Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is turning 9 years old. The game was released on August 21, 2012, and has witnessed a lot of exciting events since then. To celebrate CS:GO anniversary, the CS.MONEY Blog is here to recount the story of CS:GO through five records the game has set. And you pick the most notable record!
The highest number of players online
When it had just been released, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive didn’t exactly boast remarkable numbers. At the end of August 2012, the game was peaking at around 50,000 players daily. The previous two Counter-Strike games had roughly the same numbers.
For a long time, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive had been in the top three most popular Steam games. An achievement, true — but not a record. The shooter was overshadowed by another game from Valve, Dota 2, as well by the renowned PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS. It wasn’t before the beginning of 2020 that everything changed. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive finally managed to secure first place by setting a record of 1,305,714 Steam users playing the game online concurrently.
That’s a huge number. That’s twice the population of Seattle. The very city that hosted almost all The International tournaments! More importantly, CS:GO set this record as the eight-year-old game. It truly is an outstanding accomplishment: after eight years, most online shooters end up with a tiny audience comprised of the most dedicated fans, rather than setting popularity records.
The largest prize pool
How many CS:GO tournaments do you think are included in the top 10 of esports competitions with the largest prize pool? Five? Three? No, none! And none in the top 20 as well. And even in the top 50.
The first mention in the ranking is an underwhelming 57th line. That’s two World Electronic Sports Games tournaments, each with $1,500,000 in prize money. Next is the first season of ELEAGUE with a prize pool of $1,410,000.
It would seem that 57th place in the ranking isn’t particularly impressive. But even this result is actually something to be proud of. Two factors made it possible. First, the total prize money played out within CS:GO exceeded $100,000,000 last year.
Second, this is a total prize pool of a total of 5,160 tournaments. That’s about two tournaments a day. And even though we’re naturally talking about events of all levels, the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro scene itself has a huge number of tournaments — and that’s way cool!
The most-watched match
It was the ELEAGUE Major 2017 Grand Final between Astralis and Virtus.pro that drew the most viewers ever. At its peak, 1,331,781 spectators were watching that match.
Second place goes to another Major Grand Final between FaZe vs. Cloud9 at ELEAGUE Boston 2018. At its peak, it was watched by 1,329,096 viewers. These are excellent numbers. But more importantly, these two matches serve to emphasize how global the professional scene of the game is.
Just imagine: a match between a Polish club and a Danish squad at a Major in the USA draws a million viewers! Few games can boast such stats. And these aren’t isolated cases either. Most recently, the G2 vs. Natus Vincere match had more viewers than there were people playing CS:GO at the time.
The most expensive skin
When skins first appeared in the game, AK-47 Jaguar cost about $30 and was considered an expensive weapon finish. Today, the prices are much higher. In January this year, we witnessed a record deal: a StatTrak™ AK-47 Case Hardened Minimal Wear with a streak of four Titan Katowice 2014 (Holo) stickers was sold for $150,000.
If a skin priced like an Aston Martin Vantage doesn’t impress you, here’s another record. A collector bought an AWP Dragon Lore and AK-47 Case Hardened for $775,000 this June! In 2014, you could’ve bought around 26,000 AK-47 Jaguars for that money.
The longest winning streak
Sweden’s Ninjas in Pyjamas managed to set an exceptional record: the squad won 87 maps in a row. And not against tier-3 teams online, but at LAN tournaments versus tier-1 opponents.
This record is significant for two reasons. First, it shows how important skills are in the game. Ninjas in Pyjamas switched to CS:GO earlier than other teams and won map after map thanks to their outstanding skills. They didn’t need luck, and neither did they need to exploit bugs.
Second, it highlights how much the game’s professional scene has evolved. Such a record doesn’t seem achievable in today’s circumstances. Moreover, even winning all the maps in a single tournament is considered a rare and amazing accomplishment now.
Next year, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will turn 10 years old. Quite recently, in October 2019, the series celebrated its 20th anniversary. To celebrate this occasion, Valve released a case with themed skins. We suggest you try on the role of Nostradamus for five minutes and tell us in the comments how you think the company will celebrate the 10th birthday of its premier shooter.
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