The Influence of Rust Skins (Understanding Intention & Investing)

Good evening, Ruskin enjoyers. I hope you're doing all right. So a lot of you have been messaging me, poking me, whether it's in the likes of my YouTube videos or my streams. You're pointing out and telling me, Hedge, you need to go take a look at the Grass Rug. Get a good look at this. Look what's happened. The price has gone up. What's going on? Well, I thought to myself, you know what, we could actually go ahead and make a video talking about this. Not specifically only this skin, but basically we're going to go unravel many instances of the past and talk about influence. Yes, in regards to Rust content creators, they are very influential. And I'm going to try my best to explain everything. I'm going to try my best to explain the difference between unintentional and intentional influence. And by the end of this video, you're probably fully well aware of certain instances in the future. And when you're in that position, you might think, well, actually, I could potentially make a nice investment here. So let's try our best to explain everything. Let's jump in. Let's start talking about the likes of this grass rug. So as you can see right here, it's just under $5 at the moment. If we look at all of these orders, there's not that much there. And yes, there was a buyout. So if we just quickly scroll down to here to the sales, what do we see? Well, from what you can see here, this was pushing up to just about $3 a good few days back, and, you know, a week beyond. But very, very recently, as of about December 2nd, it went all the way up to $5. So what exactly has taken place? What's going on? Well, it just so happens a very nice video was made very, very recently, made by the likes of Mr. Willjum over here. I built the first hidden fortress in Rust. Now, if you go ahead and watch this video, you'll see that he intends to build a certain base. He doesn't fully reveal all the details, but you will watch the slow progression as he meets all of his lovely neighbors. They're all trying to kill him. But basically, he builds up to a very neat idea, which you can see right here at the very end of the video. He realized that you can put high external walls around your base, and you can also put rugs all around on them. And well, in a foresty area such as this with loads of trees and loads of shrubbery and whatnot, all the green, if you cover those high external wooden walls with the likes of a grass rug, It could potentially be somewhat hidden, and at the end of the day, it's still it's there. I like the idea of it, and many other people like the idea of it. More specifically, just over 600,000 as of this given time. The amount of people that watch the video, and yeah, lots of people enjoyed the video. They like it. But I have to just kind of point out one thing: this wasn't like an advertisement for the skin. No, no, no, no, no. He had an idea, and he expressed the idea early on in the video, but never did he outright point out say. I'm gonna use the grass rug. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't see the actual grass rug skin until about 34 minutes in. We don't actually see the finality of this base being made until like 50 or so minutes in. So that being when the grass rugs are all being wrapped around it and whatnot. So when I look at a video like this, I can clearly see it's just a Rust content creator walking with— walking in with a very fun idea, and he's just wanted to showcase all of it. But it just so happens that he's gonna be using a skin to help out with his idea. Now, I would refer to this as unintentional influence. People have clearly seen this and people clearly like what they see because I wouldn't be surprised if one of the many people who, you know, subscribe to Will Dream— over a million, cool, that's a lot more than me— but can you understand that many people probably saw this video and thought, well, I want to do the exact same thing? And of course, to be able to achieve this, what are they going to need to buy? They're going to need to buy the grass rug. So it isn't too hard to understand now the likes of the hype behind it that influence has taken place. Loads of people saw the video, loads of people want to emulate that, loads of people are going to need to buy that skin. And if we can quickly figure out, well, how many of these, you know, how many of these exist? Well, if we go to the likes of scmem.app, we can actually go take a look and get a good idea of what potentially might be the numbers. Um, if you don't know what scmem.app is, it's a very nice website which basically keeps track of all skins and whatnot. I'll put a link in the description of this video to give you a nice walkthrough and understanding what all this— but if we look over to here, you can see that there's about 30,000 of these in circulation. So if we were to go over to this video, which has, what, just over 600,000 viewers, if there's only like 1% of the viewership that wants to actually follow through and make something exactly like this, well, you're still looking at about 6,000 people wanting to buy the skin, and there's only about 30,000 of them in circulation. