Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
NRG Esports earns spot in StarLadder Berlin Major, win Americas Minor
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
NRG Esports won first place in the Americas Minor and has successfully qualified for StarLadder Berlin Major 2019. The North American organization will begin its journey at the event in the New Challengers Stage after a convincing win over INTZ Esports. NRG has been the standout performer of the minors to this point, not losing a single map while playing against a long list of formidable Brazilian teams including Team …
Counter-Strike
Fnatic out of Berlin Major after Europe Minor loss to CR4ZY
Steven Rondina
Fnatic will not be heading to the StarLadder Berlin Major. The legendary Swedish organization has been on a skid through much of 2019, but things hit a new low at the Europe Minor. Despite a solid performance in the group stage, Fnatic was the first team ejected from the playoffs which means they won’t be showing up in Berlin. Fnatic started the event strong with a 2-0 run through their …
Counter-Strike
ESL declares Mtn Dew Game Fuel official beverage of IEM, EPL, ESL One
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Mountain Dew AMP Game Fuel has been appointed as ESL’s official global beverage partner for all major events. The new deal between the beverage brand and the tournament organizer will see Game Fuel featured at prominent esports event series including Intel Extreme Masters, ESL One, and ESL Pro League. The energy drink is specifically pitched to gamers as a tool to help improve performance, so senior vice president of brand …
Counter-Strike
MiBR helped at Berlin Major by late roster rule change
Steven Rondina
StarLadder is helping out MiBR. According to a report by HLTV, the organizer behind the upcoming Berlin Major has rewritten the event’s roster rules. Though the change was not explicitly made to help MiBR, the news certainly has the look of the organizer giving one of the most popular teams in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive preferential treatment. Per HLTV, StarLadder amended the roster rules for the major to allow organizations to sub …
Counter-Strike
Team Vitality blasted by CSGO fans for casual approach to tournament
William Davis
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive fans are mad at Team Vitality. Vitality is getting attention and not for strong tournament results or dazzling plays from top star Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut. The French organization is under fire because fans are not happy with the team’s attitude at the ESEA Season 31: Global Challenge. The controversy started in semifinals when Vitality faced Brazilian organization FURIA Esports. Vitality made a series of questionable decisions like …
Counter-Strike
Team Liquid defeat FaZe Clan to become BLAST Pro Series champions
Olivia Richman
Team Liquid beat FaZe Clan 2-0 to win the BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles. The North American Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team now has five consecutive premier trophy wins under its belt. With a 9-0 map record at the most recent CSGO event, Team Liquid is next setting their sights on IEM Chicago. The series started off with FaZe choosing a map that they completely failed on during the previous day. …
Counter-Strike
Astralis leaked emails on RFRSH reveal team had long wanted to leave
Olivia Richman
There’s more to Astralis splitting with their parent company, RFRSH Entertainment, than originally meets the eye. Recently, leaked emails were published by Dexerto that revealed Astralis’ players had been intersted in parting from RFRSH for a while. The email had been inspired by criticism the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team received over their decision to skip premier tournaments for RFRSH events. The email starts by addressing the team’s contracts being extended …
Counter-Strike
Lazarus coach fRoD talks Americas Minor disqualification
Steven Rondina
Lazarus Esports was one of the standout performers of the Americas Minor Championship qualifiers. Unfortunately, the team will no longer be able to compete for a spot in the upcoming major. StarLadder made the surprise announcement that Lazarus had been ejected from the event in favor of Luminosity Gaming. No explanation was given, but judging from Daniel “fRoD” Montaner’s response on Twitter, the news did not sit well with the …
Astralis, Origen set to split from parent company RFRSH Entertainment
Steven Rondina
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team Astralis and LEC franchise Origen are splitting from parent company RFRSH Entertainment. According to a report by HLTV, RFRSH is seeking a new majority shareholder for the two brands. The move stems from RFRSH’s plans to pour greater effort into its BLAST Pro Series events. Details were not given in terms of how much RFRSH is seeking for its share in the two teams, but company …
Coldzera benched by MiBR, status for Berlin Major unclear
Steven Rondina
News
The messy divorce between Marcelo “coldzera” David and MiBR may finally be official. MiBR coach Wilton “zews” Prado announced on Twitter that the team has benched the star player. This carries potentially serious ramifications when it comes to the team’s standing in the StarLadder Berlin Major. “Today I’m here to officially announce that Marcelo ‘coldzera’ David is no longer on the starting roster of MIBR and has been placed on …
