How Counter-Strike’s most followed map maker became a millionaire

With over 166,000 followers on Steam, 124 maps created, and over 30,000,000 map subscriptions, Luke “lmtlss” Millanta is Steam’s most followed Counter-Strike map maker.

Forging relationships with esports organisations, such as Astralis, Fnatic, Complexity, and Heroic, the map creator pioneered a new way to commercialise community content, in what has become a lucrative sector for several games such as CS2, Fortnite and Roblox.

Work in those titles has combined to bag the Aussie a seven-figure per year income. But how does a map creator become a millionaire?

From fanatic to Fnatic: The big break

Coinciding with the launch of Steam and the release of Counter-Strike’s 1.6 update, lmtless began playing CS in 2003.

Like millions of others, the game had its hooks in the Aussie as he played the game religiously, attending local LAN parties in Australia.

“I grew up in the days of dial-up internet. Everybody had to go to like a community hall, link up, and do a proper LAN party.”

However, it wasn’t until the Steam Workshop update for CSGO that Millanta’s true calling in the game became evident.

“As a hobby, since way back in 2014, I’ve been essentially creating video game content.

“First for Global Offensive, then for CS2, and I’ve dabbled in other things. I’ve created content for Team Fortress 2, Payday 2, lots of 2s through in there, (nobody can count the three) and that started as pretty much just something I did for fun.”

The addition of CSGO to the Steam Workshop had opened up a new world of creation for Counter-Strike fans, who jumped at the opportunity to add their content to the game, albeit unofficially.

Thousands of submissions from skins, to maps, to stickers, to sprays flooded the workshop. Most of those submissions received little or no fanfare.

lmtlss quickly realised that he had to stand out to have an impact in the game he loved, and he had a strategy in mind.

“When I first discovered the Steam Workshop in 2014, I realised I had to stand out because even back then, there were thousands of people submitting things every single week, and you kind of got lost in the crowd.

“So I approached Fnatic. I essentially just cold emailed them and said, ‘Hi, I would like to make some Fnatic-branded skins for you.'”

“They said, ‘Okay, that sounds good,’ because it’s free.”

Looking back, lmtlss cannot quite believe his own story.

“For some reason, they decided that they were just going to answer this email out of nowhere, right? That was sent probably at the strangest hours in the world, because I would have sent that Australian time.

“So, these guys have woken up to a random email that arrived in their inbox at 2:30 am, going, ‘Can I make skins for you?'”

In the less cynical world of the early days of Counter-Strike esports, even the first CSGO Major champions were accessible to an enthusiastic fan. That turned out to be a pivotal moment in lmtlss’s life.

Through his connections with Fnatic, he was able to build a following with the skins he created, as well as connect to that legendary Fnatic roster.

“When cArn was there, Devilwalk, pronax was IGL-ing, you had Flusha and those guys; that was the lineup that I always remember because that was the lineup that gave me my break.

“Without them, I would have just been in that obscure zone that I was talking about.”

Connections with Fnatic gave lmtlss a platform to stand out and connections to more organisations.

That initial set of skins became maps and skins for Fnatic and Complexity, working alongside Complexity’s iconic owner, Jason Lake.

lmtlss talks about those experiences with a glimmer in his eyes, yet despite establishing organisational connections, the work was still voluntary and just for fun.

“I started there as a hobby and essentially working for teams on just a volunteer basis because I just loved the teams. I loved Counter-Strike, and I liked creating things, and I had an actual job.

“So I didn’t really need to worry about the money, and there wasn’t a lot of money in these things back then anyway.”

Counter-Strike community maps find their commercial niche

It was only years later that the commercial potential of the steam workshop began to be realised.

When that time came, lmtlss was already established as a predominant map maker, with his creations appearing on the front page of the CSGO Workshop page.

Despite never intending to make money from it, lmtlss suddenly received offers from various companies and esports organisations to make maps to promote their brands.

“The CEO of Razer, reached out to me and said, ‘Would you like to do some stuff with Razer?’ At that point in time, I realised that this actually had a commercial future to it. So in 2016, I was creating maps for around $200, $500.”

As the years went by, brands such as Intel, ASUS, Red Bull, NVIDIA, DHL, and Tournament Organiser, ESL sought out lmtlss’s services.

