CS:GO The Rebirth of Counter Strike

With MOBA games now dominating the e-Sports scene, it felt as if competitive FPS gaming might not reach the same level of success as before. However Valve had other plans; on August 12, 2011 Counter Strike Global Offensive was revealed and the internet exploded, forums were full of discussions and the hype was back. Now was the time to perfect the game and so began the closed beta on November 30, 2011.  As time went on, more people got access to the beta and it ended up being a public beta that was being tested by both professional and casual players.  After months of testing, the game was finally released on August 21st, 2012, but received mix feedback from players. It wasn't as gladly accepted as many thought it would be, however Valve was not ready to give up and started to update it regularly based on player feedback.
Eventually Counter Strike: Global Offensive transformed into a much better game and professional players from both 1.6 and Source were migrating to CS:GO.  For the first time the players from both 1.6 and Source were going to go up against each other and that created a lot of excitement in the E-Sports scene. Now the question was, could Counter Strike Global Offensive be the game that would once again take the title of a true competitive FPS game? Fortunately, it grew rapidly as time went on and after only months of successful events, CS:GO surpassed its predecessors in almost every area.
Dreamhack 2013 which was held in Sweden became the first ever Counter Strike tournament to sport a prize pool of $250,000 and reached an impressive 146,000 viewers making it a true success. However even Dreamhack 2013 was overshadowed by EMS One Katowice that took place this year in Poland.  Sporting the same prize pool as Dreamhack 2013, it reached an amazing 230,000 viewers during the grand final and the crowd was unlike anything seen in the recent history of e-Sports, making it a groundbreaking event for Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Such impressive growth in the international e-Sports scene of Counter Strike Global Offensive is a great thing for aspiring gamers all over the world. Maybe the talented gamers of Bangladesh will also adapt to Counter Strike: Global Offensive and create a whole new era of e-Sports in our country.

Salman Chowdhury Abir is a member of the Counter Strike: Global Offensive community, and a member of Red Viperz.