Just a few reasons why the decade old game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is still on top. Either as a competitive game or casual fun.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, CSGO in short, is a competitive shooter game that is known all around the world. It has a huge player base and an active esports community with lots of tournaments being organized yearly.
The game itself initially launched on August 12, 2012, making it over a decade old. You would think that a game this old is in decline but nothing is further from the truth.
During COVID it broke its own record of concurrent active players with 1.320.219 players playing at the same time! More recently, the game even had 1,416,861 concurrent players. It’s safe to say that the game is long from being in decline.
How does CSGO remain relevant in today's fast-paced gaming culture? For starters, the game offers a wide variety of game modes for all players to enjoy.
It has a competitive side where players and teams can rise through the ranks and become the best. For the more casual player just wanting to have a good time playing the game, CSGO offers casual game modes without the high stakes and pressure of competition. Of course, tournaments with big cash prizes attract a high number of teams to battle it out. This in turn attracts viewers which also sparks interest in the game itself.
Besides tournaments, there are events and promotions organized by brands that attract players. For example, our own custom map “Antwerp Harbor” was built on request by the city of Antwerp to promote the city during the PGL tournament in May 2022. To learn more about this, visit our use case page here.
One other very big part of staying relevant in this day and age is offering a sandbox for players to let their creativity run wild. CSGO does this perfectly with its community maps. Players can create their own maps built for a specific game mode using assets either from the official CSGO maps or custom-imported ones. After Valve checks the map and approves it, it becomes available on the community pages of the game and can be played.
Custom map building opens the game up for brands and organizations to reach the player base and convey their message without distracting the player from the game itself.