Additionally, more organisations began to reach out to the Australian in the hope of collaboration, with players and staff from Astralis, Heroic, and others offering their organisational needs and wants to the Aussie.

But why? After all, they were just community maps in a video game, non-official content that users had to actively seek out to find. What gave maps in Counter-Strike value beyond traditional advertising?

“Teams want a number of different things, and that help goes different ways. So the utility map set was essentially how can we engage Counter-Strike users to essentially consume Astralis content, so like advertising content, etc.

“They want eyeballs on advertising, these kinds of things. But at the same time, they want something that is engaging.”

‘Engaging’ is the key. Counter-Strike community maps allowed for advertisers to create and proliferate content that guaranteed that players would be an active part in the product, making their eyeballs more valuable than those, for example, passively watching an advert.

For Counter-Strike players, that meant exploiting Counter-Strike’s highly competitive nature.

“You’re looking at reaction times, there’s accuracy, accuracy scoring, these kinds of things… Training maps like that and content like that actually help to build the underlying, fundamental skills required to play Counter-Strike.”

lmtlss tried more experimental map creation, with more creativity, but the message was clear: what players wanted was anything that might improve their game:

“I’ve turned Counter-Strike into Guitar Hero and Rocket League, and number of downloads those get versus like the number of ‘How to throw a smoke from long doors to hit CT spawn… It’s not even comparable.

“The mode that Counter-Strike players play is literally called competitive, right? Everybody wants to be competitive. We’re all competitive nut jobs, right? So that’s what I’ve been able to tap into.”

As players spend countless hours learning Counter-Strike utility, where to place their crosshair for prefiring, or learning how to play a position, lmtlss could guarantee advertisers an audience who genuinely cared about what they were doing.

And it’s not just casual players. Many of lmtlss’s maps were created with input from pros, and many choose to warm up for officials with lmtlss’s CS Stats aim-map.

Aim maps had been an established part of CSGO, but as CS2’s release awaited, lmtlss and co-workers faced an uphill battle to get it ready as Valve constantly updated and changed the game.

When the map was finally released, it was a huge success and remains one of CS2’s most popular Workshop maps.

“We had a couple of million downloads like within a week, right? It was crazy, and we had so many pro players playing it on stream. I have a clip of m0nesy playing it.

“I’ve got clips of when you see the pros on stages, when pros are getting ready on stage, playing the CS stats map. I think the release of CS stats would have to be my proudest moment.”

That impact on the community and competitive play remains his proudest moment, transcending his place in the Guinness Book of Records for most followers for a content creator on Steam.

“I’ve got 170,000 followers on my Steam profile, but I’ve got 30 million subscribers across my maps. That’s nuts. I live in Australia. We’ve got a population of like 26 million. I’m thinking to myself, Australia is smaller than my map subscribers.”

“I still consider it a hobby”

Despite all that success and a seven-figure annual income from map-making, lmtlss still considers his work on Counter-Strike to be a passion project first and a business second.

That fact was made evident by his work to recreate the Kettering Conference Centre as a Workshop map.

Harkening back to his own love of local LANs, which have diminished over the years in the Australian scene, the map creator accepted a smaller budget to celebrate the UK’s premier community LAN.

“You know, we knew that it wasn’t going to get 200,000 downloads, but it was just a bit of fun, and that’s what it’s really all about.

“That’s why I consider this a hobby.”

After playing the game for 22 years, creating maps for over a decade, the Australian’s love for CS remains central to his desire to create in the game.

That love has taken priority over commercial aspects, perhaps due to the continual reinforcement that the act is just a hobby, yet that ‘hobby’ has led to a highly lucrative, seven-figure niche.

Combined with his work as a tech entrepreneur, Millanta has been able to prioritise passion despite his financial success.

“I still consider it a hobby, even though that’s crazy to say. Because it’s definitely its own business in a way…”

“It all comes back to the love of Counter-Strike at the end of the day for me, you know? If I wanted to make money, I’d go and do Roblox and Fortnite full-time, but I actually genuinely love this game.

“I’ve been playing Counter-Strike since 2003 or something like that, right? So, I’ve spent more of my life with Counter-Strike than without it. I don’t think I’ll ever get away from it.

“You know, sometimes I wake up, I’m like, ‘I hate this thing,’ but nine days out of 10, I genuinely do just love my interactions with the game. I’m very romantic about it.”