[CS:GO] Underfunded - Counter-Strike’s Prizing Problems

Valve recently released word that DotA 2, their most-played game and one of the most-watched eSports in the world, would receive an $18,000,000 prize pool for its fifth world championship, held August 3rd-8th, 2015. The International Main Event, or simply “TI5” to many fans, is gaining a lot of attention from the eSports community, fans and professionals alike, due to the huge scale of both its competitive scene and the groundbreakingly large prize for the teams invited. While this is a huge step forward for eSports, many players and fans of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s professional scene feel overlooked and ignored by the gaming giant responsible for CS:GO, DotA 2, Team Fortress 2, the Steam client, and many other facets of the gaming industry.

While DotA 2 bears a top-2 spot in PC eSports, competing with fellow MOBA League of Legends for the top position, its little brother seems to be ignored by Valve’s checking account. Despite being Valve’s second most-played game, CS:GO championships and major tournaments receive a small fraction of the prize money compared to those for DotA 2. Both games are enormous revenue-earners on Steam with their tradable and sellable item systems and occupy spots in the top 5 most-watched games, so why does this discrepancy exist? 

Many have brought up the fact that CS:GO has many different pro leagues and major tournaments such as ESL ESEA, MLG CEVO, Faceit, ESWC, and Dreamhack. This is undeniably a factor, as it splits up competitions, rankings, and records into a confusing mess when compared with games which have one official, primary, or developer-sponsored pro league. Even after recognizing the results of this fact, though, questions can still be raised toward Valve as to why this was allowed to become such an ingrained system and why the company didn’t create one primary league. 

This isn’t necessarily to say that Counter-Strike has been ignored by its developers; many changes, updates, fixes, and new sets of content have been introduced regularly into the game since its release in 2012. Perhaps the perception some hold that Valve ignores CS:GO its fans is driven more by the high community involvement of rival game dev companies such as Hi-Rez, Blizzard, and Riot. 

Regardless of speculations and assumptions about the situation, the fact remains that prizing is sorely lacking in comparison to competing eSports. In terms of sustainability, a scene and fan base of CS:GO’s size would simply be much healthier and if bolstered by some changes in organization, infrastructure, and monetary investment.


Written by
Jeff "goliath" Light
goliathxgaming.blogspot.com
twitch.tv/goliathxgaming
@goliath_Jeff