The CS:GO workshop community constantly amazes us with weapon finishes and stickers of increasingly high quality. We have currently shipped over 70 weapon submissions made by the community and all together, CS:GO weapon finish creators have earned over $3 million, with each finish earning over $40,000 on average.

Since shipping the first community case, we've gathered and responded to a variety of contributor questions. Common questions include "how do I get my submission in a case?", and "what can I do better to get my work noticed?". These are useful questions to answer for all contributors, so we've outlined our answers in the form of contributor tips below:

Tips for Contributors

• Submit only high quality designs that were made by you. The entirety of the submission must be your creation; no clip art. It must be original content and if the work is the result of collaboration then every contributor must be listed in the contributor revenue share. The designs that you submit must be of high quality in execution. Showing your process is a great way to stand out and demonstrate the quality and originality of your work.
  
  
• For weapon finishes, consider making finishes for weapons that have few high quality submissions. Some weapons don’t have a lot of high quality finishes submitted for them (Duel Berettas and Negev for example). Making high quality original finishes for those weapons is great way to stand out and increase you chances of making it into a case. Keep in mind each item in a case gets an equal share of the revenue.
  
  
• Vary the techniques, themes and finish types, and try to experiment with new ones. When putting together cases and capsules we look for items that vary in technique and theme. Technique is the type of artwork that is used. Graphic patterns and hand painted designs are examples of different techniques. Example for themes would be finishes that look Sci-fi or Military. If you are making finishes for a particular weapon you may want to make one with a technique or theme that is under-represented, or hasn't been attempted yet. Certain types of finishes are also underrepresented in the workshop. In particular finishes that allow for flexibility in the way a pattern is applied to a weapon. These offer players a chance to get a unique version of a weapon finish.
  
  
• Don't fixate on bold designs. Cases and capsules also contain designs that vary in saturation and contrast. Currently on the workshop we see many high contrast highly saturated designs. These designs can be identified from a distance but equally important are designs that are subtle enough to only be noticed when held, as different players have different preferences when it comes to broadcasting their weapon finish choice. Try making designs that vary in saturation and contrast. Sometimes making a subtle design is actually harder than a bold one.
  
  
• Don't forget about popularity. Getting your finish upvoted and noticed is a great way to demonstrate desirability and collect feedback that will help you iterate on it. One of the factors we use to gauge community interest is the popularity of a submission.

Hopefully this information is helpful when you are making decisions on what to work on. We look forward to seeing even more amazing work from the CS:GO Community.

The CS:GO workshop community constantly amazes us with weapon finishes and stickers of increasingly high quality. We have currently shipped over 70 weapon submissions made by the community and all together, CS:GO weapon finish creators have earned over $3 million, with each finish earning over $40,000 on average.

Since shipping the first community case, we've gathered and responded to a variety of contributor questions. Common questions include "how do I get my submission in a case?", and "what can I do better to get my work noticed?". These are useful questions to answer for all contributors, so we've outlined our answers in the form of contributor tips below:

Tips for Contributors

• Submit only high quality designs that were made by you. The entirety of the submission must be your creation; no clip art. It must be original content and if the work is the result of collaboration then every contributor must be listed in the contributor revenue share. The designs that you submit must be of high quality in execution. Showing your process is a great way to stand out and demonstrate the quality and originality of your work.
  
  
• For weapon finishes, consider making finishes for weapons that have few high quality submissions. Some weapons don’t have a lot of high quality finishes submitted for them (Duel Berettas and Negev for example). Making high quality original finishes for those weapons is great way to stand out and increase you chances of making it into a case. Keep in mind each item in a case gets an equal share of the revenue.
  
  
• Vary the techniques, themes and finish types, and try to experiment with new ones. When putting together cases and capsules we look for items that vary in technique and theme. Technique is the type of artwork that is used. Graphic patterns and hand painted designs are examples of different techniques. Example for themes would be finishes that look Sci-fi or Military. If you are making finishes for a particular weapon you may want to make one with a technique or theme that is under-represented, or hasn't been attempted yet. Certain types of finishes are also underrepresented in the workshop. In particular finishes that allow for flexibility in the way a pattern is applied to a weapon. These offer players a chance to get a unique version of a weapon finish.
  
  
• Don't fixate on bold designs. Cases and capsules also contain designs that vary in saturation and contrast. Currently on the workshop we see many high contrast highly saturated designs. These designs can be identified from a distance but equally important are designs that are subtle enough to only be noticed when held, as different players have different preferences when it comes to broadcasting their weapon finish choice. Try making designs that vary in saturation and contrast. Sometimes making a subtle design is actually harder than a bold one.
  
  
• Don't forget about popularity. Getting your finish upvoted and noticed is a great way to demonstrate desirability and collect feedback that will help you iterate on it. One of the factors we use to gauge community interest is the popularity of a submission.

Hopefully this information is helpful when you are making decisions on what to work on. We look forward to seeing even more amazing work from the CS:GO Community.

