Valve reveals CSGO player numbers on 10-year anniversary: “Stronger than ever”

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive turns ten years old this year, and Valve is celebrating the occasion with new in-game content. As part of the 10th birthday celebration, Valve has also revealed impressive player numbers for the now decade-old game.

Counter-Strike as an entity is over 20 years old now, first launching in 1999 in beta. Originally a humble Half-Life mod, it’s become one of the most popular first-person shooters of all time.

When Global Offensive launched in 2012, it wasn’t an immediate hit, with many fans of the series opting to stick with previous versions, like 1.6 and Source, not predicting GO to be a success.

Of course, the sands of time have proven this very wrong, as CS:GO quickly cemented itself as the gold standard in tactical first-person shooters, a big part of why it remains so popular today.

How popular is CS:GO in 2022?

How popular? Well, Valve revealed on August 16, that in the past 12 months, the game has “seen more players than ever before.”

The exact figure given is 20 million unique monthly players on average, with a peak of over 1 million concurrent players in April 2022.

Valve also boasted that the CS:GO Majors have broken previous viewership records, peaking at 2.7m concurrent viewers for the grand final of the PGL Antwerp Major, between NAVI and eventual-winners FaZe.

They also confirm that over $70 million was “raised” for professional orgs, teams and players, through the in-game Major items such as stickers.

“The future could not look brighter,” Valve concluded. While there have been concerns raised about the level of competition in tactical FPS games increasing, namely because of Riot Games’ 2021 release of Valorant, Counter-Strike’s grip on the top spot isn’t loosening yet.