Players of Counter-Strike 2 spend millions of euros to open cases, even though the same old problems take away their enjoyment of the game.
This is how much Counter-Strike brings in: Counter-Strike 2 is still a huge hit for Valve despite criticism, as players still can’t get enough of opening cases and hoping for rare skins for their firearms and knives – such as a “Case hardened Karambit blue gem”.
According to the website Case-Tracker, around 32,775,000 cases were opened in Counter-Strike 2 alone in March 2025. Case-Tracker determines the number of opened cases based on new skins that are recorded in the skin database and come from cases.
For each case a player wants to open, they must buy a key for €2.35 from Valve. For the past months, that means:
- March: 32,000,000 cases x €2.35 = €75,200,000
- February: 22,600,000 x €2.35 = €53,110,000
- January: 20,500,000 x €2.35 = €48,175,000
This means that in the still young year 2025, Valve has already earned around €176 million with Counter-Strike 2.
A persistent problem takes away the fun
What are players complaining about in CS2? The anti-cheat system of CS2 is criticized the most. The biggest problem of the shooter is the enormous number of cheaters who take away the enjoyment of legitimate players. Valve is struggling to manage this problem.
Many players are also dissatisfied with Valve’s work. In some reviews on Steam, accusations from some players claim that Valve is no longer interested in the game or the community. In addition to the cheating problem, they criticize the movement and the servers. Moreover, the game is not really receiving new content. Rarely is there a revised, modern version of an old CS:GO map that disappeared from the game with the release of CS2.
“Peekers Advantage” is also a much-discussed problem. Peekers’ Advantage means that the player who engages from cover has the upper hand, while the player holding an angle is at a disadvantage.
The various problems, however, do not deter CS2 players from diligently buying keys and opening cases – after all, they cannot be eliminated by a cheater either. Nevertheless, you must also be careful of scammers when it comes to cases and keep an eye on your Steam data – especially on websites that supposedly give you free cases: Cybersecurity experts warn: CS2 players are the latest target of scammers who want to steal Steam data
