Impacts of the CS:GO Skin Workshop - More good or bad?

[Ringel 231]

I was amazed as Valve added the posibility to upload weapon skins to the workshop and also supported creators by adding community made skins to the game. At this time I mainly saw the positive about the system.

• support of content creators
• a much greater variety of skins that make it into the game

It looked like a win win situation for Valve and the content creators. But is this really true?

 

Valve do support content creators, but only just a few of all of those who create awesome skins. Also the majority of the skins that would be worth adding to the game are just gather dust inside the workshop without any use. The time creators spend making these skins could have been used to create content that is actually used and adds value to something and someone else. The crazy amount of money that is paid out to supported creators increases the likeliness that people work on cs:go skins instead of other stuff that has some actual use / value.

What about the variety of skins that make it into the game? Valve do add skins of the same creators again and again. Although there are enough creators of unique high quality skins which would allow Valve to add only skins from more different creators. Could it be possible that Valve do support the same creators several times because they also choose skins by what they personally like? I mean the indicators are given that this might be true and thus the variety of skins we see ingame would be limited by what they like. It would then make almost no difference if they would just hire people to create all the skins by themself. I guess this would be a better option than having the skin workshop. Because a crazy amount of time would not be wasted by creating thousands of skins without any use.

This makes me believe the skin workshop does have much greater negative impacts than good.

Do you believe the cs:go skin workshop is a good thing?

[Radu 2,821]

Yes, as objective as the csgo team is during the selection process, there's still gonna be a bit of their personal preferences at play. But I believe they don't just pick what they like and instead look at the skin pool as a whole to decide what it could use. The reason why they go for some of the same skin creators is because of reputation. If the said skin maker produces high quality skins that have no contextual issues over time, all the better. Generally, you want to be sure that there's no copyright infringement or offensive materials in these skins. 

Valve said it themselves, nobody is gonna beat the community's creativity. It makes sense for them to support their current model. You have people from all over the world, with different tastes and experiences, producing high quality content for them to pick from. As for skins that go unused, nobody is forcing people to make these skins. People have been creating skins for their favourite games since forever. If there's a chance of them getting paid in the process, all the better! Sure, there's a high level of competition and some people might be picked over others repeatedly, but that's just the current state of the workshop after years of maturing. 

Ultimately, it's everyone's personal choice to decide what their time is better spent on and what adds value to their lives. If that means making skins, great!

Edited Thursday at 11:47 AM by Radu

[Ringel 231]

Of course the skin Workshop makes sense for Valve. They do profit from this system. Also a very few content creators. But the great majority does not.

Everyone can choose what they want to do with their time and create what they want. But facing the reality. Plenty of people get seduced tempted by the money and create csgo skins instead of doing other things they should do.

Edited Thursday at 10:40 AM by Ringel

[Radu 2,821]

10 minutes ago, Ringel said:

Plenty of people get seduced by the money and create csgo skins instead of doing other things they should do.

What other things should they do? 

[Lizard 1,339]

 

16 minutes ago, Ringel said:

Everyone can choose what they want to do with their time and create what they want.

 

16 minutes ago, Ringel said:

create csgo skins instead of doing other things they should do.

They are not forced into making skins. They have full knowledge that there is a good chance their skin wont make it into the game and they still do it because making a skin and having a chance of earning big ammount of money is better than not making a skin and having 0 chance of earning big money.

16 minutes ago, Ringel said:

but majority does not.

 

Thats how life works... You can't expect Valve to pay every single skin creator. They were great enough to allow some of the people to profit from what they been doing for free.

Edited Thursday at 10:53 AM by Lizard

[Ringel 231]

8 minutes ago, Lizard said:

Who are you to tell people what they should do with their lifes? They are not forced into making skins. They have full knowledge that there is a good chance their skin wont make it into the game and they still do it because making a skin and having a chance of earning big ammount of money is better than not making a skin and having 0 chance of earning big money.

I tell no one what they should do with their lifes. Yes, they are not forced to create such skins but many are tempted.

8 minutes ago, Lizard said:

Thats how life works... You can't expect Valve to pay every single skin creator. They were great enough to allow some of the people to profit from what they been doing for free.

That's how life work... I say that is what is going wrong in life.

Would be silly to expect Valve to pay every skin creator. I believe just hire some more talented skin creators would be much better. The community will be satisfied enough with the skins they produce. Edit: It would not have such a high cost the current system has.

Edited Thursday at 11:00 AM by Ringel

[Lizard 1,339]

10 minutes ago, Ringel said:

I tell no one what they should do with their lifes. Yes, they are not forced to create such skins but many are tempted.

That's how life work... I say that is what is going wrong in life.

Would be silly to expect Valve to pay every skin creator. I believe just hire some more talented skin creators would be much better. The community will be satisfied enough with the skins they produce. Edit: It would not have such a high cost the current system has.

Do you know that they have hired level designers yet they pay us to create the maps? 

Exactly what high cost the current system has?

