Recently, one of the skins included in Revolution Case has been replaced. This happened with AWP Doodle Lore due to the fact that the rights to the artwork used in the design did not belong to the skin author. However, this is not the first such case in the history of the game, and once such a situation led to the emergence of a separate category of skins.
What happened with M4A4 Howl
In 2014, a skin for M4A4 called Howl was added to the game by two community members – Auzzii and sic. They had previously added the skin to Steam's Workshop and the developers liked it. Auzzii Auzzii mentioned in the description of the object that the source for the illustration was an image of his own dog. However, it later turned out that there was no truth to this note: the author of the drawing was actually an artist named CanisAnubis, who was unpleasantly surprised to find his work on the body of the virtual rifle.
After the author contacted Valve and the story went public, Valve responded quickly. Both creators of Howl got banned, and sic, in addition, lost income from other skins he created earlier. In addition, Valve redesigned the skin, replacing the borrowed artwork, and moved it to the «Contraband». This means that the skin never drops out, no new copies appear, and can only be obtained through a trade with another player. Not surprisingly, the price of the M4A4 Howl has increased manifold.
AWP Doodle Lore
Problem
When rumors began to circulate after the release of the Revolution case that the design of the AWP Doodle Lore was also stolen from another artist, many players expected Valve to add to the list of «Smuggled» skins. However, this did not happen, and there could be several reasons for this:- The developers may have decided that the case M4A4 Howl ended up negatively affecting the game's economy. Most transactions with Howl are conducted outside the official trading platform, which is not profitable for the developers.
- For the stable development of the market is more important to a large number of transactions with skins of low and medium value, rather than rare purchases of unique items.
- Besides, unlike Howl, it would be much more difficult to change the design of Doodle Lore, keeping its basic idea.
As a result, Valve simply decided to replace the skin, although this decision was not to the liking of all players. «» However, even if a similar situation arises again in one of the next cases, it is unlikely – that Valve will make a decision based on the specific situation each time.
