The Community Marketplace on Steam is a feature that probably not many of you are actively using. Especially the emoticons offered there are rarely purchased for a few euros. But Brian Haugh doesn’t just buy them, he collects a very specific one and you could even make him rich selling that special emoticon.
What emoticons are you talking about? Brian Haugh collects hot dog emoticons created by Valve on Steam to promote the Steam Summer Sale 2016. The “:2016weiner:” emoticons, as they are called on Steam, look like a hot dog. This hot dog has tiny arms and legs and even wears shoes.
How many hot dog emoticons does Brian have? Brian Haugh has told online magazine Kotaku.com that he has spent over $250 on hot dog emoticons and owns a total of 2,525 as of June 30th.
Brian causes price spikes through bulk buying
What is Brian’s impact on the Steam market? Brian Haugh has the curious goal of owning all of the hot dog emoticons on Steam. According to Kotaku, he records the more than 2,500 hot dog emoticons he has purchased in a spreadsheet called “Wieners purchased over time”.
Brian even made bulk purchases in his hunt for the hot dog emoticons, which in turn could impact the Steam market. By using Steam’s data visualization combined with his own spreadsheet, Brian even has proof that those bulk purchases led to spikes in emoticon prices, according to Kotaku.
He gives the example that on days when he would have bought every single emoticon from $0.03 to $0.10, the next day only $0.11 worth of emoticons would have been sold.
Will Brian get rich from his hot dogs?
How could you make Brain rich? The number of hot dog emoticons on Steam is limited. Brian already owns 2,525 and Steam has a total of 2,696 purchases – 2,605 purchases of €1.18 or less and 92 purchases of €1.50 or more (as of July 04, 2022, 1 p.m.).
While there’s no exact number on how many “:2016weiner:” emoticons are available, these numbers suggest that Brian owns a majority of the hot dog emoticons. If Brian really owns all of them at some point, he can freely determine the average selling price of the Viennese emoticons.
Given the fact that :2016weiner: emoticons are limited, it’s entirely possible that the value of hot dogs could increase significantly in the distant future if other collectors suddenly develop an interest in the sausages.
There is potential for the emoticons to become a digital store of value. A concept that is roughly reminiscent of the NFTs that are hotly debated in gaming.
So we don’t know if the hot dogs with tiny booties will become a valuable collector’s item, the price of which would depend on one person – Brian Haugh – if he owns them all. However, it may be that Brian has created a store of value.
A sausage monopoly, if you will. If enough other collectors jump on the bandwagon, high prices are a possibility and the $250 investment could easily multiply. But that remains pure speculation.
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What is the value of the emoticons? The price for the “:2016weiner:” emoticons has recently increased significantly when they are offered.
While the hot dog emoticons had the most sales for under $0.41 at 2,501, the most recent sale was $1.24. For comparison: This is still more expensive than the popular co-op game Payday 2 costs in the Steam Summer Sale 2022.
In general, some Steam users seem to jump on the report from the Kotaku website and now want to take advantage of Brian’s will to collect.
Kotaku’s report went online on Friday, July 1st. The previously made sales were still at $0.07 and $0.05. The price then buckled as high as $4.73 on Friday. A total of 16 :2016weiner: emoticons were sold on the day for over $4.40. Even after that, the price stayed well above $0.41 and $0.07 respectively.
At a price of $4, Brian’s around 2,500 sausages would already be worth over $10,000. As Kotaku reports, there’s even a hot dog emoticon that’s on sale for $400. If Brian were to successfully sell his 2,525 emoticons and bring the average price down to around $400, he would indeed be a millionaire.
Why does Brian collect the emoticons? When Brian was 16, he played Mount and Blade: Napoleonic Wars as part of a group. Then, in the summer of 2016, the hot dog emoticon came out, which he absolutely loved and spammed, according to Brian Kotaku.
Spamming the emoticon bothered the GM, so he banned the use of emoticons and stripped Brian of the right to use the hot dog emoticon.
As a form of revenge, Brian and his friends then decided to troll the head of the emoticon server and spam “:2016weiner:” emoticons until they were blown off the server, he said. To celebrate the successful trolling, Brian then began buying the emoticon in bulk.