What would Philip Treacy or Eugenia Kim make of the Vintage Merryweather or the Gentleman’s Gatsby, two of the virtual hats coveted by fans of the first-person shooter video game Team Fortress 2?

They would most likely scratch their heads over the fact that the computer-generated chapeaus, which serve no purpose except to allow players to dress up their avatars, sell for upward of $2,000 — in real money.

“Guns are worthless, you want the hats,” said Robert Cass, 30, a photo technician in New York who has amassed a sizable collection of hats. “It’s purely status.”

Hats like the Industrial Festivizer, which resembles a loop of Christmas tree lights, took Mr. Cass hundreds of hours of game play to find. (They are locked inside special crates.) So a gray market has emerged where the game’s three million active players can trade or buy hats.