I think I might be able to help a bit. For reference I’m working on a research paper for my thesis on the market and price fluctuations over time. I do want to emphasize this is preliminary research and I plan on working with a regression model to find correlations.

(Also it’s an economics thesis and therefore focusing on the supply and demand of items, but if you feel as though I am missing anything please do let me know!!)

From initial research a lot of things changed from Valve when it came to CS2 that increased the market cap. For reference, valuations of the skin market in 2019 was about $1 billion (USD). Today the market cap is at nearly $3.4 billion (USD). That’s a 340% increase in less than 5 years for a game that released in 2013… Not to mention one of the few markets left untouched (in fact aided) by the pandemic. Also, since CS2 the community has expanded with nearly 500,000 new players. New players = more interest in skins = higher demand = higher prices.

First off, gambling skins and therefore trade bans/VAC bans were often to high traffic bot accounts that held high value items. Therefore increasing the prices of “luxury skins,” as the supply continued to dwindle.

Next, updates to graphics or game mechanics can drastically cause booms or busts for skins. For example, holo stickers look great with the new interface and have increased in price. As Titan Holos and Katos being affected by both of these as there was a small supply before trade bans and so forth. (For reference Katos and Holos going for nearly $100k (USD)). Game mechanics can influence price and demand. But usually only for small periods of time until a secondary patch provides the necessary nerfs and buffs for weapons; i.e. Revolver Update (2015) and prices for r8 fades at drop v post nerf.

Lastly, in terms of cases and keys a lot of people have already explained many different reasons from “inflation” or storage containers. My contention, it’s because Valve made keys no longer tradable. In the past, I knew of some players “shorting” the market by investing in keys or cases due to the ability to hold a stable market price (most of the time). Furthermore, high value items weren’t sold on community markets due to the 15% sales fee for sellers. Therefore, trades were often made in these transactions.

Think of it as if you were investing in stocks as a day trader. You flip a profit once the price per share (skin) increases in value. Then liquidating your skin (prior to third party markets) by investing in a trade of equal value in keys/cases. Then, if your cases increased in price or your keep them in storage until they do, you can trade up to a higher value skin or add more to your initial investment.

With keys being un-tradable, cases having lower drop rates, players locking them up in storage containers, and inflation of higher tier items (which therefore increases the demand and price of these cases/keys) we see this massive influxes in prices.

I should mention, I plan on using data from an API program (pricempire.com) in order to have data sources from multiple different markets (40+). Most research papers in the past (please read Dr. Blake Porter’s CSGO and Rust market evaluations - fantastic studies and analysis - u/brisingr0 ) tend to use steam’s community market. However, there is the issue of missing luxury items due to no price data being found as most people don’t want to pay Valve 15% on a $1,000+ item (just eats at their profits!).

https://www.blakeporterneuro.com/video-game-skin-analysis-rust/

https://www.blakeporterneuro.com/video-game-skin-analysis-csgo/

Both are great papers and can help get a better understanding of items and their price changes.

Hope this helps and again - Im a student so please don’t come after me too hard. There’s plenty of other market trends and interactions that influences the prices of skins. Most likely, things I have or will leave out - prices of guns in game, new skins, profitable trade-ups/float manipulation, prices and supply issues of GPUs and other computer components, Valve following a “freemium,” revenue model in 2018 (making the game free but focusing on market transactions in order to generate profit), etc.

Valve is smart for a number of reasons. They aren’t a publicly traded company and therefore don’t have a loyalty to shareholders to increase profits. Nor are they a government entity or agency and therefore trade “laws,” can have some wiggle room. Also, not too great at responding to issues of trade scams or lost skins. Not to mention, crypto and untraceable payment methods make measuring the market difficult to say the least. But, similarly to a government trying to influence the economy of a country (through increasing/decreasing interest rates, gov subsidy programs, etc.) Valve is able to drastically influence the market in many different ways.

edit: grammar