CS:GO continues to beat peak player records, breaking 1.4 mln
2023-03-11 15:10:00CS:GO hits another milestone as its peak player base reached 1,420,000 on March 11 2023. In February, the game already broke the all-time record but continues to steamroll. SteamDB.info provided the data.
The community is still puzzled about the reasons for CS:GO growth. The last peak was in 2020, almost certainly due to COVID-19's impact. This February's 1.32 mln happened after the release of the Revolutionary Case, but there was also almost nothing going on. Also, previous case releases never boosted the player count that much. Now, one month past the case release, it's even more surprising.
The rumors of upcoming Counter-Strike 2 could be the factor, but the graphs do not reflect it. The player base was growing steadily before the big reveal by Richard Lewis and continued growing at approximately the same pace afterwards.
Also, before the pandemic, March was never a month to attract the most players. As seen on the graph, it was typically a beginning of a slow decline after the winter fiesta.
Some say that players bored of Valorant return or discover CS: GO because of it, but it's almost impossible to pinpoint the real reason. Others blame big shooters like CoD and Battlefield that have a hard time. Anyway, the 25-year-old franchise is seemingly going nowhere, outlasting many competitors, even from the other esports genres.
