Gamers’ Autographs on IEM Rio Major – What’s Wrong with the Stickers?
CS:GO never ceases to amaze fans and gamers with the news. And not all are good. Today, it deals with stickers, one of the brightest elements of the game’s entourage. As a rule, their appearance was long-awaited and joyful. Yet, something went wrong this year. But let’s start in order.
Valve provides stickers with autographs of all players participating in the tournament in every Major. Fans like not only betting on https://gg.bet/en/counter-strike but also buying their idols’ autographs to put them on guns or collect and sell them in the future. Major in Rio adds five types of stickers:
- Blue (High Grade)
- Purple (Remarkable)
- Pink (Exotic)
- Red (Extraordinary)
- Gold (Contraband)
All types, except gold stickers, become accessible by opening special capsules. The process of opening is identical to opening cases with skins. Gold stickers are available with a souvenir weapon, which falls out when viewing major tournaments.
Almost all types of weapons can be fitted with four stickers. G3SG1 and R8 are exceptions with the opportunity to use five stickers. Unlike skins, stickers have no wear and tear. Their rarity determines the cost price. For example, stickers from the first major teams are the most expensive, reaching several hundred and even thousands of dollars. For example, the Team Dignitas sticker with the Katowice 2014 hologram costs $1,500.
Valve Failed the Design – Invisible Stickers Appeared on Gamers’ Guns
Gamers constantly discuss which Major has the most successful stickers. Someone loves the first stickers with Katowice 2014 because of their large team logos. Others prefer beautiful, round, and minimalist stickers with Katowice 2019. However, no one likes stickers from Rio, complaining about the awful design from Valve.
Many of the players’ autographs are not visible on the guns. And holographic stickers are the worst because you can see a green background on them. No sign of anything else.
Valve seems to forget that using white on a light background is bad. It’s even more amusing that the developers probably just threw the sticker files into the game without testing them. Otherwise, why did they not notice such an obvious problem? These stickers look great in the inventory but are unsuitable for gun application. Fans on Reddit have already agreed that Rio stickers are among the worst in the game, on par with Berlin and PMP 2020. Not only because of the letters’ poor visibility but also a strange design. Many did not even notice a team logo behind the autograph.
The inscriptions are clearer on regular stickers, but some nicknames still merge with the background. The developers should have used a different palette or added a line to make captions visible.
One More Epic Failure from Valve
Generally, the process of adding stickers to CS; GO looks quite simple: collect autographs from players, design, and add to the game. But Valve managed to screw up even here.
Norbert “n0rb3r7” from the Virtus.pro team was one of the first to notice the design flaw. He tweeted that Valve had just taken his autograph from the Major in 2019. Patsi from Team Spirit also discovered an old name sticker from the last Major.
Later, 9z players explained why. The developers did not accept new Dgt and Max autographs and took those players sent to the last Major. Valve apparently did not bother communicating with the players about other options. Developers just took old ready-made versions and added them to the game. That’s hard work.
Generally, it’s very sad that Valve and ESL were indifferent to Major. And if the release stage of stickers comes with problems, what to expect from the tournament?
