The ability to create your own skins did not appear in the game right away. In the Arms Deal update that added weapon customization, there was no such option yet – it was implied that players would only buy in-game items added by the developers. A year after the update, however, the situation changed: the game introduced a Workshop, through which community members could add their own content.
How much does Valve pay skinmakers?
The reward a skinmaker receives when their skin is selected for one of the official cases can be defined in different ways. In most cases, it is a percentage of each case sales. As a result, the author receives a stable source of income, which can be quite significant if the case becomes popular over time.
But in 2021, Valve offered an alternative scheme to community members: in the contest for the case «Dreams and Nightmares» received a one-time award. The developers paid $100,000 dollars to each of the ten winners, but the authors gave up a percentage of case sales. According to some analysts, such a deal, attractive at first glance, is not profitable in the long run, because the interest from sales can bring such or even a larger amount each year.
Valve prohibits skinmakers from publicly discussing the income they earn. However, according to reports from the company itself, we know, for example, that it paid 3 million to authors in 2014. There were seventy author skins in the game at the time. Consequently, we can assume that each of them accounted for about 43,000, and that was during a period when the game had not yet reached the peak of its popularity. Assuming that the percentage of sales remains the same, it appears that by 2023 the profitability of
a
skin will increase many times over.What affects the
profitability ofa skin?
After this experiment, Valve has reverted back to the previous scheme of calculating profits, and now successful skin creators can once again count on the percentage of sales. There is no information in the public domain about how exactly the income from skins is accrued. For example, it is unknown whether designers of «Classified» skins receive more than items of «Industrial» quality, or whether this factor is irrelevant.
At the same time, income will obviously be affected by how often a case can drop. If it is part of an operation and only available for a limited time, the income from it will be lower. And the biggest profit for authors is brought by cases that become part of the active pool.
To turn skin creation into a source of income, you will need a lot of time and persistence. Even authors of popular skin series, such as Asiimov or Neo-Noir, needed to add a lot of work to the Workshop before developers noticed them. To increase your chances of success, it's a good idea to get involved in the community, keep an eye on what's popular right now, and add new work regularly.