The classic definition of what a “spray” is when it comes to first-person shooter games is – a custom picture that could be “painted” by a player onto an in-game map. Often it was used as an expression of celebration and bragging after a big-time match was won by a team. The feature was present back in Team Fortress 2, as well as the previous Counter-strike series games. They were absent in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive until recently.
And parts of the gaming community aren’t too happy with how Valve has decided to go about it. A reddit thread has generated thousands of comments expressing criticism and concerns for Valve’s latest business decision. The public itself is still recovering from the CS:GO Lotto debacle from this past Summer, and the wounds are still fresh from that controversy.
But this video should give you a rundown of how the system itself works, and why it’s awful.
There’s an extensive FAQ over on Steam describing the prerequisite factors of spray gameplay mechanics. While you have a chance to get graffiti for free as a weekly drop by ranking up, the primary means of getting it in-game is by either purchasing Graffiti Boxes created by Steam Community Artists, or buying individual Graffiti patterns from the Steam Market. These monochrome and multi-colored patterns can only be used 50 times per “item” (you can buy more of the same pattern to add another 50 usages). Further limitations include being able to only use it once every 45 seconds, and an area sprayed slowly returns back to normal after 7 minutes. You can only resell Graffiti on the Steam market if it is sealed.
If you’ve never checked the game out, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been available on PC (Mac/Linux) for ages now.