It seems like fans will never stop asking whether the game is dying but a quick look at the CSGO statistics prove it’s alive and kicking. Not only did CSGO reach its highest number of concurrent players in 2023 but there was good news for fans of the pro scenes too. If data and statistics are your thing, you’re in the right place. Check out the latest player insights, viewership numbers and prize pool history.
CSGO Statistics: Player Stats
CSGO has been around for more than a decade. How much has its player base changed over time?
1. In March 2023, CSGO reached 1.4 million concurrent players and broke its record.
- The second-highest number of concurrent players CSGO has had is 1,354,248 (February 2023).
- The third-highest is 1,305,714 (April 2020).
The COVID-19 pandemic brought a resurgence in the CSGO fan base. From a peak of 760,060 concurrent players in December 2019, the number quickly rose to 1.3 million in April 2020 — just four months into the outbreak and a mere month after most European countries implemented lockdowns.
Three years later, the world has moved on, but the new wave of customers seems to have remained. In April 2021, the number fell to just 1.1 million, and in April 2022, it fell to just 1 million. After several more months of low numbers, March 2023 went against the downtrend and broke out of its all-time high, thanks, in part, to the beginning of a new season.
So, is CSGO dying? Quite the contrary!
Source: SteamCharts
2. 10.66% of CSGO players in matchmaking queues come from the U.S.
- Russia takes the top spot, making up 11.65% of matchmaking traffic. Poland sits at #3 with 5.32%.
- In terms of the number of players per 1 million citizens, it is estimated that Denmark comes out on top with 78,892 players.
North American CS is most definitely not dead. As evidenced by the high percentage (10.66%) of matchmaking traffic coming from the U.S., CSGO players here continue to overshadow those in Europe in terms of volume. In fact, out of all the European countries with a strong presence in the competitive scene, the U.S. percentage comes second only to Russia (11.65%).
Denmark, home to some of the best CSGO players in the world, only makes up 1.70%.
Source: Leetify
CSGO Viewership Statistics
If CSGO’s player base is increasing, how about its viewers?
3. In February 2023 alone, CSGO was watched for a total of 54.5 million hours on Twitch.
- At the same time, Dota 2 totaled 37.2 million views, while League of Legends totaled 112 million.
- Valorant reached 89 million, beating CSGO by 34.5 million.
Let us do the math for you: 54.5 million hours convert to 2.2 million days, and 2.2 million days convert to around 6,200 years. If we divide that into 28—the time frame relevant—and distribute the result evenly, CSGO viewers on Twitch spent a total of 221 years watching the game in just one month.
That is some serious viewership. And this is despite Valve not having made radical changes to their flagship FPS title for a while. If you want to get better at Counter-Strike, it’s highly recommended that you add to these hours to learn from the best!
Source: Statista
4. From 2022 to 2023, CSGO has averaged Rank #13 monthly on Twitch
- Not counting “Just Chatting”, League of Legends takes the #1 spot, averaging 150,000 viewers from January to March 2023.
- Within the same time frame, CSGO’s concurrent live channels average 1,300 (Valorant has around 5,500).
Despite entire lifetimes being devoted to watching CSGO on Twitch every year, the game could only secure a #13 finish on the monthly rankings (1-year average). Meanwhile, Valorant comes in #5 given the same metrics.
The main reason is obvious: Valorant is simply more famous than CSGO. With its 130,000 7-day average viewers compared to CSGO’s 75,000, there’s not even a dispute. During main events like VCT LOCK/IN São Paulo and IEM Katowice 2019, