The Problem with Counter-Strike

Written By "fuckwitBATTLECRAB"
02 February, 2010 08:56 PM

The Problem with Counter Strike

As I write this the CS community stands on a divide between the two titles, Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Source. Since CS:S was released a little over 5 years ago there has been constant arguing from the old community that the new game was simply not good enough for competitive play. This lead to a break in the community where players who liked the new title made their own community and competitions, meanwhile the faithful guard of the traditional CS stuck around not budging away from a game they believe provides superior game play for eSports.

Before we look at the problem with counter-strike at the moment we must first look back and remember how counter-strike came about. As a modification of the popular game Half-Life, CS was released as a mod in 1999. Highly popular for its multiplayer capabilities and its use of the Half-Life engine which took full advantage of hardware graphics acceleration (unlike software rendered games like Quake) it quickly became clear to Valve (makers of Half-Life) that this was a title to latch on to. The first release of Counter-Strike 1.0 came in time for Christmas in 2000 and since then has sold roughly 5 million copies of the game up to its current release, version 1.6.

The release of HL2 was long anticipated, coming a full 6 years after its predecessor, and for CS fans it meant a chance for their game to be updated into the new Source engine. The result for CS was CS:Source which was released by Valve as a BETA through the Valve Cyber Cafe program in 2004. It came under heavy criticism from old fans of Counter-Strike for not utilizing the Source engine to its full capacity and for its lacking aspects in game play which made the game frustrating to play.

So we can see that the first problem with CS at the moment is the lack of foresight by the developers, Valve, to see that changing the game too much would alienate its already diehard fan base who was seeing CS in its original form blossom as one of the major eSports titles around the world. Although there have been several attempts by tournament organisers to incorporate CS:S into competition (WCG 05, CGS and various other comps) they have never been fully backed by the majority of the competitive CS community.

This brings us to the second problem. The lack of desire for players to move away from the original title even with substantial prize money on offer has seen most major international competitions retain CS 1.6 as its major competition.
So what is the problem with keeping a superior game as opposed to its newer somewhat flawed counterpart?

If it means for a higher level of competition in an eSports environment isn’t that better for everybody?

Most of the players in the competitive scene have been playing for several years. There has been very little growth in either title in the last few years meaning that new players are not coming into the scene. This means that both games are slowly dying out. As more players reach an age where they stop playing games to focus on work or possible families and other life problems, there is an absence of newer players to take their place. Then why is there hardly any new players coming in when both CS titles offer some of the best FPS gameplay and the best multiplayer environment and competitive opportunities?

If we look at some numbers the problem comes clear;

• Since CS was released in 2000 it has sold roughly 5 million copies; its counterpart CS:S has sold roughly 2.5 million since its release in 2004.

In that time we have seen:

• The beginning of the console generation. Since the time that the Sony Playstation 2 was released in 2000 til now the amount of consoles sold (including all Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft console titles) is roughly 300 million consoles sold worldwide.

• Since its release in late 2004 (roughly same time as CS:S) until late 2008, World of Warcraft has sold over 10 million subscriptions to its game.
  
  
• In comparison with another FPS title, the Halo series on Xbox and Xbox360, has sold over 27 million copies worldwide and has been the main game for MLG which is arguably the most successful eSports competition in the world to date.
  
  
• Since 2003, the 6 versions of the Call of Duty series has surpassed 55 million sales, making it the most successful FPS franchise in gaming history.

It becomes quite apparent that the reason why CS has not seen any development in the last few years is because gamers are simply not interested in the game. They are now launching air raids in Call of Duty or smashing aliens as the Master Chief in Halo, otherwise they are in their basement arguing the pros and cons on a Blood Elf Mage over a Human mage in their WoW raids.

The bad news for CS is that it has been well overtaken by newer titles in popularity. Both versions of CS are now virtually obsolete from retail sale and can only be purchased online. But who will purchase CS online when the advertisements on Steam are for CoD MW:2 and other new titles. How many people interested in buying an FPS game will even consider or even possibly know that CS exists?

The only saving grace for CS at the moment is its competitive scene. It is still one of the biggest games in professional eSports, but even some of the professional players are being lost to other game titles, preferring to play a newer game like WoW or CoD even though the limitations for competitive play are in place.

So what CS needs is a fresh life, something that will bring all the old CS players (from original and Source) onto a new title, forming a new big community, something that tournament organisers can showcase as a new dominant title in eSports, something that professional players can feel good playing and enjoy, but most of all it has to be something that attracts new players onto a new title that can be marketed to the masses.