Is CS:GO Dying?
Just kidding.
I think the community’s in a good place right now.
CS:GO’s first major of 2018 was a massive success, the finals, one of the greatest the
game has ever seen.
And this was reflected in the numbers, the finals managing the highest peak viewing number
ever, according to the viewers listed in the match description here.
The previous record was 5,000 fewer, set exactly a year ago during the Atlanta finals.
The game’s doing well!
Let’s be happy for a moment.
And now let’s compare it to other majors, just out of curiosity.
I didn’t bother listing the ones before Dreamhack 2014 since it’s harder to get
information about them.
CS:GO has nicely tracked and recorded every match of every major since then and I simply
went through and put them all into some graphs- so you don’t have to.
Of course, peaks only represent the most successful second of the match.
I would rather we had average numbers to compare, but hey.
What I did instead was to get the AVERAGE of each matches peak to try and get a more
accurate representation of how much the majors were being viewed, and here were my findings.
Boston’s quarter-finals were the 3rd most watched of all time, behind Columbus 2016
and Cologne 2015.
Its semis were 4th most watched, behind Cologne 2015, Atlanta 2017 and Columbus 2016.
And its finals were also 4th most watched of all time, behind Columbus 2016, Atlanta
2017 and Cologne 2015.
So CS:GO’s viewbase at the start of 2018 is healthy, but not the biggest it’s ever
been.
This graph helps put its current situation into perspective, and I think you’ll agree
that Boston was a respectably viewed major.
While we’re on this chart, there are some other interesting things I’ll quickly cover.
I would normally expect semi-final matches on average to get more views than quarter-finals,
but you can see that it isn’t always the case- the last 2 majors have had almost exactly
the same views for both!
This has got to be down to which teams are playing and you’d expect a match between
2 of the most popular teams to be the most viewed, even if it is earlier on in the event.
Still, hasn’t stopped the finals from always being the most viewed so far… apart from
with Dreamhack 2014 where they were SLIGHTLY behind the semis.
Thanks for ruining my point, 2014.
This is all stuff that I covered in more depth last year, following the Atlanta major.
I suggest you check the video out- I’ll leave it here in the cards to click on.
I talked about the importance of which teams are playing.
I also speculated that the time between majors mattered and that the less popular events
had always occurred when there hadn’t been much time since the previous one.
But this hasn’t been the case since- Krakow and now Boston have both had a 6 month gap
since the one before and yet Krakow still underperformed.
I now just think that majors alternate between successful and disappointing for absolutely
no reason… but that doesn’t bode well for the next major, which rumour has it will
be hosted by Faceit in London.
I wish them all the best to break the curse.
And while we’re at it can we please have some decent English teams?
So, the Esports side of CS:GO seems to be doing well.
What about the people actually playing the game?
Steamcharts is a great resource for this, showing the average player numbers per month,
as well as the peak.
Player Unknowns somehow continues to grow month on month, it’s utterly insane how
it’s still rising.
And although CS:GO’s growth is nowhere near as impressive, you may be surprised by how
well the game is performing.
I’m honestly surprised.
I considered 2015 to be the year the game took off but the viewerbase has remained remarkably
strong since then.
2016 as a whole saw significantly higher average and peak numbers of players, and 2017 managed
even higher average numbers, although peak numbers have dropped a tiny bit.
Isn’t this video happy and positive!
Makes a change doesn’t it.
But let’s try to see the negative in everything, as is tradition.
The tournament went as well as it could have done: it was well hosted, had been a long
time since the previous one, it had excellent matches and an epic EU VS NA final that extended
into overtime.
And yet, despite all of that, it still hasn’t been as viewed as much on average as earlier
majors were, even though those weren’t anywhere near as ‘perfect’.
It’s easy to see the new record-breaking peak viewing figure and to think that CS:GO
is more popular than it has ever been before, but in reality, the game is beginning to slip.
Player-wise, this January has seen the highest peak player numbers since March last year
and the highest average since April.
But both these figures are below where they were last January, which had 12,000 more players
on average and a peak that was 100,000 higher.
After that, it was only down-hill for the rest of the year.
So, if this January is the same, then it will be a disappointing year.
Hype from the tournament will soon die down.
It won’t be long before players expect more from the game again!
These spikes in viewers and players aren’t the start of a golden age- but rather, last
gasps before the inevitable collapse!
Perhaps CS:GO is dying.
Starting next month.