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Why Is CS:GO Still So Popular?

Why Is CSGO Popular

On average, CS:GO registers over 1.3M concurrent players, making it the king of FPS games because after so many years in the market, it hasn’t lost traction, and to the contrary, it only keeps rising in popularity.

If you’re wondering why is CS:GO still so popular even when new FPS games such as Valorant, Rust, PUGB, and APEX Legends exist, in this article you are going to find the reasons why this gem by Valve is still the king in this category.

1. Multiplayer At Its Best

Players have always chased the thrill of playing with other people, especially their friends, and CS, since the days of CS 1.0, the game was engineered to be a multiplayer first-person shooter. CS:GO has completely revolutionized it thanks to being an online game, allowing players to easily play with other people from around the world thanks to the Matchmaking system, available in different game modes such as Premier, Competitive, Casual, Deathmatch, Arms Race, amongst others.

Since it’s also possible to set up your private server, or create a custom match to play with your friends, many players opt for this option for an even more immersive and entertaining experience.

CS:GO has mastered the art of multiplayer FPS because it includes all the features players crave for: voice chat, text chat, radio communication, and the possibility to easily connect with other players or set up a match to play with their friends.

Players crave human interaction, and CS:GO delivers it easily. And although you’re prone to finding hackers and toxic players, the game also provides ways to diminish your chances of experiencing such encounters, including the Prime membership and commands to mute the chat.

All in all, this is a huge factor that contributes towards the outstanding popularity of CS:GO, which at the time of writing this article, registered an all-the-time peak of over 1.8M concurrent players. 

2. Engineered for Competitiveness

CS:GO is superior to other FPS games because it’s been hardcore engineered for competitiveness, and it’s clear once we identify its main features:

  • The 5v5 format is the sweet spot for multiplayer FPS
  • The rounds are fast paced
  • The mechanics of the game are simple: bomb planting/defusal and rescuing the hostages
  • It’s engineered to bring the ultimate gunplay experience
  • The game is easy to start with thanks to its simple rules and mechanics
  • It offers the Prime membership, which is a filter that allows you to only play with other Prime users, further improving the gunplay experience

Furthermore, CS:GO offers other game modes such as Deatmatch and Arms Race, which cater to an even wider audience of FPS players. 

Therefore, the game has been engineered to promote competitiveness, and it has been this way since the days of CS 1.0 when the game was offline only. 

It’s also important to consider CS:GO is a hard FPS game, hence you must continuously work on your skills to keep an edge over other players. And this is another factor that contributes to its competitive factor, and hence, makes it the most popular FPS title in existence.

Therefore, putting it all together, since players must work hard to remain competitive, and they have pretty good reasons to do so, especially when playing via Matchmaking, it’s easy to understand why CS:GO has an average of 1.3M concurrent players.

3. Continuous Progress

Thanks to ranks and levels, CS:GO offers a structure that promotes continuous progress. If you play regularly, you will always walk away with a new accomplishment the majority of the time, and this is another factor that makes the game highly engaging and immersive, hence it retains its place as the most popular FPS title.

Furthermore, if you decide to buy the Prime membership, which is only $14.99 (one time payment), you will unlock the Weekly Care package, which rewards you with free skins, cases and stickers, bringing you even more incentives to keep playing.

Because there’s always something new to achieve in the game, it’s not surprising players keep coming back, contributing to the staggering mark of 1.3M concurrent players, because they have enough reasons to keep coming back.

4. Total Customization

CS:GO is highly versatile, and hence, it’s possible to totally customize your gameplay experience. You can fine tune every single setting such as your mouse, viewmodel, crosshair, video, launch options, HUD, radar, amongst others. Therefore, it’s possible to adapt the in-game configuration to match your gameplay style, needs and goals as a player.

Furthermore, you can also use commands via the developer console to fine tune your in-game configuration and also the settings of your private server. This extreme level of customization allows you to personalize your experience in CS:GO, and hence this is why players prefer it over other FPS titles.

Another factor inside this category that contributes towards the outstanding popularity of CS:GO nowadays is you can copy the in-game configuration from your favorite professional CS:GO player. Be it f0rest, s1mple, ZywOo, NIKo, Spinx, frozen, or any other, you can easily copy their CS:GO settings to replicate their in-game configuration and gameplay style.

Finally, it’s also very easy to set up your own private server to play CS:GO with your friends under your own rules, which is a new level of customization that makes the game even more immersive, and hence, extremely popular.

