In an unforeseen and welcomed piece of news on the Official Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Blog, Valve has announced that all future CS:GO Majors will have a prize pool of $1,000,000 for teams to compete for. This is a huge change of pace from what has been offered at Valve sponsored Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments in the past, and is a testament to the growth of the CS:GO community and Valve's dedication to it.
Professional CS:GO has grown, and the CS:GO Major Championships are about to grow with it. - ValveUp until now, CS:GO majors (such as ESL One Katowice, DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca, and ESL One Cologne) have had a Valve sponsored prize pools of $250,000. Seeing an increase to $1 Million is a huge step up from before, and based on Valve's statement, they're doing it because they believe in the growth and future of CS:GO as an eSport and as a community. They are putting their money where their mouth is, quite literally.
With MLG Columbus being the newest and only current Major for 2016 (ESL Cologne has been announced, but has yet to be named as a Major), Valve has also made the announcement that the prize pool for this first ever MLG run tournament will officially be the new sum of $1 Million. We have no news on any other Majors, but Valve will no doubt have more information for us soon.
Valve's financial commitment to the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community is sure to increase interest in the scene surrounding the game, as well as revitalize many existing teams with the hopes of getting a piece of this new prize pool. As they stated in the release, "the professional CS:GO community has been growing at an incredible rate", which is certainly true. CS:GO is the second most watched game on Twitch as well as being second most played on Steam as well (370,000 players on average). Needless to say, 2016 is looking to be a big year for the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive eSports scene!
What are your thoughts on Valve's continued commitment to Counter-Strike? Sound off in the comments below!
