Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
Should CSGO have an option to pick between M4A4 and M4A1-S mid-game?
Fariha Bhatti
Amid Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s cryptic posts and hints regarding the grenade drop feature, Helvijs “broky” Saukants has worked in his own request of having an option to pick between M4A1-S and M4A4 mid-match. CSGO has been dropping subtle hints about changes coming to grenade storage. While mousesports’ Broky doesn’t mind dropping utility for his teammates, there’s something else he wants Valve to adjust. The pro player recently tweeted that he’d …
Counter-Strike
A pro CSGO team just had their secret strat book leaked, again
William Davis
An outdated strat book made by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive titan BIG has been leaked online for fans to study. The book is dated from April of 2019 and is filled with BIG’s intended strategies for the ESL Pro League Season 9 competition. A link to the document was accidentally leaked on captain Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz’s Twitch stream shortly before the event. The list includes several utility setups and retake procedures, …
Counter-Strike
CSGO may soon let you buy multiple molotovs, share with team
William Davis
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players will soon be able to pass grenades to friends and go above the normal limits on grenade types, assuming recent Twitter posts aren’t just an elaborate bait by Valve. On July 29, CSGO’s official social media posted a reply to Classic Offensive developer ZooL_Smith. In it, the development team hinted that a new grenade-drop feature might be added to CSGO. The message was predated by another …
Counter-Strike
HUNDEN denies strat-sharing rumors, confirms leaving Heroic
William Davis
Coach Nicolai “HUNDEN” Petersen has officially left Heroic after denying allegations of leaking the team’s strategies to competing organizations. Danish CSGO legend HUNDEN has announced his departure from the Heroic CSGO organization. He was not listed as a part of the squad for IEM Cologne, which hinted at an imminent departure. Heroic currently has mental and performance Coach Troels “robl” Robl and Physical Coach Kasper Straube listed for their CSGO …
Counter-Strike
Na’Vi Junior’s m0NESY is a rising CSGO superstar
William Davis
s1mple, NiKo, and dev1ce better watch out: m0NESY’s stats paint him as a future CSGO superstar. Over the past three months of CSGO tournaments, Natus Vincere Junior AWPer Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov has put up .60 deaths, .90 damage, and .87 kills per round. Those statistics are nearly identical to Natus Vincere’s senior sniper Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. Natus Vincere has somehow signed the two best snipers in Russia for each of …
Counter-Strike
Astralis signs Lucky to reestablish six man roster
Fariha Bhatti
Danish powerhouse Astralis has signed 18-year-old AWPer Philip “Lucky” Ewald as the sixth piece of its new lineup, the organization announced today. Astralis’ performance saw a visible dip after Nicolai “device” Reedtz was bought out of his contract by Ninjas in Pyjamas in April. The team has finally found the missing piece of the puzzle in Danish youngster Lucky. Super happy and excited to show the world what i can …
Counter-Strike
This is what realistic smoke grenades would look like in CSGO
Steven Rondina
It’s no secret that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s smoke grenades don’t behave in a realistic way. But what if they did? A CSGO modder created a way to have smoke grenades pop and deploy as they would in real life. While this may seem like a small change, it would completely impact the game if implemented. In CSGO, smoke grenades deploy all at once and instantly. Smoke is also completely opaque …
Counter-Strike
RUSH out, es3tag in for Complexity after rough Cologne finish
William Davis
After announcing the departure of Will “RUSH” Wierzba early on July 22, Complexity Gaming has announced the signing of Patrick “es3tag” Hansen. Complexity’s roster swap is prompted by a disappointing 16th-place finish at IEM Cologne. RUSH joined the roster in September 2020. es3tag was listed as inactive on Cloud9 since in March of this year. The earliest reports of the transfer came from the Danish public news service TV2. I …
zonic leaves Astralis, legendary Danish stack could dissolve
William Davis
Counter-Strike
Longtime Astralis Counter-Strike: Global Offensive coach Danny “zonic” Sørensen has officially declared his intention to leave the organization. Confirmed news of zonic’s departure was broken by esports news app Jaxon. The legendary Counter-Strike 1.6 player was a founding member of the Danish CSGO organization in 2016. His new team or potential retirement is yet to be announced. Nicolai “HUNDEN” Petersen, who coached HEROIC before being banned during the coach bug …
