The new year has undoubtedly been happy for Valve Corporation as CS: GO has regained its popularity as a renowned first-person shooting game. The first week of January saw a massive increase of almost 30,000 average players than in December 2019. But the celebrations did not stop here; it crossed the 800,000 unique users mark for the fifth time in history yesterday.
This is a piece of excellent news for CS: GO lovers and its makers as things were not good after April 2016, (when an all-time high of approximately 850,000 logged in). Other games such as PUBG and Fortinite had taken over, and CS: GO was witnessing an average of only 500,000 unique daily users. Let’s roll back the pages of history and look at how Counter-Strike started.
History of Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike has been one of the most successful game franchises in the world. Who would have thought, what started as a mod to Half Life in 1999, would be released as an independent game in 2000.
Counter-Strike released CS 1.2 in 2004 and quickly released CS 1.6 the same year. CS: GO was released back in 2012 and received a mixed response from the users. Many said that the new engine was pathetic and the new gameplay was not up to the mark. Some also claimed that CS 1.6 was far better, and such users continued playing the same.
However, the makers took this as a challenge, and with regular updates and gameplay tweaks, helped the users make a permanent transition to CS: GO.
The Fall and Rise of CS: GO
As mentioned above, things were not very good for CS: GO after 2016. Games like PUBG and Fortnite were released in 2017, and they took the world by storm. These games were from the battle royale genre, which people found interesting and exciting. The average daily active players for CS: GO declined rapidly and stayed close to the 400,000 mark.
CS: GO had to do something about it as the popularity of both these games was on the rise. The first step taken by the Valve Corporation (makers of CS: GO) is that they moved to a free-to-play model which spiked the interest of many. However, if the users want the ‘Prime’ status, they can pay $15 to enjoy premium item drops and weapon cases.
CS: GO took another big step with the introduction of a similar battle royale mode called the ‘Danger Zone’. In this, the players would drop into ‘Blacksite’ and would then survive by looking for resources and teaming up with other players. The total number of players is limited to 18. This further fueled the interest of gamers and helped CS: GO gain more popularity.
Then came the year 2019, when Astralis (a Danish professional CS: GO team) won most of the major tournaments of CS: GO and got hundreds of thousands of US$ as prize money. Astralis played a pivotal role for people to start taking gaming seriously and further popularised the game. By this time, CS: GO casinos had come into the picture, and people also started making huge money through them. For the best CS:GO gambling sites, check out https://csgobook.com/. You, too, can make money from the comfort of your home.
Is CS: GO Dying Because of PUBG and Fortnite?
PUBG and Fortnite might be at the top right now. But, it is unfair to compare CS: GO with these games. They might be leading currently, but there will come a time when these games will die, and CS: GO will still stand firm. A classic example of this is Pokemon GO, which was the leading game of 2016 but is now hardly seen on anyone’s phone.
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