CS:GO’s playerbase just seems to go from strength to strength. Over on Steamcharts
we can see a breakdown of how many people have been playing the game since its release
in 2012. It’s had its ups and downs, yet even at its lowest has remained one of the
most resilient videogames… ever? Bear in mind it’s approaching its 8th anniversary
and within the last 30 days it’s managed the highest average number of players it has
ever achieved, and its 4th highest peak player count of all time. It’s now the top game
on the site, and with more hours played than any other- even DOTA 2! But WHY? And how?
Maybe we should look back at its weakest period, which was mid-way through 2018. I think the
main reason for this drop was because of Battle Royale games like PUBG and Fortnite which
were competing for players’ time. At the end of 2018, Valve made the game free to play,
which clearly removed a barrier of entry and, when combined with the launch of a battle-royale
style gamemode called Dangerzone, I think explains why the player numbers shot up as
much as they did at the end of the year. 2019, on the other hand, has been a bit more
of a mystery. For the first half of the year, player numbers declined- much like they seem
to in the first half of every year. Maybe people like to be out and about more in the
summer or something. But what can explain the boom from August
onwards? There was the Berlin major, for a start. This
took place throughout most of August, ending in early September. Majors usually result
in a spike in players. But I did a video analysing how the 2019 Berlin major did and by most
measurements, it was the poorest performing major since 2014, before the game took off
in the first place! It could be that the game going Free to Play in 2018 HURT viewing figures
in 2019, as now a pass had to be bought to get drops from watching the major. There was
no longer the incentive for individuals to have multiple PCs idling throughout the majors.
2019’s viewing figures might have dropped, but it might actually have become a more accurate
representation of how many were watching them. So in short: the major may still have caused
a jump in player numbers, despite it appearing as one of the least viewed majors the game
has had. And in November a new Operation started, for
the first time in 2 years and the game has seen considerable growth for all the time
it’s been active. But there’s got to be something else going
on as well. It just doesn’t sit right with me that the game has been growing every month
since July last year without at least SOMETHING else happening.
And that something is Asia. Or more specifically, Perfect World. When it comes to gaming- or
anything online really- China is something of a mystery. I have never played Perfect
World, nor do I hear much about it. But Steamdb did an investigation into it and were able
to track player numbers by using CS:GO’s dedicated servers situated in China. Now bear
in mind that these will only track official matches- if there’s a huge underground community
scene, like with millions of Asians surfing or playing Zombie Mode every night, then this
won’t show up here. Still, I got a year’s worth of data from Valve’s matchmaking dedicated
servers and split them into categories. Believe it or not, the number of players in
Europe and America actually dropped in 2019! Down by as much as 27% in the middle of the
year, and while they picked up towards the end again, they still ended lower than they
had started. But the Asian playerbase doubled, growing
steadily throughout the year. Perfect World, the Chinese face of Counter-Strike,
was launched in 2017, together with this blog post. Almost all of the growth in Asia in
2019 comes from the Perfect World servers, situated in 3 regions along the coast of China.
All three server locations started with about 10,000 players average, and ended with 30,000.
THAT’S where Counter-Strike’s growth has been this year.
It does explain why Valve is so keen to have China-friendly versions of all the weapon-skins
included in the game. But why this growth? I don’t know enough
about China to say for sure. But I do know that DOTA 2 has been losing players this year
so it could be that the player base is jumping from one Valve game to another.
And there’s definitely interest in tactical first-person shooters over there- you may
or may not have heard of Crossfire. No, not that Half-Life Deathmatch map. No, not that
chat application we all used about 10 years ago. And no, not that thing when 2 graphics
cards love each other very much. I’m talking about one of the BIGGEST GAMES IN THE WORLD,
with 660 MILLION registered players worldwide! Google it and you might get a strange sense
of deja-vu. It’s quite a bit like Counter-Strike. Again, I don’t know a lot about it, other
than that it’s been around for a while and a new version called CrossfireX (No, not this
one) is coming out on modern consoles. But trying to make a sequel to a popular game
can often go horribly wrong, fragmenting the playerbase and sending many elsewhere entirely.
So maybe CS:GO’s also absorbing a few of the players from that free-to-play game.
Oh look, CS:GO went free to play too. It really makes sense now that Counter-Strike has been
made as easy to access as it can be, with a battle-royale mode added to suck some of
the players from other popular games. Integrating events and HLTV links into the game’s main
menu will also make it easier for people to follow and to get into the competitive scene.
So maybe these things had something to do with it, but maybe they didn’t. I don’t
know. In terms of playerbase proportions, the majority
of players are still from Europe. At the start of 2019, America had roughly the same number
of players as Asia. But by the end, Asia had doubled. If it doubles again then Asia will
match Europe for player numbers. It’s definitely something to keep an eye
on. We know how large various esports are in Asia, if they pick Counter-Strike up as
their new favourite then this bodes incredibly well for the game! (…and terribly for the
pro teams in Europe and America.) So that’s where the new players are coming
from. But what about existing ones? How’s the game doing here?
I’ve always used Reddit as an indicator of how the game’s doing, and from my observations,
the people on the CS:GO subreddit are more interested in watching it as an e-sport than
they are about playing it. Just last month, 4 out of the 5 highest peaks on esports channels
on Twitch were from CS:GO! It’s just that when it comes to playing the game, I think
people here have been there, done that. They’ve reached a high rank, have played the game
a lot and now find it more fun to follow their favourite teams than to boot up a new match.
I’m sure a lo t of people are still playing it- you only have to start up a match and
you can see that. I just think the hype has died down, just as it eventually does with
every game. It’s then typically replaced with criticism and explanations for why it’s
not as fun to play as it used to be. But I think CS:GO has moved beyond even that stage!
I think the playerbase can agree that, in its current state, it’s an extremely polished
and playable game. And now that the game’s received a new operation, I don’t think
they can think of much that Valve could do to make them want to play more. So until the
game can find a way of poaching more players from other titles, or ways of bringing old
fans back to it again, it seems like new players from Asia is the game’s best hope for growth.
But will this ever impact us here? Will Asian teams start dominating in the majors? Will
this bring a new competitive rivalry like we used to see between European and American
teams? Or will Perfect World remain separate from the rest of the world?
I guess we’ll find out. Valve have the stats. Only they really know how many people are
playing what. Whether Dangerzone is a success. Whether CS:GO’s attracting new players from
old games, and if so, which ones. Whatever’s happening, it’s definitely worth being aware
of Perfect World, and how it’s grown so much in the past year that it’s managed
to bring all of CS:GO to new heights, even going as far as to top the Steam Charts!