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if many people who bought this skin only bought it with the intention to actually use it, so there's only so many of these in circulation for sale. So when there's about 6,000 people, for example, who wants to go buy this, it's going to get cleaned out. And of course, the only ones remaining that are sticking around on sale are going to be the ones at a higher price. Understood? So this has only recently just happened. We shall see where this potentially goes from here, because of course we— well, the investors, we know that around January time we're going to see a lot of people playing Rust again. That's the expectation. And with loads of people playing the game, there's going to be a massive surge in skins, uh, surge in demand for skins, and that would lead to higher skin prices, aka January is the best time to sell skins. Not too hard to comprehend. I wouldn't be surprised this potentially does retain its value and does potentially go even higher, because of course there's probably loads of people who still haven't seen this video, and when they do, even more people will be influenced. Now again, at the end of the day, I'm not looking at this with a negative light. I'm just pointing out that it's working. The influence is there, but this one in this instance wasn't intentional. All right, understood. So this is where I do have to point out it isn't actually the first time they've made a video like this. So as you can see right here, if I actually turn this to the most popular videos, a good 18 months ago we have this video right here, I Lived in an Invisible Base with a Hidden Secret. And this is where we're going to talk about the likes of the camouflage net rug. So a good 18 or so months ago, Wiljan made this video. And again, with what you see in this video, he has an idea and, you know, he shows the progression of all of it, but it's not like There's the skin. Look at that. Wow, you gotta buy. No, no, no, no. It's not advertising to you. He has an idea, and you know he goes and proceeds to make it and whatnot. And loads of people, of course, have seen this video. Almost three million. Well, but basically, at the end of the day, loads of people saw it. That seen it. Sorry. And well, they want to copy that. They want to emulate that. So what do you reckon happened to likes of this rug skin that originally came out towards the end of 2021? Of course, loads of people went and bought it. So let's just quickly look at this specific date over here. This came out on the 23rd of January 2022. All right, cool, got that understood. As you can see right here, this is currently selling for $6. If I were to scroll down and look at the sales history, I mean, it hasn't really changed that much, but this is only the past month. Let's go look at its lifetime. And you notice how it's had a bit of a funny, uh, well, history. But more specifically, I want to show you that very specific date that we pointed out. Do you see this? You know, as we slowly creep along, January January 2021, January 2022. These prices that you see here are bordering around $3. But of course the video came out, loads of people saw it, and guess what happened? Loads of people wanted to copy him. Loads of people wanted to do exactly what Wildrum did. And as you can see here, it basically doubles in price. It just doubles in price. Now again, if you're wondering, but what about all of this that you see here? Well, this is because, uh, Camouflage Net Collection became a collection. As you can see here, there's multiple skins there, and it just got reinforced. Loads of people thought it was a very good collection to invest into. And of course, you know, plenty of other types of bases can be made now, the likes of desert camouflage and Arctic camouflage nets. So yeah, it had a very nice future simply because there was many more skins. But it all kickstarted with the likes of video like this made by Wilchum. So again, this type of video, again, I'm looking at it as if it's unintentional. He had a very good idea, he followed through, showed the progress of all of it, and at the end of the day, with, you know, the final result Loads of people saw it and thought, wow, I want to do the exact same thing. And lo and behold, loads of people did. So yeah, that is a very nice example to showcase that loads of people can be influenced quite easily. So as long as you have a lot of people subscribed to you and watching your videos— imagine if I had that— but we'll talk more about that a little bit later. So what I also want to show you is another instance of Willjum very recently where he was not exactly super happy about certain skins, but it was still influential. So let's now go take a look at the likes of what happened over Here on Twitter. Now you might notice I'm not playing the videos. It's not my content, so I'd rather not play this and whatnot. I will link this in the description, but yeah, can you understand I'm trying to not like infringe on other people's property, I guess you could say? But you know what I mean, like it's not my stuff, so I'm not going to play it. But I'm sure many of you have seen this video clip and the likes of Twitter. Basically, he's not exactly having a great time having to contend with people who are using full white camouflage. And well, not too hard to understand he's not exactly happy about it. But in this