CS:GO — a game and Esports

Shooting games make up a significant chunk of modern gaming. They have so many fans as casual titles, and they are super popular as Esports disciplines.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a classic shooter, a part of the game series, well-known from the early 2000s. I’m not a big fan of the shooting genre, and when I came across the title of CS:GO in my career of a game journalist, I was rather cautious towards it. Would it be a nice game at all, to play and to write about?

Although I can’t call this shooter a perfect entry to the gaming culture, it still has some interesting aspects to explore and to use in the further evolution of the genre.

T vs CT — the core and the main problem

The first Counter-Strike game appeared as a modification for another shooter, iconic nowadays Half-Life. With it, we have such installments:

· Counter-Strike — the original one, 2000.

· Counter-Strike: Condition Zero — 2004.

· Counter-Strike: Source — a remake of the original game, using the Source engine, 2004.

· Counter-Strike Neo — a version of original CS for arcade machines, released only in Japan, 2004.

· Counter-Strike Online and Online 2 — special versions, released for the Asian gaming market, 2007 and 2013. Both games are free-to-play, with microtransactions.

· Counter-Strike: Global Offensive — probably the most successful entry to the series, 2012. This version is a constantly improving product, a work in progress, actual in the gaming community even after quite a long period of existence.

· Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies — a shooter against zombies, 2014. This game got negative reception from gamers and critics.

During the whole timeline, the Counter-Strike series is whirling mostly around its primary idea of two teams fighting against each other. One is of Terrorists and the other is of Counter-Terrorists. Terrorists try to plant a destructive bomb on some of the locations, and Counter-Terrorists try to prevent the explosions. Terrorists try to keep hostages on some other locations, and Counter-Terrorists try to free those guys.

There are some additional modes in the game — like the recent Battle Royal of Danger Zone. Still, the bomb defuse scenario remains the most popular among them. There are no other scenarios at professional competitions. There are no other modes in the official multiplayer matchmaking, the primary entertainment in the game that affects players’ ranking.

Fights of Counter-Terrorists against Terrorists are easy to understand. And this is a huge problem of the game — its core is so realistic, so “of this world”. It’s just a virtual shooting match, ok, but at the same time, it’s very easy to make some obvious connections with the real world.

Blood on walls and dead bodies on streets… CS:GO makes its scenarios, its visuals, and its playing feelings realistic to the max, up to a dangerous and unsuitable for the society level. Calling teams with just first letter — T and CT — looks like an attempt to prevent scaring people, to take at least this slight step towards fiction.

Easy on the surface, complicated in its depth

“People shooting people” is a core of some other games too. On the other hand, many developers try to leave this conception behind — such battles often happen only in a virtual past of our civilization or in an imaginary future. More often, in-game characters become fantastic creatures, whom you can’t feel like normal human beings. Their opponents are often beasts from other dimensions.

Such an attitude is easier to “explain” for non-gamers. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is among those games, which don’t care about such precautions. It has a big, well-formed community, and the game stuck to it, trying to avoid risky moves. Battles of Ts and CTs exist if there are enough customers for such a concept.

You should dig a bit deeper to understand the phenomenon of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Most of the players don’t really care about moral aspects of the game scenarios, and they aren’t drawing analogies between reality and virtuality — they just enjoy playing this shooting game and interacting with each other through it.

CS:GO seems to be very simple. This feeling is rather deceiving. You grab a gun and you run around a virtual location, shooting opponents. In fact, this is absolutely true — the game has an accessible entry level even for very young players. Then, by gaining experience, players develop many skills, and the more they play, the deeper this game turns out to be. For instance:

· Every weapon is unique here, providing players with different fire rates, accuracy, and damage. Players should find their own style in the game, and find a weapon, appropriate for it.

· Every location is unique here. CS:GO maps offer various possibilities to build in-game strategies. There are so many hidden passageways, secret features of the environment — learning these maps is a necessary practice for becoming successful in the game.

· It’s a team-based shooter, so players should act as a team, play different roles in matches. That’s not an obvious aspect, considering the absence of hero classes. And still, without team training, it will be hard to reach the highest rankings.

· Economic strategies consist of purchasing proper weapons and items, reaching some goals in matches to get more money, building team play on the base of available funds and for earning enough for farther rounds.

CS:GO is a huge gaming experience. Players have something to enjoy here from the very start, and they have something to learn even after hundreds of playing hours. The game asks for fast reaction, good memory, nice skills of strategic thinking, creativity in actions, team communication, and constancy of the playing practice.

CS:GO Esports

The graphics of this game become better along with the development of gaming equipment. CS:GO doesn’t look like a game from 2012 — it’s quite an experience even for demanded gamers. The developers from Valve Corporation make enough efforts to provide players with a decent quantity of new content, to make the playing time always fun and entertaining. Many changes in the map pool and classic locations, additional modes, new weapons, regular in-game events — everything of this supports the current popularity of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The recent step of making the game free-to-play may seem too brave, but even it turned out to be successful and brought many new players.

Professional CS:GO competitions is also a way to keep the game up and running. Existing players are amazed by excellent skills of Esports professionals — both teams and individuals. It might be hard to understand what is going on at the CS:GO Major tournaments unless you have some experience in the game. And if you played the game, you will know what those guys are doing, how surprisingly difficult their tricks are, how perfect their team play is.

There are lots of players returning to the game after big tournaments. CS:GO Esports is a way to learn new things from professionals — so many players want to try something on their own. CS:GO Esports is an excellent opportunity to gather together with like-minded people, even if this happens only online. CS:GO Esports supports the popularity of the game even better than regular upgrades.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive remains one of the most popular Esports disciplines, with a huge audience, with huge prize pools. But there is a problem. The same problem as the game itself has — the show of CS:GO might be perfect for those who like playing, and still it is absolutely unsuitable for masses. People don’t like such bloody violence, playing by their children. “Are you preparing soldiers for your future wars?” — may ask some observers.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a gaming masterpiece for its time, its period in the development of humanity. Even now we see how players move to unrealistic experience inside of the shooting genre — this trend may leave CS:GO behind, because the games is limited by its own core and has little space to develop in this direction. Also, we might see players move away from the shooting genre, to some other gaming experience — but this is a bit different story.