Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Player Count Report

Updated:

30 Aug 2021

The Story of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was announced in 2011 and was released on August 21st of 2012. At its release CS:GO peaked at 52,261 players, according to steamcharts.com, estimating being only sold lower than 100 thousand copies. But since its release, CS:GO is estimated to have been sold to about 67 to 67.5 million players according to PlayTracker and 50 to 100 Million according to SteamSpy. With an average of 300 to 350 thousand active players in an hour and an average monthly of 31 million concurrent players in 2021, both according to activeplayer.io.

The State of Counter-Strike: Global Offensives Queue Times.

Screenshot taken from reddit.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's current live active players is around 300-350 thousand an hour. So is Counter-Strikes queue time quick? That all depends on what you are queuing for and, if you’re queuing for competitive, it depends on the rank you and your team have. Queue time has always been a problem for higher rank players in Counter-Strike for only a total of 13.99% of the total player base are within the top 5 ranks (Distinguished Master Guardian to Global Elite) according to totalcsgo.coms 2021 statistics. Most of the players are in Gold Nova 1 to Gold Nova Master totaling 34.68% and in Silver 1 to Silver Elite Master totaling 31.93%. Queue time in these ranks would be quicker, estimating at least a minute or at most 3 minutes, while queuing for the higher ranks would estimate around at least 4-5 minutes or at most 10-15 minutes, and sometimes even 20-30 minutes or longer if you’re unlucky. Your queue time also depends on who you are playing with. If you are in a 5-man premade team with ranks that are far apart from each other, likeLegendary Eagle Master to Nova 1, queue times would take a while because the game is searching for opponents with the same rank coverage. (For example, you are a Legendary Eagle and are queuing up with a Legendary Eagle Master, Master Guardian 1, Nova 3, and a Nova 1. The game will probably put you up against a team that has a Global Elite, Master Guardian Elite, Nova 4, Nova 2, and a Nova 3)

Do Developers Still Update This Game?

Valve hasn’t added any major updates since the release of Operation Broken Fang on December 3rd of 2020. Which introduces a stat tracker, missions, official Valve retake servers, the maps Ancient and Engage, a new pinging system, and, of course, new skins. It took Valve almost a year to release Operation Broken Fang from its last major update, Operation Shattered Web, which was released on November 18th of 2019. Operation Shattered Web introduced new skins, maps, and missions. Before Shattered Web, there was Operation Hydra and there was a window of 2 years from each other’s release. Operation Hydra was released in 2017 but its predecessor Operation Wildfire had a window of 1 year from each other, being released in 2016. So it is safe to assume that there’s a single new major update every year. But if you take a look into the dev blog of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the developers constantly update the game to fix bugs every week.

The CS:GO Community

Screenshot taken from TheWarOwls video ‘WarOwl Setup Tour’

Though CS:GO has the biggest active players in Steam, in the streaming platform Twitch, It barely attracts numbers. Counter-Strike: Global Offensives average 61,152 viewers in 7 days unlike its competitor, Valorant, which has an average of 133,470 live viewers in 7 days, both according to twitchtracker.com. However, in YouTube CS:GO content is thriving. Channels like Anomaly, TheWarlOwl, NadeKing, Sparkles, and HOUNGOUNGAGNE are all have over 1 Million subscribers. All of these YouTubers average around 100 thousand to 1 Million views per video. Making YouTube the main home of CS:GO content.

If you want to watch tutorial videos on how to get good in CS:GO then go ahead and visit TheWarOwl and Nadeking. Their informational tutorial videos do not only stem from gameplay like aim or grenades, but also into mental and game IQ. If you want to watch a more comedic style of content, you can go ahead and check Anomaly and HOUNGOUNGAGNEs content. Their charm and funny approach to the game is an entertaining watch. If you want to watch montages or skin videos you can check out sparkles. The CS:GO community does not only revolve around YouTube.

With over a million members in its subreddit and is fairly active. You can say CS:GO players have another home in Reddit. With over 800 comments and 90 posts a day. The CS:GO subreddit has a ranking of 373 in subredditstats list of most subscribed subreddits. Counter-Strike also has its own discord server. With over 170 thousand members, CS:GOs discord server is a hub for anyone who is looking to party up with fellow members or for anyone who wants to talk about CS:GO in general.