video, you're seeing a guy who's a Rust content creator kind of struggling to deal with people who have all this camouflage. And let me tell you, loads of people see that, and of course, guess what happens? Loads of people want to buy it. Oh, you're telling me if I wear full white in the Arctic regions, I will be having a great advantage? Well, there you go. And remember, kids, they don't have remorse, they don't have morals, they just want to make you suffer. So again, And if I quickly go over to here, I did point this out with a tweet. And as you can see, this came out on the 28th of November, more specifically my time, 4 o'clock in the afternoon. What happened? Loads of people went and bought the skins. Yep, you can see that right there. So again, influence, but probably not exactly with what Mr. Wildrum wanted. No, no, no, no. So yeah, with the likes of this Arctic collection, we did see a nice spike in demand and the prices did go up. And again, I'm not I'm not saying this it's a negative thing. But if you are a Rush content creator with a big following, you might need to be a bit more choosy with your words and with what you say because people clearly listened, noticed, and obviously bought into it. Now, a funny way of looking at this is by showcasing that it's struggled to contend against this. Well, it's made the skins more expensive, and well, I don't think every single kid can afford all of that now, can they? So ha ha ha! But yeah, again, I don't. View this as intentional, rather unintentional. He didn't sit there and say, buy this, buy this. So I should also point out, I did notice a lot of the likes of the Whiteout collection and the comics collection being bought as well. They're like full white, basically. So, um, yeah, but this was just a very, very noticeable example. This basically went up in price very, very nicely. And again, I kind of had to make a bit of a joke about this. Uh, I actually kind of, uh, clutched in with this. Oh, I've spelled that incorrectly. I've mistyped. But yeah, I, I'm going to be making some very good profit So I'm looking forward to it. But again, it's influence. People saw what was going on in the video, they noticed the advantages it gives, and well, they jumped in and they bought in. And I'm pretty sure, uh, this is gonna probably go up in price even more so when we have a lot of people returning to play the game during December and January. Um, yeah, point made. You can see influence taking place there, and it isn't always with like good intentions, I guess you could say. So now we're going to quickly hop over to here and just show you another example. So here I am. I wanted to bring up one of the videos Oblivion made in the past. Now let me just quickly elaborate on something. I originally wanted to make a video talking about manipulation, influence, and, well, deceitful tactics that some people employ to be able to trick other people into buying skins for a much higher price than what they're actually worth. This is a very old screenshot. This was made like, cool, in the middle of the summer 2022, because one of this video that you see right here was actually a very good influence on the likes of the fish collection, which I'm about to show to all of you. But, um, I can't seem to find this video anymore. If you happen to know the reason why, please feel free to comment below. But again, let's just proceed. So Oblivion made a very, uh, straightforward, uh, video showcasing that if you wear the likes of full fish, which is mostly green, you can hide in bushes, you can get the jump on many people, many unsuspecting people. And well, it's a great, you know, tactic to employ. You could get a lot of very delightful, delicious looking loot this way. And of course, if you notice, this came out on the 14th of June 2022. If I were to go take a look at that fish clothing, well, I wonder what happened to those skins around that period of time. So as you can see right here, it's only a dollar, but if I scroll down and look at sales history, go back to the past, what do we see? Do you notice that nice little spike right there? Super noticeable. Of course, we have, you know, noticed influence taking place once again. So he was a little bit more direct with the likes of his choice of words here. My overpowered ghillie tactic. But, you know, the showcase of it working and whatnot, of course, is also influential. So get a good look at that. Spiked in demand. Didn't go up insanely in price. It did cool off eventually. But you can clearly see loads of people obviously watched the video. Loads of people wanted to copy. And of course, the price followed. So very nice, very cool. You can also see this in likes of the shirt over here as well. If I quickly show you this again, do you notice it right there smack dab in the middle? Again, same period of time. And of course with the pants, if we scroll down and look at it again, you can see it right there. But pants actually did better off over time. That's a bit funny, but point still remains spiked here. So yeah, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. We can see their influence is pretty strong. So as long as you have a lot of people watching you— of course, imagine if I had that. But as I did point out here, it was a little bit more direct. It was outright