Recently we received a DMCA takedown notice regarding copyright infringement with respect to the the M4A4 | Howl, and a community sticker, Howling Dawn, claiming that the artwork was not originally created by the stated contributors. This matter is extremely serious, and we have taken appropriate action to resolve it.

When we launched the CS:GO Items Workshop, our goal was to provide artists with a space to share their creative ideas. By design, the Items Workshop has very low friction for artists to submit their work – new contributions do not require Valve review or approval. To ensure that these contributions represent original content, we require that all Workshop contributors sign a legal agreement confirming that their contributions are original. We also enable the community to monitor Workshop submissions and identify copies and plagiarism via the report flag.

All contributors share joint responsibility for the originality of their Workshop submission, and therefore share joint liability for claims of copyright infringement. That is, if two or more artists collaborate on a submission and the submission contains intellectual property that isn’t their own, all artists involved in the submission will share in the consequences.

For the items in question, the following steps have been taken:

• Both contributors have received Steam Community bans. They receive no proceeds from either item, and both items have been removed from the game.
  
• For owners of the M4A4 | Howl and Howling Dawn sticker, those items have been replaced by an alternative designed by the CS:GO team. These items will never be produced again, and have been assigned the ‘Contraband’ rarity.
  
• All other in-game items that involve at least one of the contributors in their revenue share have been discontinued.
  
• The Huntsman Case and Community Sticker Capsule have been revised to replace the copied and discontinued items.
  
• Moving forward, we will no longer work with the contributors and we will not ship any existing Workshop submission that credits their involvement.

The cost for everyone involved in the resolution of this issue has been significant, including our players and community members. It takes considerable time and effort for the CS:GO team to resolve copyright infringement disputes, but fortunately copying is rare – the CS:GO community has submitted tens of thousands of unique entries to the Workshop, and we have shipped dozens of your designs without a problem.

To ensure that we don’t have issues in the future, we need your help. Please only contribute original work. If you see any items that appear to violate the Workshop copyright policy, please direct the copyright owner to tell us via Valve’s DMCA takedown page. Together we can keep the Workshop a safe place for artists and their hard work.

Recently we received a DMCA takedown notice regarding copyright infringement with respect to the the M4A4 | Howl, and a community sticker, Howling Dawn, claiming that the artwork was not originally created by the stated contributors. This matter is extremely serious, and we have taken appropriate action to resolve it.

When we launched the CS:GO Items Workshop, our goal was to provide artists with a space to share their creative ideas. By design, the Items Workshop has very low friction for artists to submit their work – new contributions do not require Valve review or approval. To ensure that these contributions represent original content, we require that all Workshop contributors sign a legal agreement confirming that their contributions are original. We also enable the community to monitor Workshop submissions and identify copies and plagiarism via the report flag.

All contributors share joint responsibility for the originality of their Workshop submission, and therefore share joint liability for claims of copyright infringement. That is, if two or more artists collaborate on a submission and the submission contains intellectual property that isn’t their own, all artists involved in the submission will share in the consequences.

For the items in question, the following steps have been taken:

• Both contributors have received Steam Community bans. They receive no proceeds from either item, and both items have been removed from the game.
  
• For owners of the M4A4 | Howl and Howling Dawn sticker, those items have been replaced by an alternative designed by the CS:GO team. These items will never be produced again, and have been assigned the ‘Contraband’ rarity.
  
• All other in-game items that involve at least one of the contributors in their revenue share have been discontinued.
  
• The Huntsman Case and Community Sticker Capsule have been revised to replace the copied and discontinued items.
  
• Moving forward, we will no longer work with the contributors and we will not ship any existing Workshop submission that credits their involvement.

The cost for everyone involved in the resolution of this issue has been significant, including our players and community members. It takes considerable time and effort for the CS:GO team to resolve copyright infringement disputes, but fortunately copying is rare – the CS:GO community has submitted tens of thousands of unique entries to the Workshop, and we have shipped dozens of your designs without a problem.

To ensure that we don’t have issues in the future, we need your help. Please only contribute original work. If you see any items that appear to violate the Workshop copyright policy, please direct the copyright owner to tell us via Valve’s DMCA takedown page. Together we can keep the Workshop a safe place for artists and their hard work.

Release Notes for 6/4/2014

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- When a player has been banned for cheating (via VAC or Overwatch), all Skill Group adjustments from that player's recent wins will be reverted for their partied teammates as well as their opponents.

[]
- The "thirdperson" and related commands are now executable by servers (for mods and plugins).
- Added a server convar (sv_allow_thirdperson) which allows servers to set players to third person mode.
- The env_fog_controller entity now has a field and input to scale the amount fog is adjusted when players zoom (with scoped weapons).
- Community tournament servers with built-in round backups enabled will automatically restore all player data upon reconnection and this in most cases will avoid having to load round backups.

Release Notes for 6/4/2014

[]
- When a player has been banned for cheating (via VAC or Overwatch), all Skill Group adjustments from that player's recent wins will be reverted for their partied teammates as well as their opponents.

