When Valorant, or Project A as it was then known, originally was announced, many presumed that it would be the veritable Counter-Strike: Global Offensive killer. Or the Overwatch killer. Perhaps the Call of Duty killer. No matter what title it specifically was, Valorant was supposed to kill it with its unerring popularity and tight, action-oriented gameplay. As far as Counter-Strike is involved, however, it seems to be doing the exact opposite; Counter-Strike is now the most popular game on Steam, as judged by the number of users that are logged in and playing simultaneously, known as concurrent users.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has recently usurped the numbers put forth by DOTA 2 of 1,295,114. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive reached a staggering peak of 1,308,963 users all playing simultaneously.
It’s important to note that these aren’t users that have made an account to try the title; these are users that are actively playing the game all at once during the pandemic. It’s important to note as many developers will push numbers that boast accounts made, or downloads, as though they are an accurate identifier for the popularity of a title.
.@CSGO has just beaten @Dota2's long standing concurrent players record with 1,295,971 players. Dota 2's record of 1,295,114 players was set four years ago.https://t.co/bzLMfMOJvDhttps://t.co/5ULkNp5ecE pic.twitter.com/k9tZl7SMHN
— SteamDB (@SteamDB) April 17, 2020
Regardless, Counter-Strike has received an influx of players since the Valorant closed beta began, and it doesn’t appear that it’s users that are simply waiting for access to Valorant.
Erik ‘Fl0m’ Flom offered his take during a recent Valorant stream that he’s been running nearly every day since the Valorant closed beta began, and he believes it has to do with the number of maps becoming repetitive rather quickly, and that Riot has announced they’re only bringing out a total of four maps for the release, whereas most titles release with at least eight.
Some users on Reddit theorize that it has to do with the intrusive anti-cheat that Valorant is packaged with, called Riot Vanguard, that has root access to everything on your PC.
Ultimately, regardless of why users are switching back to Counter-Strike following what appears to be a brief waltz with Riot’s Valorant, it’s clear that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has massive staying power beyond whatever the flavor of the month may actually be, or turn into.
It’s a lesson that a slew of other developers have appeared to stumble into, and the results don’t appear to shift in any way in the near future unless Valorant can deduce precisely why CS: GO is so successful. Clearly, we aren’t just discussing time to kill and the importance of holding angles on defense.