saying that loads of people were angry of him simply because he had a very powerful tactic, and well, it was simply using camouflage to his advantage. What if we were to see certain people just directly telling other people, "Go buy this skin, go buy this skin"? Does that actually work? Yes, it does. Now we're going to go over to the likes of the cucumber yoka. So with the likes of this, you might not even realize something goofy happened to like this skin in the past. You look at it and it's barely over a dollar. It doesn't exactly look like it's doing insanely well at the moment. Well, it was actually when it first became marketable is where we saw some silly business happening. So if I were to show you its sales history, go to lifetime, what do you see? Well, what the hell happened over here? What's going on? Why is it so high in price here? Well, basically on TikTok A certain individual told many other people, hey, why don't we all just go buy the cucumber yoka? Wouldn't that be funny? We could make tons of money out of that. And guess what happened? Loads of people did go do that. Loads of people did jump in and buy it. It did at one point reach $20. And as you can see here, the view count, there's a lot of people that are watching. So as you can see, you can just be direct and say, guys, go buy this, go buy this. And apparently it works. Now, I don't know if this guy had that much of a following, but obviously the video gained traction, and of course it led to that insane spike in price. Now, yes, it was— the averages aren't super clear. This did reach a point where they were selling for $20, but it didn't last very well long. Okay, you understand that? Cool. So yeah, it happened, but from what you might notice, it only lasted for a while and then instantly went down. See, this is the potential bad things that can happen in regards to these manipulations, these pumps, because in many instances you might notice that it might very well just be a pump and a dump, and you can clearly see the pump and you can clearly see the dump. Now again, I don't fully know if the individual that started all of this off intended to do a pump and dump. He probably just wanted to sell the skins that he bought a lot of for a higher price, and it just kind of snowballed and went crazy. Maybe that is the case. But at the end of the day, I feel bad for everybody that bought here around $10+ because after a good few days it just slowly went down, down, and down. And remember, you have a 7-day cooldown, all right? So when you buy something on the Steam Market, you can't sell that or trade that for another 7 days. Awkward, I know, but very awkward for the people who bought here. Now I would sit here and say they've been deceived in a sense. There was a manipulation. They didn't realize what was going on fully, and they probably bought something at a much higher price, but it was inflated and they suffered because of course the price didn't hold and it went down, down, down. Very unfortunate. And this is where the negatives of influence are clearly there. This was intentional influence and well, it didn't hold and it did eventually go down, down, down, down, down in price. And I should also point out it hasn't only specifically affected the likes of the Rust economy and Rustkins. You might remember earlier this year, if you're involved in Counter-Strike, that we had the very weird AUG Storm Minimal Wear pump. Do you remember this? So basically, many people on TikTok, for some random reason, decided, hey, you know that worthless AUG Storm Minimal Wear skin that tons of people have in abundance? Yeah, let's just go buy it out. That— wouldn't that be funny? We could make tons of money. And well, at some point it actually reached to around $2 each. And if I show you what happened afterwards, it just immediately went back down again because at the end of the day, people didn't actually care for this. It was all just a pump. Now, I do believe a lot of people did get banned for buying this skin, and I do believe this is what led to us having like, uh, pending money and whatnot. Do you remember when that was all introduced this year? Yeah, that sucks, doesn't it? But Valve was trying their best to stop instances like this happening before. And with the likes of Counter-Strike being a much bigger economy compared to Rust, Yeah, you can kind of understand that something like this really caught their eye and they thought, right, we've got to do something to counter this. Counter-Strike. Anyway, moving on. So basically, as you can see, basically the exact same thing over the course of just a few days. Spike. And so yeah, these situations don't usually last very long. And as you can see, something that was completely worthless suddenly became somewhat valuable. I mean, from what you can see here, on average it reached to about $1, and there was a lot of sales. As you can see here, there's 20,000 sales right there. But you know, when all things are said and done, it's back to being worthless all over again. Nobody cares for it. It was never valuable. It was simply people just sitting there and saying, let's just buy it. They were intentionally being manipulative— manipulative, sorry, intentionally influencing to manipulate the price. And I wouldn't be surprised if they probably