Valve replaces CSGO AWP skin amid stolen art allegations

A CSGO AWP skin which was included in the new Revolution case has quickly been replaced after allegations of stolen art being used. 

Valve has always been a champion of community artists, with most skins in CSGO, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2 being made by fans of the games. But there is a glaring problem with getting skins from community artists which has plagued Valve for a long time. 

It is hard to moderate what art assets are used by artists in the community, and it is especially hard to tell if any assets in the skin were taken from other artists well after it is released publicly for all to see. 

Once again, developers have run into trouble after introducing a new skin. An artist, Vexx, created a very similar dragon design to what eventually appeared in the AWP skin, Doodle Lore.

Valve has responded by replacing the skin with a new one, the AWP Duality. 

But this was not the same when the M4A4 Howl was found to contain stolen art and a new item replaced it in the case, leaving existing Howl’s untouched, and now incredibly rare as the only skin in the game with the label Contraband. 

Rather, Valve has decided to retroactively replace every single existing AWP Doodle Lore with the Duality skin, leaving no trace of the Doodle Lore in the game. 

High-profile skin traders such as Anomaly and ohnePixel had already predicted Valve would make this move, as Valve is reluctant to create another Contraband skin in the game. 

Valve

The Awp Duality, the skin which replaced the Doodle Lore

This can be seen when it was found the M4A4 Griffin contained stolen art and was replaced with an updated version. 

But when the AWP Doodle Lore was accused of having stolen art, another skin in the case also was accused of containing stolen assets. The M4A4 Temukau was accused of having stolen art, but it is much more complicated than the Doodle Lore.

Whereas the Doodle Lore had seemingly art ripped from Vexx, the creator of the Temukau vehemently denied any wrongdoing. Only admitting that he took inspiration from multiple different pieces of work to create his own.

Anomaly says the M4A4 skin most likely won’t be replaced because it’s far too altered to be considered from a single artwork. 

So far, no one artist has claimed the M4A4 has copied their work, rather only people pointing out the similarities of the artwork on the gun to other existing artwork.