In the light of school shootings and international terrorism, a close-to-reality shooter starring bomb-planting terrorist has never been an easy sell to concerned parents, or even the general public. The ramificationsĬS:GO never had the best public reputation. Skins piled up to be one mainstay of CS:GO ’s economic welfare, a backbone that cast an ever growing shadow, though. Skins heralded the start of CS:GO ’s gold rush era and became an integral part of its everyday culture.
Likewise, it would be naive to think the game would be where it is today without skin trading, selling, and gambling. Of course, not of all CS:GO’s success as an esports comes from its gambling market. While the DreamHack Winter 2013 final set an annual record by attracting some 145,000 concurrent viewers, this year’s MLG Major in Columbus, Ohio peaked at an audience of 1.6 million viewers. Most remarkably is CS:GO’s development as a spectator sport, though. Between 20, the total prize money spent rose from roughly $20 million to more than $60 million, the number of tournaments doubled, and the average earnings per player increased by a good $1,000 per month, according to data from. Competitive CS:GO witnessed a massive boom, in part due to its attractive gambling market.
Just like that, “ez skins, ez money, ez life.”ĭay followed day, and the peaceful coexistence between Valve and skin gambling operators led to a period of prosperity and growth that lasted almost three years. Websites, that happily use the Steamworks API for their purposes, connect to your Steam account, place bets with your skins, and convert your skins into cash. It was a gold mine, not only for Valve, who made more than $500 million in total revenue since the launch of CS:GO in 2012, but also for lucky gamblers and-more than anything-owners of gambling websites the likes of CSGO Lounge, CSGO Diamonds, and CSGO Lotto. The concept is simple: players receive skins via timed weapon drops, opening weapon cases with keys they bought, or by trading and selling them on the Steam Marketplace. When Valve introduced weapon skins to CS:GO in August 2013, sites designed to facilitate the gambling of said skins quickly, and maybe inevitably, sprung up.
Thanks to its freely available API called Steamworks, which can be used to integrate Steam functions into various products like matchmaking, microtransactions, in-game achievements etc., the platform is also very popular among developers of all kinds-including plenty of skin gambling operators, websites that let you bet virtual items on professional matches, especially in CS:GO and-to a smaller extent-in Dota 2. Up-to-date multiplayer gaming, digital rights management, and social networking services all in one place, combined with functions like voice-chat, cloud storage and several other community features makes for a virtual Valhalla. To many, Valve’s digital distribution platform Steam is god’s gift for today’s video gamer. Here’s how it got this far, and where we go from here.
Valve’s recent and unsurprising decision to crack down on third-party websites that enable CS:GO weapon skin gambling will have a big impact on the game, and indeed the entire esports industry.
This article was written in a joint effort with GosuGamers’ Tim Masters and Aleksei Louchnikov.