Counter-Strike: Global Offensive set a new player record in February. Never before have so many played the shooter, which was released back in August 2012. But what is the reason for this?
What record has CS:GO set? Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been consistently at number 1 in the Steam charts for weeks – ahead of Dota 2, PUBG, or GTA V.
On February 9, 2020, however, a record was broken. 901,305 players played the shooter simultaneously (Steamcharts). This significantly surpassed the previous record from April 2016 of 850,485 simultaneous players.
Earlier this year, we reported from MeinMMO that CS:GO has been particularly successful in recent months. Now it has the highest player count of all time, and it is quite possible that this record will be broken again in the coming days.
Why is CS:GO so successful in February? The exact reason why the all-time record was broken in February 2020 is not clearly recognizable. There was no special patch and no event that could have drawn increased attention.
However, there are many factors why CS:GO has had such an upward trend in recent months, including the switch to Free2Play and the lack of alternatives.
The switch to Free2Play laid the foundation
When did the upward trend begin? In December 2018, CS:GO changed its payment model. Previously, you had to purchase the shooter, but it has been free since then. Additionally, the “Danger Zone” mode, a battle royale, was introduced.
Although CS:GO received 14,000 negative reviews for the announcement of the switch to Free2Play, it seems that this change has been very beneficial for the game.
While in many months of 2018 only 250,000 to 330,000 players played CS:GO on average per day, the shooter has not fallen below the 350,000 mark since then.
Why are even more people playing CS:GO now? Since the switch to Free2Play, CS:GO has hardly made any major updates, yet the game continues to grow. A possible reason could be the lack of alternatives.
Although there are successful shooters like Fortnite, Overwatch, or Apex Legends, they have different gameplay styles and target audiences. Classic tactical shooters like Counter-Strike are rare, and when they do appear, they often fail and are shut down.
A functioning alternative is CrossFire, which is particularly popular in China, but is now being shut down in its home country. Although Steam has been distributing CS:GO through the publisher Perfect World in China for years, Steam itself has now also become more active in the Chinese market. This may have also influenced the latest user record set by Steam.
So it is quite possible that more players from China have joined CS:GO.
CS:GO very popular, especially in Europe
Where do CS:GO players come from? The analysis website SteamDB uses the Steam API to evaluate data. It also did this for the record of CS:GO.
At the time of the record, 440,000 people were playing on official servers (so less than 50%). However, more than 60% of them came from Europe. On the Perfect World servers in Asia, 21.2% of all users played.
It’s noticeable that CS:GO is hardly played in North America. Consoles are significantly more popular there and Counter-Strike is primarily a PC title.
