Valve announces $1 million art contest for Counter-Strike weapon skins

Valve wants to encourage more creators to build content for its Steam Workshop service. To facilitate that, the company is announcing the $1 million Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Dreams & Nightmares art contest.

As part of this contest, Valve will pick 10 winners that build CS:GO weapon skins that embody a dream-style theme. Each winner will get $100,000. To win, you’ll need to submit the weapon skin to the CS:GO Workshop. You (or your team) will also need a Steam account that has made a purchase of at least $5 and does not have any active moderation limitations.

“We launched the Workshop on Steam almost 10 years ago in the hopes of creating a centralized hub for community-created content,” reads a Valve blog post. “Since then, over 5 million content creators have submitted and published over 20 million new items for a variety of games on Steam, making them available for purchase to millions of gamers around the world. And, as everyone who plays these games knows – including CS players – many of the most iconic in-game items, maps, and more have been authored by members of the community. The Dreams & Nightmares Content Contest is designed to help further support this community.”

Steam Workshop is Valve’s way of making it easier for people to distribute and install mods. The idea behind it was also to build a market to encourage more people to bring their talents to expanding and adding onto games.

Valve has previously taken an “if you build it, they will come” approach to its tools like the Steam Workshop. But it is now apparently using a more hands-on approach. And that could help differentiate products like its handheld Steam Deck gaming PC.