bought a whole bunch of these beforehand, dumped them all on the people that decided to jump in and get involved with the buy out, and then they've walked away with a ton of money. Wouldn't be surprised at all if that happened. So do be aware that there's a lot of dubious people out there that will do some naughty things just to get your delicious Steam wallet. Now, with what I'm going to show next, I don't necessarily want to come across as mean, but there's definitely a line, there's a bar, and if you know what you're doing, if you know what you're doing, it technically does kind of get where it's intentional. It's intentional influencing. So if I were to show you a certain rock, hmm, I'm sure I saw someone wanting to talk about that for a good minute or so in a very big video not too long ago. And, and loads of other people suddenly wanted to buy that. And then as we move over to here, there's this one as well. So you can make videos and, you know, highlight a certain skin and whatnot, But if you kind of like linger on it a bit and really talk big it up and whatnot, of course it can be pretty influential, can't it? So yeah, this right here is the actual skin creator of the Mother's Day rock that you can see right here. And yeah, it suddenly went up in value. I wonder why. I wonder what. I wonder what. I wonder what. So again, I have to bring up Spoonkid. He kind of likes to highlight certain skins quite a lot, doesn't he? And it's kind of reached a point where it's—it appears to be a bit of a joke among the people who watch him because I'm pretty sure it's like pretty deliberate. Yeah. So yes, this is intentional. This is intentional. Maybe it wasn't always intentional, but at some point he must have realized, well damn, all these skins I'm showcasing suddenly go up in demand. Maybe I'll, uh, lean into it a bit more. So what do you feel about this? I want to hear your comments. Like, is this naughty? Is this devilish? Is this perfectly fine? If everybody's like okay with it, then I guess. But what are your comments in regards to this? Because when you look at instances with the likes of this, uh, sleeping bag here— so this was the 11th of August 2021. I'm gonna go over to here. So right now this is currently selling for $1.43. But let's go to the past. Let's go to around August 2021 time. And do we see bit of a spike in demand. Where is that? So it's around, well, it's right there. It's right there. It's right there. So you know where the big spike is? It's right there. It's right there. Yeah. So influence is pretty strong. And if you have a very big following, clearly it works. Whether you intentionally do it or unintentionally do it, it will happen. All right. So if you are a big Rust content creator, choose your words wisely, I guess. Realize what exactly you're showing or showcasing. I know a lot of, uh, quite a decent amount of content creators are actually fed up with skins. I've seen the instance where on certain servers now they actually turn them all off, which I guess, you know, if people want that, that should be catered to. But, uh, yeah, you can clearly see how simply just showcasing it very prominently Uh, tends to work. And you can even read the comments here where even they know, come on now, you're just kind of messing about. Now we get to the point where it's like, well, Hedge, technically speaking, you're a YouTuber and you quite literally talk about investments. Wouldn't you technically be an influencer? I am fully well aware of that, and I do try my best to choose my words wisely. Like when we see new skins in a rustle and we talk about whether they're going to be good investments or whatnot, I spend a lot of time talking. I'm fully well aware. I mean, I'll look at the—I've talked for 23 minutes now—but I like to elaborate, explain, and point out all the potential good things and all the potential bad things. All right, but I will not—or I'll try my best not to say buy this, buy this, buy this because that potentially could lead to some very, very bad snowball situations and. I don't necessarily want to cause any problems. Now again, like I said, I will try my best to elaborate and explain all the potential positives, all the looming potential negatives. You understand what I'm trying to say, but I do kind of leave it to you to come up with that decision. If you only have a certain amount of money, do you think it's perfectly fine to do this? If you've got a lot of money, do you feel free to just go and, you know, throw a little bit there? You get the idea. You can understand. I I don't want to be an influencer in that type of view, but I will point out, okay, yeah, this is looking pretty good based on the amount of sales we've seen so far this week and whatnot. You get the idea. So yeah, I am fully well aware and I have learned from mistakes. So I have to bring this up. Rust vibes, here we go. So a long time back when I thought I knew enough, I didn't. 2 years ago, I talked about the likes of Rust Vibe's hoodie and pants. I thought for sure we definitely were going to see the likes of the tier 2 armor being accepted at some point. And of course, with a new core piece being accepted, well, the pre-existing core pieces, that being the hoodie and pants, would surely spike in demand, spike in price. That never happened, and