Competitive CS:GO

This year mark's the 16th birthday for Counter Strike, which started out similarly to DoTA with humble beginnings as a mod for a game popularly known as Half-Life (Half Life 3 confirmed). What started out as just another mod back then has earned itself a top spot in the eSports community with millions of dollars worth in prize pool and the filling of entire stadiums today.

ESM Katowice 2014

So, how did this happened? Well the first obvious reason is, Valve. If it weren't for Valve to see the potential and pumped money into the mod to make a standalone version for the game it probably wouldn't have garnered that much attention. 

Back then, the eSports scene was very different and young, fast paced shooters dominated the scene with games like Unreal Tournament and Quake. In 1997 the very first tournament was sponsored by Microsoft for Quake with the grand prize of a ferrari. 

Quake

Although the huge hype in fast paced shooting games one university student decision to create a game which centered on the conflict between terrorist and counter-terrorist squads spawned from a personal interest in the subject. Such a theme required a more realistic setting for the game, which was the main reason why he chose to mod Half-Life.

Following the release of the mod it immediately gained tons of attention and continued to grow as it involved a lot of community feedback. In fact the game was so community driven to the point that all the maps were actually made from the players themselves.

I believe that was the biggest factor as to why Counter Strike remained loved and played for so long. It is because the game was essentially made by the people of the community, who else knows what the players want more other than themselves.

Soon after in the year 2000, Valve took an interest in the game and acquired the rights to release a standalone version. Soon enough more games started emulating that style of gameplay with the release of Call of Duty and Medal of Honor. Games that were steeped in realism started becoming more popular.

Fast forward a few years and Call of Duty actually beat Counter Strike in terms of popularity and player base, but with the recent release of Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) was able to reclaim its spot at the top. It can be seen that Counter Strike is more something for the eSports scene because of its huge emphasis on teamwork and I personally think there will always be a place for CS, because people appreciate that.

With that I think I explained a little bit of its past and touched a bit on why and how it became popular. I hoped you had fun reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. :) Stay tuned for more posts!