GGSkins, first generation: a case-opening platform for CS skins

Questions this case answers

• What does a case-opening platform need before the first case is drawn?

  A screen map. Case opening, battles, free cases, the upgrader and the cashier all pull on the same balance and the same inventory, so the navigation and the account have to be settled first — otherwise every new mode becomes a separate site bolted onto the last one.

• Why draw each case as a separate object instead of using a template?

  Because the case is the product. A player scanning a shop row decides by silhouette and colour before reading a name; a template makes every case look like the same case with a different label. Twenty-plus hand-drawn packs give the shop a shelf of things to want.

• How many game modes should a skins platform launch with?

  Enough to keep a player on the site between openings — usually opening, battles and an upgrader — but all on one navigation. Modes added as afterthoughts show: different spacing, different buttons, different rules for the same balance.

• What changes when a case-opening site goes mobile?

  The upgrader loses its side-by-side inventories, the battles lobby becomes a stack of cards, and everything a player taps most moves under the thumb. Scaling the desktop layout down produces a site that technically fits and practically loses the deposit.

• When is it time to redesign a platform from scratch rather than extend it?

  When the next feature no longer fits the structure — new modes, new markets, a different fairness model. That is what happened to GGSkins: the first generation did its job, and the second was designed from a clean sheet as GGSkins v2.