SteamDB revealed on August 7 that there is a new highest-level Steam account in the world, replacing long-standing (and somewhat controversial) champion St4ck. In a recent broadcast, Counter-Strike streamer ohnePixel calculated that this user, stasik, would have had to spend over $500,000 to reach level 5,101, and he has since bumped that up to 5,960. Stasik also has several rare Counter-Strike skins that cost nearly $9,000 each, including ones with crude messages and insults applied to the page via in-game stickers.

If you’re like me, you might be wondering what the heck all this means and why someone would pay life-changing amounts of money to increase their Steam profile level. I’ve had my account for a long time, play a lot of games, but barely interact with Steam as a social media platform, so I’m only at a paltry level 14. The real meta for power gamers is buying trading card boosters and seasonal badges on Steam to increase that number.

This, it must be said, has no immediate practical use, just bragging rights when the top power levelers tracked by SteamDB start using it. It reminds me a lot of NFTs, investing money in a digital signifier with no tangible value but with the potential entry into a weird alternative economy. While it seems largely an absurd form of conspicuous consumption, maintaining a high Steam level also seems to be a form of networking, a way to prove you’re a serious customer among the insanely expensive Counter-Strike skin trading crowd: “I’m not talking business unless you’re above level 100.”