000 R6 Credits, or approximately $125. Other big ticket items include the Death Sentence Jäger headgear that last sold for 35,000 credits (around $200), a charm given to attendees of the 2018 Six Invitational sold for 50,000 credits (over $300), and a 2019 Six Invitational 416-Carbine skin that supposedly sold for over $600 worth of credits.
I say “supposedly” because, while there are seemingly hundreds of real transactions happening on the marketplace, it’s hard to tell if every listing is accurate right now. Some legendary items on the store, for instance, list a gigantic “last sold” price despite showing zero sale orders. That could mean all of these exceptionally rare cosmetics were sold and no more have been listed yet, or it could be some sort of test listing being used to beta test the storefront.
It wouldn’t be too surprising that some are willing to part with a small fortune for the rarest stuff. Most of the cosmetics climbing the charts were originally given away during brief windows—esports tournaments and limited events—and are literally impossible to obtain any other way now.
It’s a strong showing for a marketplace that’s been online for less than 24 hours, though a longtime Counter-Strike player probably could’ve seen this coming. On Counter-Strike’s marketplace, singular skins are regularly sold for thousands of dollars. The main difference with the R6 Marketplace is that R6 Credits can only be used to buy other R6 items. Ubisoft wants to keep its burgeoning economy internal to the game itself. The CS2 gray market workarounds that allow players to buy and sell skins outside Valve’s purview have yet to surface for R6, and Ubisoft says it has measures in place to ensure it stays that way.
Not every R6 cosmetic is available to be sold. All of the items I’m seeing for sale were at one point available in Alpha Packs or given away during events, while bundles purchased directly through the in-game store seem to be off-limits. Looks like I won’t be making my riches through Siege anytime soon: the most valuable skin I own is currently going for around $15.
www.pcgamer.com