Counter Strike Global Offensive:

CSGO is the forth title in the Counter strike franchise, released in the summer of 2012 it still is the most successful of any other Counter Strike instalments. CSGO is often referred to as “the game that never dies” due to its 8 year reign as on the the most popular PC fps games ever seen. Today the game still sees a rise in players on recently celebrating having 1.3 million players during a 24 hour period during the global lockdown.

Developed by Valve Software and Hidden Path Entertainment, since its released Valve have continued to support the game, releasing new maps and weapons, along with bug fixes and balancing changes. However Valve doesn’t make its only profit through individual game, in 2013 it released its biggest and most influential update ever in the history of its life cycle the “Arms Deal” update this paved the way for micro transactions to come into play. The update brought in reskins of weapons and knives in the game, giving them a new a fresh look. But the only way you could obtain these highly sort after items was through testing your luck at gambling. In sort, how it would work is you’d pay around £2 pound to open a case which could either obtain a 20p skin or £200 skin. With it being harder to make profit from cases valve had also released a market place for owners of these expensive skins to sell them on to buyers at a chosen price, this price Valve or steam would take a cut out of, and this is how Valve ends up getting a lot of their profits. With such a market place the game began to appeal to not only competitive or casual gamers but also people who enjoy collecting and trading skins, having people invest tens of thousands into their in game inventories, later selling them on for profit.

How much did it cost to develop CSGO?
There was never a plan to ‘make’ Counter strike, it was originally a mod on the game Half Life 2 (developed by Valve) although it was then taken over by valve who turned the franchise into what it is today. The figures of how much it cost to develop CSGO aren’t readily available to the public unlike the budget for GTA V where Rockstar was very open about its $265 Million budget – and its $6 billion profit. Fans are always creating mods, maps and new weapons for the game which you can use in offline servers so it shows that if you have enough time and the skills you could develop a game like CSGO in your own time for free using current game engines such as Unreal 4.

How much did CSGO make in profit.
The most recent report of how much valve has earned off of CSGO since 2012-2018 is 414 million dollars world wide. With no plans for a 5th Counter strike announced or known to fans it will be interesting to see where the game is in another 5 years time.

What awards has CSGO won.
In 2015 the game won “ the fans choice esport game of the year 2015” award at the game of year awards

How does CSGO continue to say popular in 2020
Eight years later, Valve continues to support the games esport scene massively, whether that’s through their own Valve organised tournaments or by sponsoring third party tournaments such as Faceit Pro League or ESL Pro League, at these the best players from all around the world play for cash prizes and trophies. With reports of players being in multimillion dollar contracts and earning six figures deals its no surprise the game still sees so much support and love from its fans as its working its way to being on the biggest esports of all time, just under League of Legends which is a giant within the scene.

• PC
• PS4
• XBOX 1
• Nintendo

Pros & Cons of each:

Pros

PC;
PCs offer the best overall performance out of all the others mention above, with the ability to always take out and upgrade parts gaming pcs will always be superior over both PS4 and Xbox. There is also no subscription required to use the features of your pc, unlike things such as Xbox Live or PlayStation-Plus. Due to the nature of PC gaming new updates and content usually gets released earlier on PC or PC only test servers such as the Technical test servers, giving players the ability to try out new content before its even been launched to consoles. Another pro of PCs is that marketplaces like steam always have sales or events on, meaning that users spend a lot less for games they could be having to pay full price for on the PS store for example.

PS4;
PlayStations 4s main selling point to a lot of its audience is the fact that it has its own exclusive titles, such as, The Last of Us. Another way that Sony rewards its PS plus members is with monthly free games and priority for new maps on Call of Duty. ( one of the biggest names on console gaming for the past decade) This deal Sony has with Activision means that everyone else has to wait a few more months to play this new content.

Xbox 1;
Similarly to PlayStation, Microsoft provides its own list of exclusives games which it shares with PC owners, in fact one of the biggest names in gaming, Halo was an Xbox exclusive, which is now also releasing its titles to Windows PCs.
Nintendo;
Nintendo arguably has the best list of exclusive games out of the three mentioned prior, titles such as Mario, Animal Crossing and Pokémon are a massive selling point for its customers as its only ever going to be available on the newest platforms being released that selected year. Its important to note that unlike the prior platforms I listed before, this is the only one of the four which can be portable, such as the Nintendo Switch released in early 2017.

Cons
PC;
Although better than consoles a good gaming PC can be very expensive based on a few factors, what games you’re wanting to play, if you plan to render or edit from your PC and if you’re going to prebuild or build it yourself. Another downside to PC gaming is how different game developers use different game launchers, on my PC I have 5 in total, a downside to this is that some launchers work better than others and not everything is in one place, unlike the market places on consoles being all launched from the consoles OS.
PS4;
One of the biggest let downs to the PS4 is the requirement to pay to play online, this wasn’t required with the PS3, However on its latest generation console I found myself having to play £60 a year on top of be buying the £30-60 game in the first place. Because every 5 years consoles are having to upgrade to compete with one another and PCs you’re always required to buy the newest release in order to keep in touch with your friends or play the latest game in your favourite franchise, unlike a PC where the power of your system doesn’t dictate if you can or cant talk with your friends still.

XBOX;
The Xbox shares the same cons as the PS4s does, whilst also being to weaker of the two consoles, having some games displayed at a lower resolution compared to PS4.

Nintendo;
One of the biggest complaints Nintendo usually face is because of how it handles its older games, leaving games which should be on sale buy now, full price – years after its original release date. (this only occurs if you buy through a Nintendo retailer or marketplace.)

My preferred platform:
PC:

What I played during lock down,
Counter Strike Global Offensive – Valve
Valorant – Riot
Overwatch – Blizzard
League of Legends – Riot
The Forest – Endnight games
Grand Theft Auto V – Rockstar