Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (or CS:GO), is a team-based strategy game launched 19 years ago by the developers Valve Corporation and Hidden Path Entertainment. Despite the game having been released for almost two decades now, the number of players is increasing – due to the game’s devoted community. There have been three iterations of the game, including edition 1.6, source, and the current generation – Global Offensive.
CS:GO has pioneered the unique gameplay mechanism for recoil control which mimics real guns when shooting, as well as being deemed the predecessor to the game Valorant. CS:GO is a first-person shooter game, with a plethora of different game modes to choose from. The most commonly played game mode is the bomb-plant scenario, with two teams of five on each terrorist and counter-terrorist side. The first team to win 16 rounds wins the match and they switch sides when 15 rounds are reached. Teams can also win by eliminating each other in 1 minute and 55 seconds in each round. The terrorists’ main objective is to plant the bomb at either site, and counter-terrorists must defend these sites. Other game modes include deathmatch, wingman, danger zone, and many more.
In 2013, the game’s main developer, Valve, announced the launch of the first eSports tournament to the world, reigniting the gaming scene, as well as contributing to CS:GO’s never-ending popularity. Over the next two years, the game had risen to become the biggest eSports game in the world. Subsequently, in 2018, one of the most historic moments of eSports history took place at the Boston Major, where Cloud 9 came out victorious after an astonishing comeback.
However, there is also another contributing factor to the game’s success: cosmetics. Ranging from numerous obtainable skins to gloves, knives, weapon skins, and stickers that can be applied to your weapon. The cosmetics in CS:GO are highly detailed with varying levels of float. ‘Float’ refers to the amount of wear your chosen weapon skin has, the lower the value of the float is, the less wear it has on it. Different floats can even change the appearance of the skin, revealing easter eggs that the creator of the skin implemented. The skins in this game can be opened through cases where you can pay to unbox skins with different rarities. Steam, the game launcher, also provides a marketplace for players to buy and sell their skins with real currency. Due to the varying frequency of skins, prices can range from one cent to millions of dollars. The highest known recorded skin exchange was at 100,000 USD, a StatTrak M4A4 Howl with a float of 0.003 in July 2020. CS:GO skin aficionado’s exchange different sticker crafts and potential fan-made designs in exchange for skins. The most recent case release was called the “Dreams and Nightmares” case. The skins in the case were made by fans, with Valve awarding 100,000 USD to ten creators with chosen skin designs, respectively.