$1,000,000 Halloween skin design competition announced for CSGO
William Davis
Counter-Strike
Valve has announced a new CSGO skin design competition called Dreams & Nightmares. It will themed around the Halloween season and carries a huge cash prize for winning designs. The Dreams & Nightmares CSGO art contest will award $1 million to community skin designers. The contest will end just in time for the skins to receive some official polish and be released together in a Halloween case. CSGO workshop artists …
Fnatic removes JW from active roster, is going international
Jared Wynne
Counter-Strike
Jesper “JW” Wecksell, the long-standing member and primary AWPer for Fnatic, has been removed from the team’s active roster. The three-time major winner and former major MVP became one of the most notable names at the professional level of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive while spending the majority of his career to date with Fnatic. Entering the pro scene in 2013, JW signed with Fnatic and in the same year won a …
IEM Cologne 2021 had more viewers than people playing CSGO
Fariha Bhatti
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s first LAN final after more than 500 days was an undeniable success, as broadcasts pulled in more viewers than the active concurrent player count for CSGO. CSGO saw a significant decline in popularity after most major events were shelved in 2020. However, the first LAN event since managed to wake up loyal fans from their slumber as the IEM Cologne 2021 grand final peaked at more than …
s1mple leads Natus Vincere to IEM Cologne 2021 championship
William Davis
Counter-Strike
Russian squad Natus Vincere has won IEM Cologne 2021, the first CSGO LAN championship since 2020. The feat yields the team $400,000 in prize money. Na’Vi cruised through the group stage at the expense of Renegades, Team Vitality, and Astralis. Each match was a 2-1, but Na’Vi dominated the third map each time. The playoffs went even smoother. FaZe Clan couldn’t take a map off Na`Vi in the semifinals, and …
shroud eyes CSGO streaming return with IEM Cologne co-stream
Fariha Bhatti
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s first LAN tournament in more than 16 months is well underway. While fans can barely contain their excitement, it seems that Michael “shroud” Grzesiek is just as ecstatic about IEM Cologne 2021. Popular Twitch streamer and former CSGO pro shroud is mainly known for his top-notch Valorant streams these days, and is enjoying serious success with that. But a recent tweet hints that the streamer wants to …
“Vertigo sucks”: CSGO pro ropz explains what’s wrong with it
Fariha Bhatti
Counter-Strike
Vertigo falls in the list of least played maps in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and professional player Robin “ropz” Kool might know why. The skyscraper map is rarely seen in competitive queues but many CSGO teams like FURIA love to play Vertigo in professional matches. However, mousesports’ firepower ropz isn’t a fan of the map, he revealed on the recent HLTV Podcast. Vertigo was initially a part of Counter-Strike 1.6, with …
Are pro CSGO games too long? Astralis captain gla1ve thinks so
William Davis
Counter-Strike
Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander has expressed his belief that pro Counter-Strike: Global Offensive matches take too much time. Team Liquid and mousesports’ 106-round marathon match at IEM Cologne has reignited the discussion on CSGO’s pro game length. In an interview published by Polish esports news site Cybersport, Astralis’ in-game leader was asked his opinion on CSGO game length. gla1ve strongly echoed the sentiment that CSGO matches take too long, but he …
CSGO community inspired by 9-year-old player with fatal disease
Olivia Richman
Counter-Strike
The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community has been inspired by the story of a young child with a genetic disorder who still plays and excels at the tactical shooter. A 9-year-old boy from China has picked up CSGO despite having Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). This is a genetic disorder that has progressive muscle degeneration and weakness, with most patients only having a life expectancy of 26 years. While this would be …
Strange CSGO bug makes players’ heads disappear during games
Steven Rondina
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has a weird and hilarious bug at the moment involving disappearing heads. CSGO players have noticed a fairly obvious issue in public matchmaking games in which players’ heads are disappearing at random. Once they’re gone, they remain gone for the duration of the game, even lingering into the post-game screen. One Reddit user showed off how it looked in one of their recent games, drawing laughter from …
IEM Cologne playoffs betting analysis and match winner picks
William Davis
Counter-Strike