Edited Thursday at 11:07 AM by Lizard

[Ringel 231]

16 minutes ago, Lizard said:

Do you know that they have hired level designers yet they pay us to create the maps?

Oh, Valve does pay people on Mapcore to create maps?

16 minutes ago, Lizard said:

Exactly what high cos the current system has?

The cost? The temptation and the huge loss of time from many people spend creating something that is not been used in any way. I guess you don't know how bad such temptations can be. Especially if people are in a bad (eg. financial) situation. It is almost like the body forces them to act on such temptations. It can have great negative effect on their lifes. Because they neglect other things that would help them to get out of their situation. Look at how big the csgo and content creator community is. There are probably hundreds of people who are suffering from this.

Many just create cs:go weapon skins because there is the tiny change to get a crazy amount of money. If someone really wants to create skins, not just for the money, then there are much better options than cs:go weapon skins.

Edited Thursday at 11:20 AM by Ringel

[Lizard 1,339]

7 minutes ago, Ringel said:

The temptation and the huge loss of time from many people spend creating something that is not been used in any way. I guess you don't know how bad such temptations can be. Especially if people are in a bad (eg. financial) situation

Then maybe they should look for a stable job instead of trying to winning a lottery ticket with steam workshop. If you are in a bad financial situation and think that creating a skin will help you then you should rethink few things.

 

7 minutes ago, Ringel said:

The temptation and the huge loss of time from many people spend creating something that is not been used in any way.

You need to realise that every finished project is a value added in many ways. Not a wasted time.

Edited Thursday at 11:28 AM by Lizard

[Ringel 231]

50 minutes ago, Lizard said:

Then maybe they should look for a stable job instead of winning a lottery ticket with steam workshop. If you are in a bad financial situation and think that creating a skin will help you then you should rethink few things.

Like I said they get forced by their body because of their bad situation. You clearly have absolut no idea how strong your body can react and try to force you to do something bad.

Edit: And please do not come that there are other temptations. It is about this specific one that can be erased by Valve. Edit: It could also be erased by not paying for skins which make it into the game. But I guess the most people will stop creating skins as soon as they would get to know this.

Edited Thursday at 12:16 PM by Ringel

[Lizard 1,339]

3 minutes ago, Ringel said:

Like I said they get forced by their body because of their bad situation. You clearly have absolut no idea how strong your body can react and try to force you to do something bad.

This is just nonesense for me but maybe someone else will have a different point of view on this one.
Stay strong man.

[Ringel 231]

 

15 minutes ago, Lizard said:

You need to realise that every finished project is a value added in many ways. Not a wasted time.

I know the benefits of creating stuff, like learning something, build a portfolio and so on. Everything of those can you get without the csgo skin workshop. The only unique thing this workshop offers is that you can get your skin into cs:go.

9 minutes ago, Lizard said:

This is just nonesense for me but maybe someone else will have a different point of view on this one.
Stay strong man.

It needs wisdom and life experience to understand this. But you will never know how it feels and how strong it is if you haven't experienced something similar.

Edited Thursday at 11:40 AM by Ringel

[Lizard 1,339]

2 minutes ago, Ringel said:

 

I know the benefits of creating stuff, like learning something, build a portfolio and so on. Everything of those can you get without the csgo skin workshop. The only unique thing this workshop offers is that you can get your skin into cs:go.

It needs wisdom and life experience to understand this. But you will never know how it feels if you haven't experienced something similar.

Like you know what I have experienced throughout my life dude. Cut it off. Please go back to the topic of this thread.

[Radu 2,821]

Well, that escalated quickly.

 

1 hour ago, Ringel said:

The cost? The temptation and the huge loss of time from many people spend creating something that is not been used in any way. I guess you don't know how bad such temptations can be. Especially if people are in a bad (eg. financial) situation. It is almost like the body forces them to act on such temptations. It can have great negative effect on their lifes. Because they neglect other things that would help them to get out of their situation. Look at how big the csgo and content creator community is. There are probably hundreds of people who are suffering from this.

Many just create cs:go weapon skins because there is the tiny change to get a crazy amount of money. If someone really wants to create skins, not just for the money, then there are much better options than cs:go weapon skins.

Yes, not everyone is going to make it because people are different and subsequently vary in skill. And, yes, there are people who are going to be tempted by the money, by the chance of making it big in one hit, but that is not something isolated to skin making for csgo. 

People have to realise that striking gold in one hit happens once in a million and that it's a bad strategy to religiously dedicate themselves to pursuing that. Creating something of value takes time and you need to take care of yourself. Otherwise, you'll end up dead before you've barely started.

Valve is offering people a chance just like you would have in any other field. But I have to admit that compared to a traditional employment situation, you are leaving a lot to chance by doing work without a contract. If you have a contract with an employer, you are getting paid no matter what. However, I don't consider this a problem. It's perfectly clear that this is not a job and pursuing it full time would be a gamble.

[Roald 1,327]