WarOwl finds out how often reported hackers really are cheating
Steven Rondina
Counter-Strike
Anyone that has ever played Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has probably suspected an opponent to be hacking. Whether it’s a pair of headshots through a smoke, an inexplicable wall bang, or a strangely keen game sense that allows the enemy team to know every time someone is sitting in a boost spot, weird things can happen in CSGO. But were those players just lucky? Or were they actually using third-party software? …
MiBR and coldzera turn to psychologist to fix internal issues
Nina Forneloza
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team MiBR has hired a psychologist to try and resolve some internal issues within the team. The hiring was confirmed by Epitacio “TACO” de Melo on Twitter. MiBR clearly has some internal issues that need to be addressed. Their recent performances have been poor, with the Brazilian team having been one of the first teams eliminated from the recent ESL One Cologne event. Following that event, star …
BLAST Pro Series defends move to smaller, more expensive CSGO venue
Olivia Richman
Counter-Strike
Despite backlash from fans, BLAST Pro Series director of product and experience Nicolas Estrup is confident that its upcoming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event will be a great experience thanks to a late change of venue. Originally to be held at the University of Southern California’s Galen Center, the BLAST Pro Series: Los Angeles CSGO event will now be held in a smaller space in Oakwood, California. While fans who purchased …
Fortnite edges CSGO for biggest esports prizes halfway through 2019
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Counter-Strike
Fortnite esports has shared the highest prize pool thus far in 2019, followed by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and League of Legends. According to Esports Earnings’ data, Fortnite had a total prize pool of $14,723,414.67 through 179 tournaments featuring over 1,500 players. Each of the Fortnite World Cup 2019 qualifier weeks has added a million dollars to the prize pool, and $3 million was added through the Fortnite Celebrity …
Lazarus Esports kicked out of Americas Minor, Luminosity added
Steven Rondina
Counter-Strike
Lazarus Esports’ loss is Luminosity Gaming’s gain. The Brazilian squad is now set to compete in the Americas Minor Championship ahead of the StarLadder Berlin Major. The move comes after a number of changes to Lazarus’ roster. The news was announced by StarLadder on Twitter. According to StarLadder, the rules called for a play-in series between Luminosity and Team Envy to determine the replacement for Lazarus. Envy declined the invitation …
Team Liquid players break into top 25 money earners in CSGO history
Nina Forneloza
Counter-Strike
Team Liquid has defeated Vitality at ESL One Cologne 2019, and in doing so won the Intel Grand Slam Season 2 in record time. The prize money from those two wins has pushed the team’s players into the top 25 earners in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive history, according to esportsearnings.com. The Intel Grand Slam awards a prize of $1,000,000 to the first team that wins four out of the 10 chosen …
Luminosity Gaming seeks to bring new audiences to esports
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Counter-Strike
Luminosity Gaming has partnered with Big Digital to launch gaming activation sessions. Luminosity and Big Digital are looking to bring esports closer to mainstream media and a wider esports audience by providing that audience with a more interactive experience. The partnership aims to share the esports experience to a broader audience by combining gaming containers and digital technology. Luminosity is focusing on music audiences, as they believe there is a …
Team Liquid CSGO wins ESL One Cologne 2019
Nina Forneloza
News
Team Liquid has won ESL One Cologne 2019 and secured the Intel Grand Slam Season 2 prize of $1 million. The North American squad took out Team Vitality 3-1 in the grand finals of the event. That victory combined with first-place finishes at Intel Extreme Masters XIV Sydney, DreamHack Masters Dallas, and ESL Pro League Season 9 locked up the Intel Grand Slam. Team Liquid were dominant on Overpass, winning …
Coldzera reportedly looks to leave MiBR before Berlin Major
Steven Rondina
Counter-Strike
MiBR is in a tricky spot with the reported benching of the team’s star player. According to a report by HLTV, Marcelo “coldzera” David has requested his deactivation from the team following BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles and Intel Extreme Masters XIV Chicago. If true, that would include his withdrawal from the upcoming StarLadder Berlin Major. Per HLTV, the reasoning behind the request is frustration over MiBR’s unideal results in …
Team Liquid versus Vitality grand finals set for ESL One Cologne
Steven Rondina
Counter-Strike
The ESL One Cologne grand finals are now set. In the final series of the event, Team Liquid will take on Team Vitality in a matchup of two of the hottest teams in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The game will carry huge bragging rights, as well as a potentially massive paycheck for Liquid. Vitality kicked off the semifinals with a series against Astralis. Though the French team got off to an …
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.