I feel bad about this to this day. Now, there's a, there's a bit of a white light with this. There's a silver lining. Back then, on Twitch at the very least, I only had about 5 viewers. But I let them all down. I thought I knew enough, and I clearly didn't. And well, there you go. A few people suffered, but at the very least, it was just a few. As time has gone on, I've learned lessons. I try my best to, you know, learn new things in regards to what's going on. Hell, I've made this video right here in front of you just to explain what goes on in regards to influence and whatnot. But you can understand how just outright saying bye bye bye. Can lead to very silly, wacky things, and of course with the likes of this as well, as you saw here in the past. So I care about you, my Ruskin enjoyers, and I I don't want to accidentally lead you to potentially suffering and you know struggling. So this is why I do spend quite a lot of time talking a lot, and a lesson has been learned, hasn't it? So like I mentioned earlier. Everything that we've talked about here was actually intended to be one big fat video for my Rust Economy 101 series. So if you're completely new to all of this in regards to Ruskin investing and whatnot, feel free to go to my playlists, look at this Rust Economy 101, and you can see how I can help you get started, understand the mechanics— yes, the mechanics— of the Ruskins in the Rust store, and just kind of get you in the idea of like understanding long-term investments, dumping and oversaturation, speculating anticipation. But there was supposed to be another video. And that was manipulation, um, I've completely— influence, I've completely forgotten this magic word, and, uh, you know, being deceitful. Now I guess I could still upload them and put them here because technically speaking they do exist. And here you go, let me just quickly show you the likes of my manipulation videos. So do you remember this? Not too long ago we saw the likes of the Crossbones Crossbow. For some strange reason it went up to above $10. What caused that? well, it was manipulated. If you want to learn more about manipulation and how it differs from the likes of influence and direct influence, consider looking at that video right there. And you also have this video here as well, identifying what's currently being manipulated and understanding whether it's a good idea to actually jump in or avoid. So most, most instances, the idea is best to just avoid, because if you don't want to risk potentially losing any wallet, just avoid it. Understood? So, uh, yes, this right here This whole video that we just did hopefully has helped you understand influence. And if any bigger Rust content creators in the future potentially— or I'm lost, here you go— potentially make another very cool video in the future which just so happens to showcase a certain skin in a certain way, well, as an investor, you might realize, wait, you know what, if loads of people are going to see that, maybe I should go buy a few of those skins, wait a good week or so, and then sell them. I should probably probably most likely make a very nice profit potentially. So yeah, you might potentially be able to work around with the likes of that if you have the money to be able to work things like that, if that makes sense. But, um, yeah, I hope this whole video was nice and helpful. Um, I hope I didn't infringe upon other people's work and whatnot. Again, this wasn't a negative light, this was simply pointing out that influence Clearly works. And yes, it does differ from the likes of manipulation. Manipulation is a whole different story. Manipulation is trying to deceive other people into paying something that's not worth the price because you inflated it. The likes of the videos that we saw here as an example of direct and indirect influence and whatnot, I don't think really delves into manipulation. I mean, in some instances you're definitely walking a fine line, but yeah. So overall Thank you very much for watching this. I greatly appreciate it and whatnot, and I hope you learned something. And so with that, thank you very much for watching me. I greatly appreciate it. I hope you all enjoyed yourself, and hopefully you understand now why this magically spiked in demand and spiked in price. And if you, if you still don't know, then I don't know how to help you. I'm sorry. Now, I will point this out. For the video I intended to make, that was probably going to be about an hour long. There's still one core piece of the story I haven't brought up, and it's pointing out how far certain individuals will go to manipulate certain prices. And you know what? I feel motivated now to actually probably turn that into a bit of a storytime video. So keep an eye out for that. I will showcase how a certain individual managed to manipulate a skin to potentially— well, Earn thousands upon thousands of Steam wallet to then trick certain third-party sites and gambling sites. So yes, we'll probably turn that into a video now. I feel motivated to go ahead and do it. So is that something to keep an eye out for in the future? And with that, once again, thank you very much for watching me. I greatly appreciate it. And well, I'll speak to you soon, I guess. See ya. Bye. And enjoy Christmas and whatnot. Yeah, yeah, bye.