Counter-Strike 2 reaches a new milestone in player count

One of the oldest and most popular esports titles ‘Counter-Strike’ is still breaking its records. The game has now reached a new all-time concurrent peak player count of 1,824,989 players. Since the release of CS2, the game has shown an upward trajectory and finally managed to break the previous record set by Counter-Strike Global Offensive.

Back in May 2023, players saw CSGO reach 1,818,773 players before the game was updated to CS2. Following that, there were multiple instances of the game reaching 1.7 million or even 1.8 million players, however, the record stood until a few days ago. The game usually remains the most popular title on Steam.

Counter-Strike remains top in competitive and casual

The game’s popularity doesn’t end with with Steam player count as Counter-Strike remains one of the most popular esports titles. At the moment the game features the largest number of tournaments including multiple Majors across the globe each year with many events reaching millions in prize pool. This is mostly thanks to the huge audience boosting viewership count attracting more sponsors.

The casual side of the game is also quite profitable. As per case trackers, over 24 million cases were opened in the span of the last 30 days. Each case costs $2.5 to open which results in over $60 million in earnings. While the numbers may not be completely accurate, the amount it brings is still massive.

Also Read:Best-selling Steam games of 2024 by revenue revealed

Players believe bots are bloating Counter-Strike’s player count

As usual, people are debating the legitimacy of these numbers as many claim a lot of these are bots. This argument is also not baseless as multiple clips of Chinese bot farms with multiple computers are floating around across the internet. We have also witnessed these bot lobbies, although, the XP rewarded in these matches is usually cut down a lot which can hinder the drops farming a bit.