Only six teams remain in the fight for CSGO’s first LAN championship since 2020 at the IEM Cologne playoffs. After an exciting play-in and group stage, 24 of the world’s best CSGO teams have been whittled down to just six. Group stage winners G2 Esports and Natus Vincere earned express tickets to the semifinals. The second and third-place teams start the single-elimination bracket from the quarterfinals. These IEM Cologne playoffs …
PGL says CSGO Major might not take place in Sweden
Fariha Bhatti
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s first major since 2019 may not be held in Sweden, just like Dota 2’s showpiece event, The International 10. In an email to SportExpressen, the CEO of PGL has revealed that the major CSGO event is encountering similar difficulties as Dota’s TI10, which may lead to a change of location. “There is no new development; we can decide any day now to move it from Sweden. We …
Counter-Strike has long been among the biggest titles in esports and competitive gaming, even going back to esports’ deepest roots from decades past. What’s more, the game continues going strong today, with developer and publisher Valve releasing the latest iteration of the franchise in 2023. The newest version, Counter-Strike 2, has not been without its issues. But its popularity continues the enduring prominence of the Counter-Strike series, signaling that the venerated franchise is likely here to stay for many years yet to come.
But how did the franchise come be to so prominent in the esports space, and role does CS2 have to play in the industry moving forward?
Counter-Strike has roots in the beginnings of esports
Counter-Strike was unquestionably one of the biggest drivers of what we would today consider to be early professional esports movement. It was far from alone, and it wasn’t the most advanced. That likely was StarCraft: Brood War, a real-time strategy game from famed developer Blizzard that caught on in South Korea and led to a professional scene in the country well ahead of any examples of esports industry elsewhere in the world.
But outside of Korea, Counter-Strike quickly became the driving force behind competitive gaming and esports. First released in 1999 as a modification for popular first-person shooter Half-Life, the game was easy to pick up and play for many gamers. Half-Life was borderline ubiquitous software for gamers with a PC, and adding a mod to it was as simple as downloading and applying said mod. So it was that Counter-Strike began to catch fire and spread across the world.
As it spread, so too did its competitive play. Early competitions often centered around online play, most prominently including the Cyberathlete Amateur League (CAL) in North America and the Clanbase Eurocup in Europe. But live, in-person tournaments, similar to those enjoyed by StarCraft players and fans in Korea, were also rising in prominence.
Within just a few years, there were a number of major annual tournaments being held for the original version of Counter-Strike. Notable international tournament organizers included the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) in the United States, the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) in France, and the World Cyber Games (WCG) in Korea. This was in addition to many other regional tournaments through which teams could test their mettle and battle over smaller prizes.
But even at bigger tournaments, prizes weren’t what they are today, and in general there was far less money available to professional Counter-Strike players than there is in today’s thriving esports industry which sees many players and teams playing at the full-time pro level. That’s a far cry from a time when perhaps a small handful of players were able to make a true living through playing CS alone, and even them, it was often a modest one.
Counter-Strike 2 at the fore of a bigger esports scene than ever before
Counter-Strike 2 was released to a far different esports space than that which the original Counter-Strike occupied. But what exactly is it that has changed the scene so much, besides the accrual of years?
Esports betting is at the top of the list. The sports betting industry is growing and expanding around the world each and every year, and esports has absolutely been a part of that. As esports betting continues to grow and thrive, it brings its benefits to the games that are being bet on. And Counter-Strike 2 is at the top of that list.
These benefits have arrived through a myriad of means. Fan interest in tournaments has gone up and become more consistent with betting markets available for each and every game played, which further incentivizes tournament organizers and their sponsoring partners. But those partners are also now more likely to work with the pro teams and players themselves. Betting operators are among the most common and most generous sponsors in the pro CS2 space, showing how esports betting’s rise has contributed to Counter-Strike’s continued prominence in esports and competitive gaming as a whole.
