A skin is a downloadable image or sound that changes the appearance of characters, weapons and inventory in games, but does not affect their progress.
By the way, you can view skins for the most popular games, sell your existing skins or buy your favorite https://skins.co/. This site is a database of skins for various games, more than 10, regularly updated and supplemented.
Why do we need skins?
Almost everywhere, skins play a purely aesthetic role. They overshadow the ordinariness that comes from doing the same thing over a long period of time. In Valorant, skins also attract new users. They psychologically encourage the user to take some action, such as donating money. Some options for coloring items become the prey of collectors. As a rule, such models do not cost much, so they bring income to the owner and create a stir on the in-game market.
For many players, skins are an opportunity to stand out from the rest. This practice is widespread in the world arena – cyber athletes emphasize their status by the presence of expensive coloring. Do not ignore the psychological effect of coloring. They sometimes increase the player’s morale. That is, as we said, skins have no effect on the game, but often, when a player has a top skin, he feels much more confident and plays with a certain superiority, he changes the way of thinking and the player begins to make decisions in a different way. That is, there is an effect on the game, but it’s only psychological.
How have skins influenced the modern gaming industry?
Take mobile projects as an example. Developers allow players to completely disable ads for a fixed fee. At that point, the free-to-play game conditionally moves into the premium category. Medium and large mobile games, that is, with a gameplay of more than 5 hours, usually integrate into their product internal store, where the game currency can buy additional bonuses, skins, that is, changing the appearance of certain game objects or purchase additional content. An interesting phenomenon of the modern mobile game is the shortening of time to get a reward in the form of a skin, which is necessary for a frequent and constant release of dopamine in the blood, which, in turn, gives the player pleasure. Therefore, mobile game developers:
- shorten game cycles;
- Adapt the complexity of the game to the specific user;
- fill it with a variety of bonuses and try to do everything so that the player in no case did not get discouraged and did not have time to think about closing the game.
A good way to increase the percentage of regular players was the introduction of daily bonuses with skins. For example, every day after the first launch of the game the person receives a bonus. And if he launches the game three days in a row – gets a super bonus. Although there is a tendency to reduce the time it takes to get regular skins, sometimes this stretch of time is only a few minutes. In the early 2000s, the Internet was becoming more and more accessible to the population, which led to the rapid growth and development of browser games, a key feature of which was the social interaction with real players and the possibility of personalization. It is the latter point that allows the implementation of skins.
How to get free skins in Valorant
One of the easiest, but longest way is to buy the skin you need in the store for in-game money. In Valorant, buying in-game currency is not cheap, so this option is often neglected. Among the most popular ways to get free coloring items are fulfilling contracts, pumping up the level of the character and passing combat operations. Note that passing operations is also purchased with real money. Contracts are always performed in the game on their own. The rewards for them, of course, are small, but the gamer’s eyes are sure to rejoice.
Increasing the level in the game is a natural process. The reward for such an event, although also small, but pleasant. Often the user gets skins for weapons and cheap knives. Another way to get a free coloring – participation in giveaways that hold popular youtubers and streamers. Sometimes on thematic forums offer to give a particular skin for free. But be careful – do not expect collectible weapons.
What is the usual price of a skin in a CS:GO player’s inventory?
As a rule, the cheapest skins are always in the inventory of low-level players. This makes sense – you have a low rank, therefore, you rarely enter the game, and your skill is not yet perfect. That is, you don’t need to buy very expensive skins if you don’t devote much time to the game and go in for half an hour a day or a few times a week.
As statistics show, if a player has a low rating, he is likely to spend from $2. If we are looking at a player with an average rating, he is likely to spend around $18 on a skin.
Item Fallout Rate and Frequency
Now there are many myths that you can only get four hides in a week. And there is no clear answer to this question. Valve, of course, is well aware of bots and IDLE servers, as well as professional gamers who can be online more than 20 hours a day. That’s why they made it like this: the longer you are in the game, the more time you need to get a new item. That is, the system works on the principle of escapism. Imagine, you got your first skin in an hour after the start of the game, the second you get after 4-5 hours, the third – after a couple of days, then near the end of the week. But theoretically they could fall out after almost every battle. Some items for attendance, level up and ranks are not included in the tally, as there is a separate progression for them.
