Being over two decades old, Counter-Strike has climbed to the top of the gaming world and became one of the most popular first-person shooter franchises ever. Players enjoy Counter-Strike for its action-packed and competitive gameplay, and the game isn’t even too difficult to learn.
These characteristics have encouraged new players to try and play the game. However, many are still unsure of whether they must pay an upfront fee to play the game, or if Valve has made the game free to play. In this article, we’ll answer the question, “Is CS Free To Play?”
Is CS:GO Free?
The definite answer is yes, Counter-Strike is completely free to download and play! Valve, the developers of the game, made a huge announcement that their beloved first-person shooter game would be completely free to play.
This was huge news in the gaming world, and the playerbase of Counter-Strike rapidly increased since players no longer had to make a financial investment to play the game or even try it out.
Until today, CS:GO is still completely free to play, meaning anyone on the Steam platform can still grab it in the Steam Store for free.
Was CS:GO Always Free Since The Beginning?
No, previously, Counter-Strike has always been a paid game. Valve has always put a price tag for every Counter-Strike game in the franchise, whether it’d be Counter-Strike: Source or Global Offensive.
Before the game was made free to play, CS:GO would globally cost players $14.99 to grab. However, this amount might have slightly differed depending on the different currencies in the world, but it had stayed around that price point for the longest time.
Players who spent $14.99 would have access to the game permanently – it wasn’t a monthly subscription or anything like that. By paying the game’s price tag, players had full access to all the game modes and features of the game.
When Did CS:GO Become Free?
Valve made Counter-Strike completely free to play in December 2018. This was massive news in the gaming world and the player base of CS:GO continued to grow now that the game is accessible to all.
I Paid For CS:GO, Can I Get A Refund?
Though players had to pay for Counter-Strike previously, they don’t have to anymore. This makes it sound like Valve has scammed all the players who paid for the game initially, while new players could get the game for free.
As a result, many original players started to question Valve whether they would get a refund for supporting their game before it even became super popular. However, the answer is no, you cannot get a refund.
Instead, players who bought the game when it had a price tag were immediately given the Prime Status on their account, which is a premium membership that gives players access to the entire game. Let’s talk about the Prime Status in more depth.
The Prime Status
The paywall Valve has created for Counter-Strike has been moved from the game’s price tag to the Prime Status. Let’s learn more about it.
What Is The Prime Status?
The Prime Status is a premium upgrade which costs $14.99, which is the same exact price CS:GO used to sell for. It is safe to say that the price tag has been moved to the Prime Status upgrade.
The Prime Status rewards players with a lot of benefits and full access to the game’s features.
Main Benefits Of The Prime Status
There are several benefits players can get from the Prime Status upgrade
Access To Ranked Matchmaking
The biggest advantage of the Prime Status is that players will have access to ranked matchmaking, which is the Competitive Mode. Counter-Strike is a serious game where players train to hone their skills and improve.
This sort of environment cannot be found if players play without a Prime Status, as they will only be able to access unranked and less-serious game modes such as Deathmatch, Arms Race, and Casual.
With the Competitive Mode, players can try their best to climb the ranks, allowing them to track their progress and improvement over time.
Eligibility To Receive Free Drops
Another awesome benefit received from purchasing the Prime Status is the eligibility to receive free item drops every week. Players with a Prime Status can receive “Weekly Care Packages,” which are packages containing four claimable items.
Every Weekly Care Package contains the following items:
- 1x Weapon Skin
- 1x Weapon Case
- 2x Graffiti Sprays
Unfortunately, players can only claim two out of the four items. They can select which two items they would like to receive while they must give up the other two items.
From an economic standpoint, it is much better to select the weapon skin and weapon case every time as they are the two items that have the highest monetary value. This allows players to farm free skins and sell them on the market every week.
High-Quality Matches
One big issue with Counter-Strike becoming free to play is that anyone can download it. This means malicious players such as cheaters and smurfs can create an infinite amount of accounts to ruin matches for other players.
However, getting the Prime Status means you can queue into Prime-protected matches where everyone in the game has the Prime Status as well. This makes it more difficult for smurfs and cheaters to breach into the games, as they will have to pay $14.99 while their accounts have a high chance of getting banned.
The paywall for Prime-protected matches will make cheaters and smurf think twice before they purchase it to ruin the match quality of games.
Free vs. Paid Comparison
If you’re still unwilling to spend that extra $14.99 for a Prime Status, we completely understand you. Sometimes, you want to get a good feel of the game first to see whether you’ll invest more time into it or not.
In this section of the article, we’ll do a comparison between playing CS:GO without the Prime Status, and with the Prime Status.
Here is a table that will help you get an idea of what to expect:
| Features | Non-Prime | Prime Status |
| Access To Every Map In The Game | Yes | Yes |
| Access To All Game Modes | No | Yes |
| Access To Ranked Matchmaking | No | Yes |
| Access To Trade Items | Yes | Yes |
| Access To Use Stickers | Yes | Yes |
| Access To Change Loadouts | Yes | Yes |
| Access To Communicate | Yes | Yes |
| Access To Exclusive Weapon Skins | No | Yes |
| Access To Agent Skins | No | Yes |
With the table above in mind, the primary difference between Prime Status and non-Prime Status players is the ability to queue for the game’s ranked game modes and obtain exclusive skins and items.
