Valve has stepped in to rescue a Counter-Strike 2 player after his account was hacked, held to ransom, and stripped of a collection of extremely rare stickers worth roughly $300,000.
The rare items were a full set of Katowice 2014 Major stickers, some of the most valuable cosmetics in the game, and the player in question had kept hold of this full set ever since they were worth only a few dollars each. Now, a single Titan Holo sticker from the collection is worth upwards of $70,000.
Hawkeye, the owner of the collection, revealed the situation on X. He wrote: “HELP! MY ACCOUNT GOT HACKED AND I AM NOW BEING BLACKMAILED. PLEASE X PEOPLE, TAG ANYONE YOU MAY KNOW IN STEAM SUPPORT TO RESPOND TO MY TICKET (HT-7HXJ-VP85-9HXQ) ASAP.” He tagged Steam, Counter-Strike, and Valve in an attempt to get immediate help.
These stickers were originally obtained in 2014 and had remained untouched for more than a decade. After gaining access to his account, the hackers demanded payment to a crypto wallet.
However, impatient, they applied the entire set of stickers onto default Negev machine guns, and scraped them. Once a sticker is applied and scraped on a weapon, the change is permanent, with no standard process to reverse it. At this point, the situation appeared doomed.
Valve steps in after taking responsibility
Reversals of sticker applications are unheard of, and only once before has Valve stepped in to save a high-value account from hackers, making Hawkeye’s situation look irreversible. But within hours, Valve restored the account and reverted every sticker back to its original state.
Hawkeye confirmed the outcome in another post: “I am at a complete loss for words. From the BOTTOM of my heart, thank you.”
He later explained how the breach happened despite using every available protection.
“Speculation Clear Up: My account was as hardened as possible. Steam Guard was on. Steam support admitted ‘…a support technician that handled the help request failed to follow our process which resulted in your account restored to someone else. I apologize for this error…’”
Hawkeye told followers he would stay quiet for a short period while confirming his account was fully restored. “You guys gotta understand that I gotta go dark for a little to make sure that everything was restored. I’m not accepting any new friend requests at this time. But thank you ALL for the love and support.”
Many players were relieved to see Valve take the situation seriously, indicating they are willing to protect the value of these items in the CS2 skin economy.
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