CS:GO has been constantly growing in players in 2020 and on March 30, the game hit a new all-time peak. According to SteamCharts, more than 1.2M players logged into the game, beating the record from a week ago by more than 100,000.
While these records can partially be attributed to the global COVID pandemic, forcing people to stay at home, it’d be unfair to point it out as the major reason. CS:GO has long become Valve’s most popular game, reigning as #1 on Steam and beating Dota 2 by a significant margin. While Valve’s MOBA is also on the rise, in January it hit its lowest peak since 2013 — just 616,000 peak players. Dota itself is up to 740,000 peak players nowadays, but that’s 1.6 times less that the numbers CS:GO is pulling.
CS:GO’s popularity has also stayed immune to the diminished esports calendar, with many events cancelled and others moved completely online, taking away some of their prestige. The game might only get one Major this year, but its fans are clearly willing to support it.
There are no signs that CS:GO’s growth will cease or slow down either. At the end of 2019, the game had hit a peak of 767,000 players. Its growth was steady but in no way meteoric — the December peak was just 100K higher than the January 2019 numbers. In the first quarter of 2020 so far, CS:GO has seen a peak players increase of 400,000, breaking the 1M threshold for the first time in history.
Source: Read Full Article