A long time ago VanillaTF2 had an all-class unicorn hat and were talking to Valve about adding it, but I think the ultimate outcome was that Valve didn't want to open the floodgates of every community organisation wanting their own items (citation needed).

That was as close as we got I think, and a long time ago - before Dota2 or CS:GO organisations were earning money from items.

http://i.imgur.com/ydZiJSj.jpg

God damn, that hat looks very well made, what a missed oportunity, it would be a high valued hat for sure. Was there any try of submitting the item independently to the work shop even after the talks with valve? Because if there wasn't thhat's your problem right there. If valve doesn't want to associate themselves to an org that fine but it doesn't mean they can't add the hat from the workshop if the community likes it.

So there's a precedent now, a big one. Also Kritzkast got their hat, and there are a couple more community hats and items out there, it's not completely out of the picture for them to reconsider such thing, especially now that dota and cs go make a lot from this same system

So many Dota tournaments get sponsored through shop/ticket money, and it's starting in CS. It wouldn't even be difficult for Valve to implement, it just depends on whether or not they give a fuck and whether or not they think there's viable enough organizations/teams for this.

Maybe if Valve added this type of Hat/Misc item into the game, it would be untradable/giftable and would be on sale by the Mann Co Store, TF.tv, and possibly ETF2L. Half the proceeds will go towards valve while the other half goes to support the tf2 comp. community with events and such. Both sides will win, valve makes money and the comp. community gets popular within the pub community and will be able to get money to support events.

Asking for half is a bit much. 10-15%, maaybe 25. Don't underestimate how much money that would be, especially when compared to whatever couple thousand ESEA throws out each season.

This might even have been pre-workshop days... ask Byte or Torden for the full story, I was never really involved beyond being a contributor.

Yes now would be a good idea to revisit this.

Pretty sure Valve quit making cmunity-related hats due to some Kritzkast hat distribution drama. Or rather, iirc I read so in a thread about this a while back.

Quoted from Teamfortress.com
"Added UGC Highlander Season 11 and 6vs6 Season 13 medals"
They still give out community items.

Just talked to huhy on steam about this. The kritzkast item fiasco was a whole different thing because it was a free item and the distribution method they choose was horrible, leaving a lot of people mad and complaining.

I think a normal paid item associated to a league would have no problem whatsoever

Also they didn't stop with the KritzKast hat distribution, they still give them out in contests, I got one a few months back.

If it really was pre-workshop days them I'm sure it could well work now, I'll try to talk to some people and know more details

Model a "Golden Cap" hat with a capture point logo on it. Credit to Getawhale in twitch chat.

By the way, one of face-it weapons was yesterday added to CS:GO (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=219629560), less than 1 month after being added to the workshop

http://www.counter-strike.net/operationphoenix/

Basically, the only thing standing in the way of getting this sort of stuff into TF2 is a good idea and an item creator that can follow through on it.

I know that Valve is interested in doing this in TF2. It's definitely different then Dota in the sense that there aren't any couriers, wards, or huds, that can be produced and have a very small cosmetic impact on the game, but that's just a design issue.

i want a lofi longwave :(

I think the best possible competitive item would have a Strange Counter or something of that nature to track 'Kills in Competitive Mode' (i.e. Kills after a game starts in tournament mode). Could be pretty much any item initially, but if it's a success the potential for more items tracking the same highly desirable stat would be there.

That'd actually be really cool if you could get item skins like that. Would just have to make sure they don't clutter too much and/or possibly make it look like something else.

No, wait ... the Back Cap.

???

why would you care contacting Valve, when you can upload it via workshop and get enough votes through the community and advertising it over etf2l, tf.tv etc?

that's exactly what I said.

I think the problem now is finding someone to create a great item who is also trustworthy enough to get all the money and use it for comp, the rest could be done fairly easily.

I think the distinction in my eyes is that Valve has a well documented history of supporting Counter Strike and Dota as competitive games. Team fortress is a money maker for valve (in the form of keys), and they likely wont see any revenue from an item like this.

The fact that it would be submitted as a workshop item would already make it a normal item and they would already get a percentage of the revenue from it. It has nothing to do with supporting competitive or not

A little update

http://i.imgur.com/Isig5vG.png

This single skin in cs go, almost funded a 20k prizepool. Something to think about after all no?

If the competitive organisation in question is a co-author of the item you don't need trust, they should automatically receive their share of the revenue. So for example if the ETF2L Steam profile was co-author and had a bank defined for it then revenue generated by the item would go straight to that ETF2L account.

And the admins could flee to Mexico.

What you need in the item creator is someone willing to split that revenue for a boost from the initial votes and comments that give it a better chance of Valve noticing it and putting it in the game, as well as being able to make a good enough item for it to garner genuine votes. Probably someone up-and-coming, ideally a member of both communities (competitive and item making) and looking for some help getting probably their first item in game.

ETF2L has over 2k participating players, the NA scene must have something similar. That's a lot of potential votes, and given the way the community has embraced fund raisers in the past I'd have thought a decent level of participation could be achieved.

The truth is that what money there is in TF2 is in the item economy, and identifying where the competitive community has leverage in that economy is the key to improving TF2's financial standing.

Well we'll see if the ToTH hat gets added. If it does, there may be hope.

But if it doesn't, I don't see a purely competitive item being popular enough to get added.

It's not a purely competitive item, a big part of the chance of the item getting in is related to the item quality and idea itself, now if a item was high quality and popular within the workshop, what would be the reason for them not to release it? Do you think they hold a particular grudge against the competitive community?

Same thing for the ToTH item, it's a lot down to the quality and originality of it, but actually I think this one has a few more chances because it's linked to a giant event and it's a charity item and valve has supported charities through tf2 items before

But the bottom line is that there's simply no reason not to try, if we could partner with some talented artists we have as much of a chance to get a item in as anyone else.