This forces skin makers to often do more than create the skin itself, with marketing it becoming an important part of the workshop submission process. Skins thus are a hobby that can quickly become a job, although getting that far demands a degree of luck and perseverance, since skins are often selected years after submission, and each has to compete with thousands of other skins. While you may think that this would simply be an additional source of income for young aspiring artists, even back in 2013, a skin would net you $40,000 a year according to skin designer Chris “CLeGFX” Le, with the estimates now reaching over six figures.
With the introduction of the update, the company began hand-picking some of the most popular skins for inclusion in the game, while also paying their creators a percentage of the profits from skin sales. With 2013’s Arms Deal update, Valve introduced Weapon Skins - cosmetic items which allowed you to customize your weapon without affecting its in-game stats in any way. 4 different weapon skins sporting the Neo-Noir design were released in CS:GO.
