The introduction of the Steam Trading card system—which allows players to earn tradable badges, profile backgrounds, emoticons, and coupons on Steam by playing games—has created a most peculiar market of digital items that people are willing to pay lots of cash for.
To wit: one of the more expensive "items" one can purchase is a weed emoticon, which players can get by collecting a set of trading cards from the game Port Royale 3. It's a business simulator with real-time battles. Here's a trailer.
The price of the emoticon gained from Port Royale fluctuates on a day-to-day basis, with the most recent high price reaching nearly 40 dollars. For an emoticon.
According to Gameranx, purchasing the emoticon outright may be a smarter choice than attaining the set of cards and relying on chance to see if combining them together results in the weed emoticon. Y'know, in case you're hankering for a weed emoticon to use on Steam chat.