For the first time ever, Counter Strike:Global Offensive enjoyed the highest monthly average player count of any game on Steam, bringing in more players than PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Dota 2.
Those numbers come from Steam Charts, which has CSGO and Dota 2 trading the daily lead back and forth. CSGO first started peaking above Dota 2 in September, but has started to regularly stand above its rival esports title of late. CSGO averaged 747,937 in October, while Dota 2 came in at 739,924. PUBG trailed by a sizable margin at 637,870.
This follows a massive dip in the Dota 2 player count following The International 2019, the ongoing decline of PUBG, and a growth in the average player count of CSGO.
While CSGO has been fairly consistent in its numbers, odds are this is not here to stay for an extended period of time. Dota 2 has hit a plateau in its meta of late, with the last major patch arriving in May. The game is set to receive a major shakeup with the Outlanders Update, which will likely draw back a significant number of lapsed fans.
Neither game has hit anything close to PUBG at its peak in late 2017, when the game was luring in multi-million player concurrent player counts. The rise of rival battle royales Fortnite and Apex Legends has seen PUBG’s player count tank in the years since. Though it still enjoys a solid playerbase, it is nothing close to where it was two years ago.
These numbers are strictly related to Steam and do not count the number of players in other titles such as Fortnite and League of Legends.
Regardless, this is great news for CSGO.
Despite being deep into the game’s lifespan, the game has attracted new fans en masse over recent months. Though it wasn’t initially impactful, the move to the free to play format in 2018 has likely paid off. The professional scene has also been booming of late, with a number of popular organizations returning to the game over recent months.
CSGO may or may not maintain its spot as the most-played game on Steam, but the game is in a very healthy place right now.
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