[]
- The "thirdperson" and related commands are now executable by servers (for mods and plugins).
- Added a server convar (sv_allow_thirdperson) which allows servers to set players to third person mode.
- The env_fog_controller entity now has a field and input to scale the amount fog is adjusted when players zoom (with scoped weapons).
- Community tournament servers with built-in round backups enabled will automatically restore all player data upon reconnection and this in most cases will avoid having to load round backups.

Release Notes for 5/28/2014

[GAMEPLAY]
- Cobblestone
-- Blocked long sightline from back of Bombsite B
-- No longer possible to plant on top of hut at bombsite A
-- Made statue base at bombsite B taller, so players can't peek over
-- Made hut on bombsite B catwalk wider
-- Moved all T spawns to upper level
-- Decreased fog
-- Removed small tree near platform in mid
-- Pushed down some vegetation that players could hide in
-- Disabled collision on small rocks
-- Blocked visibility through cart in mid
-- Revised cover in Bombsite B courtyard

- Overpass
-- Redesigned the connector between canal and park
-- Made tunnels under Bombsite A easier to navigate
-- Added lights to hut near Bombsite A

[MISC]
- Matches in which a whole team gets disconnected will no longer terminate and the disconnected players will get the opportunity to reconnect and finish the match.
- Added a new context menu option 'Use With Trade Up Contract,' which will be visible when you own ten or more items of the same quality.
- Weapons can no longer be deleted from the inventory.
- Added a game setting for twitch.tv streamers to allow backend integration with new twitch.tv directory.
- Added backend integration with Steam Community for better inventory filtering and Steam Community Market search.
- Added support for per-channel ratelimits in engine threaded network layer, ratelimits are controlled with a group of net_threaded_socket convars.
- Fixed pistol round achievements to award player progress in the pistol round of the second half in competitive matches.
- Fixed several rare crashes on clients and servers.
- Fixed a problem in tournament round backups when players had invalid characters in their persona names.

Release Notes for 5/28/2014

[GAMEPLAY]
- Cobblestone
-- Blocked long sightline from back of Bombsite B
-- No longer possible to plant on top of hut at bombsite A
-- Made statue base at bombsite B taller, so players can't peek over
-- Made hut on bombsite B catwalk wider
-- Moved all T spawns to upper level
-- Decreased fog
-- Removed small tree near platform in mid
-- Pushed down some vegetation that players could hide in
-- Disabled collision on small rocks
-- Blocked visibility through cart in mid
-- Revised cover in Bombsite B courtyard

- Overpass
-- Redesigned the connector between canal and park
-- Made tunnels under Bombsite A easier to navigate
-- Added lights to hut near Bombsite A

[MISC]
- Matches in which a whole team gets disconnected will no longer terminate and the disconnected players will get the opportunity to reconnect and finish the match.
- Added a new context menu option 'Use With Trade Up Contract,' which will be visible when you own ten or more items of the same quality.
- Weapons can no longer be deleted from the inventory.
- Added a game setting for twitch.tv streamers to allow backend integration with new twitch.tv directory.
- Added backend integration with Steam Community for better inventory filtering and Steam Community Market search.
- Added support for per-channel ratelimits in engine threaded network layer, ratelimits are controlled with a group of net_threaded_socket convars.
- Fixed pistol round achievements to award player progress in the pistol round of the second half in competitive matches.
- Fixed several rare crashes on clients and servers.
- Fixed a problem in tournament round backups when players had invalid characters in their persona names.

Release Notes for 5/21/2014

[SERVERS]
- Added a convar mp_backup_restore_load_autopause to control whether the game remains paused after round backup file is loaded.
- Added a dedicated server convar host_rules_show to control whether the server is allowed to reply to connectionless rules requests.
- Improved server lobby slot allocation logic to reduce the chance of getting 'session is full' errors when connecting to a game server with available player slots.
- Fixed a slow memory leak in Linux dedicated servers.
- Fixed several rare game server crashes on Linux.

[MISC]
- Added a convar (cl_hideserverip) that when set to 1, will hide most cases of the server and client IP address appearing in the developer console.
- In official competitive matchmaking, servers will no longer show the message of the day.
- Fixed several errors that previously showed up in the console.
- Moved some messages that would previously show up in the console to dev 1 and above.

Release Notes for 5/21/2014

[SERVERS]
- Added a convar mp_backup_restore_load_autopause to control whether the game remains paused after round backup file is loaded.
- Added a dedicated server convar host_rules_show to control whether the server is allowed to reply to connectionless rules requests.
- Improved server lobby slot allocation logic to reduce the chance of getting 'session is full' errors when connecting to a game server with available player slots.
- Fixed a slow memory leak in Linux dedicated servers.
- Fixed several rare game server crashes on Linux.

[MISC]
- Added a convar (cl_hideserverip) that when set to 1, will hide most cases of the server and client IP address appearing in the developer console.
- In official competitive matchmaking, servers will no longer show the message of the day.
- Fixed several errors that previously showed up in the console.
- Moved some messages that would previously show up in the console to dev 1 and above.