Valve has removed a new weapon skin from Counter Strike: Global Offensive after allegations emerged that it featured stolen artwork. Weapon skins are hot property in Counter Strike: Global Offensive. There is a vibrant community of players who create custom artworks in the game, and these are sometimes added to weapon collections to allow players to use them in-game.Counter Strike: Global Offensive is one of the most popular first-person shooters in the world in spite of the fact that the game has been around since 2012. Some people might think that players would be moving on to newer titles in 2023, but CS:GO recently smashed its all-time concurrent player record with over 1 million players in-game. Designing new skins for the game has a thriving community of players hoping to get their creation featured in a new weapon collection, both for the bragging rights and the cash payout they stand to get if Valve uses their artwork.Valve has replaced the Doodle Lore AWP skin with the Duality AWP skin in response to the controversy. The Doodle Lore featured a dragon artwork that was created by Vexx, a popular YouTuber. This isn't the first time Valve has had to deal with art theft. The valuable M4A4 Howl skin was the subject of similar allegations, but in that case Valve stopped the distribution of the skin rather than removing it wholesale. The remaining M4A4 Howl skin was given its own rarity grade dubbed Contraband, making it one of the rarest skins in CS:GO. Some players had hopes that Doodle Lore might be added to the Contraband tier, but Valve chose otherwise.
The Doodle Lore AWP wasn't the only skin in the Revolution collection that was the subject of controversy. Another M4A4 skin, the Temukau, features an anime character that was allegedly copied from another skin creator, but in this case the skin has not been removed from the game. CS:GO skins can command massive price tags, and this is typically proportional to the rarity of the item. It is understandable that Valve doesn't want to unduly create a situation where a controversial skin suddenly becomes extremely valuable, so the decision to remove the offending cosmetic is probably for the best.
To further illustrate how popular and lucrative the skin market can be, one CS:GO streamer traded several rare skins for a car. Granted, these rare skins are not that easy to get, and some players spend a lot of money opening weapon cases without getting any rare skins. If Valve were to add another weapon to the Contraband tier, it would likely upset the entire Counter Strike: Global Offensive skin market. It's unfortunate that these cases of art theft come to light only after a skin has been released to the public. Hopefully, Valve makes some changes to prevent it from happening again.
Counter Strike: Global Offensive is available on Mobile, PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
Source: CS:GO Release Notes