5. Different Roles for Every Type of Player

There are different types of roles in CS:GO, and the most important ones are the following:

  1. Entry fragger
  2. Support
  3. Lurker
  4. AWPer
  5. In-game Leader

A competent team will have a player in each role, and often, they will switch between different positions. For example, a player can play as AWPer and in-game leader, and another one can play as lurker and support, depending on the flow and needs of the match.

The possibility of playing a key role in the team makes the game even more engaging, and motivates players to invest the necessary time and work into honing their skills because it requires plenty of dedication to excel as an entry fragger, AWPer, support, lurker or in-game leader.

Therefore, based on your own abilities, likes and nature, you can find a role that matches you perfectly, and this factor makes the game even more immersive, and hence it retains its place as the most popular FPS game ever.

6. Case Opening

CS:GO is popular because it offers more features other than the main gunplay action, since it includes one of the most exciting extra features in existence: case opening. This concept has revolutionized the concept of video games beyond the realm of FPS, and CS:GO has mastered it.

According to stats, Valve made $1B dollars from case openings in 2023. This speaks volumes about the popularity of CS:GO case opening, and hence, it’s a factor that contributes towards making CS:GO the king of FPS games, even nowadays with so many other great FPS titles, millions of players still place CS:GO at the top of their preferences.

Case opening brings players reasons to keep coming back, and purchase the Prime subscription, as it’s the unique way by which you can get free CS:GO cases. And it’s also fair to say that case opening, along with the introduction of skins, opened the doors to CS:GO gambling, and we will talk more about it at the end of this guide.

7. The Skins and in-game Items Economy

The introduction of skins and in-game items created a complete new economy, and it’s another reason why CS:GO remains as an extremely popular esport. Because skins are worth real money, and they can be as valuable as a Karambit Blue Gem at $1.5M, an AK-47 Blue Gem at $1M or gloves selling for $10,000+, players have more reasons to spend more time in the game, because if they’re lucky enough, they can drop extremely rare and expensive skins, which can be sold for real money at third-party CS:GO trading sites.

The introduction of such items also created a new realm in the world of esports: skins and in-game items trading. In addition to the Steam Marketplace, new sites that allow players to buy, sell and exchange CS:GO skins have popped up throughout the years, such as DMarket, Skinport, SkinsMonkey, CS.Money, BUFF163, amongst others.

8. Content Creation and Streaming

People love creating content about CS:GO, be it via social media or through streaming sites such as Twitch. This is why CS:GO creators have a large following such as “buster” with over 4M followers, “Anomaly” with over 2M followers and “gafallen” with over 1.5M followers, just to name a few.

This is another factor that makes CS:GO not only an entertaining game to play, but also to follow. And since streamers and content creators know how to create immersive content, it contributes to hooking players with the game, and keep them coming back for more.

9. Plenty of Tournaments and Events

CS:GO has a busy schedule of events, tournaments and matches, and you just have to visit our page dedicated to the latest CS:GO events to see there are matches happening every single day, both offline and online. 

It’s possible thanks to the several operators hosting CS:GO tournaments and events, such as Valve itself, PGL, BLAST, ESL, DreamHack, Intel, RES, FISSURE, as well as organizations hosting local and regional CS:GO events, including the DACH CS Masters, Dust2.dk Ligaen, Dust2 Brasil Liga, YGames PRO Series, and Circuito Retake.

All of this would be impossible if CS:GO wasn’t the king of FPS games, and it’s reflected on the fact the esport often surpasses the mark of 900,000 viewers for key events such as the Majors.

10. The Rise of CS:GO Gambling

The introduction of skins and case opening created a new realm within the world of CS:GO, which is known as CS:GO gambling. Because CS:GO skins are worth real money, it’s possible to wager them on games such as Crash, Roulette, Plinko, Poker, amongst others. Hence users play CS:GO frequently to stand a chance at winning skins and cases for free thanks to the Weekly Care Package, so they can wager them on CS:GO casinos to stand a chance at winning more valuable items, or simply put, make money.

The industry nowadays has plenty of extremely popular CS:GO gambling sites such as CSGOLuck, CSGORoll, CSGOEmpire, Clash.gg, amongst others, which contribute to the outstanding popularity of CS:GO.

It’s also important to mention that CS:GO match betting contributes towards making this esport the king of FPS. Because it’s easy to understand and watch, plenty of esports and conventional bookies bring outstanding coverage to CS:GO matches and tournaments, hence it’s easy for players to bet on their favorite events, hence contributing to making the game even more popular and relevant.

Conclusion

Now you know why CS:GO registers over 1.3M concurrent players, and hence, it’s still considered as the #1 FPS game in the world, and as the evidence shows, it will retain this position for many years to come because the game keeps evolving and doesn’t fail to keep the players engaged and coming back for more.

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