Ukrainian Oleksandr “s1mple” Kosytliev (23) is the biggest star in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and is considered by many to be one of the best players of the shooter. He is now showcasing the competitor game from Riot on his Twitch channel, Valorant. A CS:GO commentator said: Riot can hardly believe its luck. From a business perspective, it’s a bad decision to support the competition for free.
This is s1mple: The Ukrainian s1mple is somewhat of an icon of CS:GO. The 23-year-old has been playing for the top team Natus Vincere as an AWP player, that is, as a sniper, since 2016 and is generally regarded as one of the best CS:GO players of all time; in any case, he is currently the biggest star in the game.
Although the Ukrainian streams relatively rarely on Twitch, he has a problem with the platform; he has been banned several times and has been very upset about it. But when he is on the streaming site, up to 70,000 people watch him: Everyone wants to learn tricks from the pro.
What is he doing in Valorant? Last Tuesday, s1mple checked out Valorant again after a long time: the first time since July 2020. He announced his stream on Twitter, noting that “Valorant is actually too easy of a game for him.”
His stream of the game lasted 7 hours, peaking at 40,170 viewers. On average, there were about 26,000 viewers – putting him in the top 5 of the past 30 days.
Can the face of CS:GO play the competitor’s game?
This is why this stream is so significant: The professional CS:GO commentator Auguste “Semmler” Massonat explains in a video why this stream is so significant and, from his perspective, even problematic.
Because here, “the face of CS:GO” is doing free advertising for Valorant, the biggest rival of Valve’s tactical shooter. Valorant is seen by many as a direct competitor to CS:GO, some even call it the “CS:GO” killer.
Semmler explains in a video (via YouTube) that Riot Games has paid large streamers like Ninja and shroud a lot of money to achieve an effect like the one s1mple is currently providing them for free. This is a “big win” for Valorant, he explains:
“You just know, right now they’re popping the champagne corks as they see s1mple turning on his stream and streaming Valorant for tens of thousands of fans. Everyone at Riot is spraying champagne around, the music is blaring, everyone is dancing on the tables – this is really such a good event for them.”
August “Semmler” Massonat
Semmler then explains: No one would care if a CS:GO player from the 2nd or 3rd tier showed Valorant on Twitch, but with s1mple it’s something different.
He is the face of CS:GO, the player everyone knows. If he wants to play Valorant, he can, that’s okay, but please not on Twitch. If he wants to remain the face of CS:GO, he must remain loyal to CS:GO; otherwise, rumors would arise that “CS:GO is a dead game.”
The commentator says: s1mple is probably not thinking about these things and is just playing Valorant for fun with a few friends. However, from a “business” perspective, he considers this behavior questionable.
Esports titles compete for the biggest stars and best talents
Here’s what’s behind it: The esports market is competitive. It’s not just about viewers, but also about players that could be lost to Valorant:
- the “face of Overwatch” Sinatraa switched to Valorant, even before he could receive his MVP skin from Blizzard
- the player Psalm came in second at the Fortnite World Championship and won 1.8 million US dollars in prize money – he also switched to Valorant
- even in CS:GO, professionals stopped early, to try their luck in Valorant – like Swag
In recent months, many other professional players from Fortnite, Overwatch, and indeed CS:GO have switched to the “new, attractive Valorant”. The emergence of such a game has ripple effects on the competing games and is watched with suspicion by people whose work is closely linked to one of the “old games”.
However, Semmler believes that Valorant does not pose a real threat. CS:GO does not have to worry about being a “dying game” when it regularly has over a million players on Steam.
Valorant, he believes, is not doing quite so well. In Korea, it plays virtually no role. Surely, the player base of Valorant is tiny, he thinks: If they had good numbers, Riot couldn’t stop shouting it in everyone’s face.
The probably most beautiful story about s1mple on MeinMMO came about when he was just too long on tour with his esports clan:
One of the best CS:GO players in the world is overplayed, wonderfully confused on Twitch
