CS:GO is celebrating a decade in August 2022. On this occasion it is worth remembering a few interesting facts about when skins appeared in the game and what they were. The update that added the first skins was released on August 14, 2013 – a little less than a year after the launch of the game itself.
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The very first case in the game was simply called CS:GO Weapon Case. It also featured knives for the first time, which would soon be among the most expensive in-game items. During the beta test, the standard knives on the attack and defense sides differed: one used the Flip Knifeand the other Bayonet. With the advent of the briefcase, both types of knives were replaced with standard knives, and these two players now had to mine themselves. In addition, the Weapon Case has been used to drop off Gut Knife, M9 Bayonet и Karambit.
Originally with the first case they planned to add skins for agents as well. On the one hand, such a decision seemed obvious – because before that hats from Team Fortress 2 and images of heroes in Dota 2 had already gained popularity among players. However, the developers had their doubts: unlike the games mentioned above, there is no way to look at yourself from the outside in CS:GO. For example, in TF2the camera changes position when the character performs some action, while in CS:GO there was no such option. In addition, the developers feared that the new character models would be less visible during the game, and this would badly affect its competitive potential. As a result, agents were not added then, and this type of skins for CS:GO appeared later.
Another feature that was added to the game in August 2013, was the inspection of weapons. This feature quickly gained popularity, and now players don't miss the chance to twirl their weapons in their hands. In addition, some skins also have special animations: for example, taking out the Nomad KnifeYou can cut yourself.
When creating the skin system, the developers tried different solutions and looked at how popular they would be with the players. At first they thought that camouflage and realistic coloring books would be in high demand, but that ended up not being the case. Skins with bright and unrealistic colors such as AWP BoomThey made them rare because they thought they were less likely to appeal to players, and if they were dropped too often, it would cause resentment. However, in the end it turned out to be the opposite, and it was such items that became the most expensive.
Adding a wear and tear system also seemed logical at first glance: the number of scuffs and other defects would reflect how much time the player spent with a given item. However, this caused problems: it was impossible to find the optimal wear rate and develop effects that would look good on all skins. In the end it was decided to abandon the idea of weapon wear – it remained in the form of fixed Float values, and time has shown that it was the right decision.