How Did Skins Evolve in CS:GO?

Now in CS:GO you can find hundreds of skins, and in each new case, Valve carefully considers the choice of weapons. But this was not always the case: in the days of the first chests containing gun skins, developers often had to change the pattern on weapons after they were released. Sometimes this happened due to copyright infringement, and sometimes it was just to improve them so that the game as more colorful. With cs2 skins, the color is given special attention.

Can you remember the history of the legendary skin M4A4 | Howl? After «Howl» appeared in the Hunting Case, it was discovered that the designer had stolen the drawing from another creator. Valve not only redrew the skin, but also removed it from the case, and made it contraband. The weapon only remained in the inventories of those users who knocked it out or bought it before deletion.

It’s a similar story with M4A4 | Griffin. The drawing on the skin also belonged to another creator, which is why Valve was forced to redraw the gun. Having learnt from  the history of the Howl skin, users rushed to buy the skin in the hope that the developers would also make the Griffin bootleg.

What were the first skins?

A distinctive feature of CS:GO from the previous series was the presence of skins. In CS:GO, skins have become visible to everyone. And now, during the existence of CS:GO, we can observe numerous different skins and cases.

It is important to remember the “The Arms Deal” collection, which included nine weapon skins. Popular skins from this collection are:

  • AK-47 | Case Hardened;
  • Desert Eagle | Hypnotic;
  • AWP | Lightning Strike.

Mostly new cases come out with new operations, but sometimes in honor of various events: for example, esports cases are issued in honor of the tournaments taking place at the time. Each case has its own collection, but not every collection has its own case. This is explained by the fact that there are more collections in the game than the cases themselves.

After “The Arms Deal”, as many as 15 collections were released, including 12 maps. They included the usual Alpha collection, a case from Operation Bravo, the second part of the Arms Deal Two Collection and much more.

Take a look at the color preferences of that time. There are no bright patterns on the body of M4A4 | Tornado; only gray and blue colors.

M4A4

You can also look at AK-47 | Red Laminate, which also does not have any bright patterns, and a «boring»” color scheme.

AK-47

Today in CS:GO you can find many different bright and beautiful skins. For example, AWP | Dragon Lore.

AWP

Glove evolution

For a long time, knives in CS:GO were the best drop that could fall out of a case. Everyone wanted a beautiful skin for a knife, and if someone managed to knock out a knife, they got a lot of attention from players.

However, in November 2016, developers released the long-awaited Glove Case. Here the rarest drop was not a knife, but gloves. Users’ reactions were very positive, and on the trading floor, prices for even a case increased significantly.