Valve has announced new stickers for the IEM Cologne 2026 Major after admitting that the dynamically priced Cologne stickers “didn’t produce reasonable prices.”
The Cologne Major 2026 was the first Counter-Strike Major not to feature Sticker Capsules, which provide a random sticker from the possible teams and players in a certain group.
Valve admits IEM Cologne stickers dynamic pricing failed
Valve stated that, “The original dynamic pricing system determined the relative interest in players and teams, but it didn’t produce reasonable prices.”
The system resulted in various stickers demanding over $1,000 per sticker in the official Major store in the CS2 client. At a certain point, some stickers could not actually be bought in one transaction in the game as they exceeded the $2,000 balance limit on Steam.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of stickers in the client had next to no value whatsoever due to the limited demand for smaller orgs and lesser-known players.
The result was a system that reportedly severely lowered the value of Major stickers to organizations. HLTV reported a regression for one Stage 2 team from $600,000 before splitting the money with players in the Budapest Major to only $120,000, resulting in only $60,000 going to the org.
The article later added that one Stage 1 team was only making $100 per day from the Cologne Major stickers as sales slowed down in late July, effectively removing the possibility of Majors to support a lower-tier roster through sticker sales.
Valve unveils new Cologne Major Ranked Series stickers
Valve unveiled the set of new Cologne Major stickers in a blog post, stating that “As with all items in the Cologne 2026 Shop, 50% of the royalties support the teams, players and tournament organizer.”
The stickers therefore are clearly intended to help organizations suffering from the unexpected removal of capsules and the low sales generated by Valve’s new dynamic pricing system.
The stickers will remain in the shop until September 29, giving the stickers two months of time to sell, similar to the length of Major sticker sales in the past.
The stickers feature square designs with the team’s logo or player signature and the number of their placement at the event at the bottom left. Team Falcons’ stickers also adorn the ‘Champion’ banner.
The stickers are at fixed prices, maxing out at $60, so you’ll no longer have to take out a loan to get some pixels of a sticker in a video game.
Will you be buying some of the new stickers? Let us know on our Discord server
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Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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