As we’ve briefly highlighted in the beginning of the article, most players invest their time into Counter-Strike to become a better player, as the game allows for a high skill ceiling. However, without access to ranked mode, you’re essentially playing casual game modes all the time, making it hard to track your progress and improve in a serious environment.
Is Prime Status Worth It?
In our opinion, yes, the Prime Status is completely worth the money.
Remember that the Prime Status is a one-time purchase, meaning you only have to buy it once and you will have it permanently. The thing is, most CS:GO players will invest thousands of hours into the game.
Let’s say you’ll spend 2,000 hours in the future, which is a normal amount in the CS:GO community. If you divide $14.99 by 2,000 hours, you are spending less than one cent per hour played. This is a small price to pay for your entertainment.
Additionally, the feature of receiving item drops is another determining factor that encourages you to buy the Prime Status. Every week, active players with a Prime Status will receive a “Weekly Care Package.”
This care package allows players to get two free items, whether it’d be weapon skins, cases, or graffiti. If you farm these care packages every week, you can easily collect a handful of cases which are worth at least 50 cents up to a dollar.
After a few months of playing the game regularly, you can sell the item drops you’ve accumulated to the market and essentially make your $14.99 back. Grinding for a Weekly Care Package seriously doesn’t take too much work.
How Does Valve Make Money Now?
Back then, putting a price tag on Counter-Strike games used to be Valve’s primary way of monetizing the game to keep their company running. However, now that the price tag is out the way, there are two primary ways Valve makes money.
Prime Status Purchases
As we have covered earlier, the Prime Status has essentially become a must-buy item for players to enjoy the full Counter-Strike experience. The main reason why players play Counter-Strike is due to the competitive aspect of the game, and players must pay $14.99 to play the game’s ranked mode.
It is safe to say that over 90% of active CS:GO players have purchased the Prime Status upgrade, the opportunity to play ranked matchmaking and play with/against less hackers and smurfs definitely enhance the gaming experience.
You can already imagine how much money Valve makes from selling the Prime Status upgrade with some simple math. You can multiply $14.99 by tens of millions of players who have purchased the game.
Counter-Strike Skins
Though the Prime Status has already generated Valve hundreds of millions of dollars, this amount of money isn’t enough to keep such a large company like Valve running consistently. This is where their second revenue stream comes into play, and it is by far their most profitable way of making money.
For those unaware, CS:GO has weapon skins, which are additional cosmetics that alter the appearance of weapons in the game, giving them different colors, designs, patterns, etc. Skins have become an integral part of the game, as players love purchasing skins though they do not provide any in-game advantages or benefits. By no means are they pay-to-win.
Valve makes money through skins with two methods: case openings and the Steam Market.
Cases
The primary way to obtain skins in Counter-Strike is to unbox them from loot boxes known as weapon cases. To open a case, a player must purchase the case and a case key to unbox it. Each case key costs a flat $2.50, while cases vary from cents to dollars. So, everytime a case is opened, Valve is pocketing at least $2.50.
The crazy part is, around 700,000 weapon cases are unboxed everyday, meaning Valve is generating at least $1.7 million every single day, which is just mind blowing. Sure, not every day will there be exactly 700,000 cases being opened, but you should already get the idea of how much money they are printing – it’s insane.
Steam Market
The next method of making money for Counter-Strike is utilizing the Steam Market. As you might already know, Valve owns both Steam and Counter-Strike. Players can buy and sell their skins through the Steam Market, which is the platform’s official marketplace.
Every time a skin is listed on the market, the seller pays a 15% selling fee that will go to the pockets of Valve. Now, we can’t give you an accurate number of how much money worth of skins are being sold everyday, but considering the skins market is a multi-billion dollar industry, we’ll bet they’re easily making millions every day.
The two methods we talked about can already outdo the lifetime sales from the Prime Status in only a few months, which is why it shouldn’t be too financially burdening to make Counter-Strike a free game.
How To Download CS:GO For Free?
As we’ve mentioned earlier, you can definitely download Counter-Strike for free. It’s just that some game modes are limited, but you can still play the game’s regular game modes permanently without spending a penny.
The primary way to download CS:GO for free is through the Steam platform, which is also owned by Valve.
Here is a step-by-step guide of how you can download CS:GO for free on Steam:
Step 1: Create A Steam Account And Download The Client
The first and most basic step to play CS:GO is to create a Steam account. As we’ve discussed above, CS:GO can only be played on the Steam platform, so making an account is essential if you want to download the game.
You can register for an account through the official Steam website. Once you’re done, you should also consider downloading the Steam desktop client as you will need it later.
Step 2: Go To The Steam Store
Once you have your Steam desktop client ready to go, make sure to log in to your account. After logging in, you will have access to all the tools and on Steam.
On your Steam client, click on the “Store” section which can be found on the top-left corner of your screen. It will take you to the Steam Store where all Steam games can be found.
Step 3: Search For The CS:GO Store Page
On the Store page, use the search bar to look for Counter-Strike. Once you have found the correct game, click it to go to the CS:GO official store page.
Step 4: Download The Game
On the CS:GO store page, scroll down and click on the green “Play Game” button. Steam will display on-screen instructions of how you can download the game.
CS:GO is a large game, meaning it might take some time for you to download. The duration of the download depends on your internet speed. Once the game is finished downloading, you can boot up the game and start playing immediately!