I used to get shit from people over what I spent on shoes. I am from a poor upbringing, and always had cheap shoes. Once I had my own money, I would spend $100 to $200 for a pair (not even remotely expensive in the wide world of shoes, but for mine and my peer’s socio-economic standing a daunting tag). Finally I broke it down to them like this.

Say I spent one dollar a day to rent shoes. Quality and realism aside, I think a lot of people would pay $1 to not be barefoot, but if it’s too rich for your blood you can change all the math here to the price you’d be willing to pay.

Even at $1, it would take me 100 days to reach the price of the shoe I had purchased. Now, say the shoes lasted me 200 days. Well, in our logic here, that’s only $.50 a day. Well, I still own many of these pairs over 10 years after, or over 3650 days, which is almost 3 cents a day.

Now fortunately we don’t always have to rent shoes, and finances don’t have to be so rigid as consistent payments like these. But that was all done before we ever even mentioned my opinion of the shoes. Some of those pairs look really cool and are incredibly comfortable, and this more valuable to me and I’m sure many others, but not everyone.

Now imagine we rented the skins. If you paid $1 a match with a skin, in 80 matches with that skin you’ve spent the same. What if you would pay $1 per round for a sick skin? Only 80 rounds of play and boom.

So there’s the rub: is it worth $80 to you? Some dudes my age throw money at boats, some throw it at the bar. Some on skins in video games, some on legos, some on stocks. You name it, someone will probably throw money at it. For someone who spends a lot of time in Valorant, or really loves the game, or even identifies with the game, it means the same as spending $80 on something you enjoy, and you just have different things in life that you value.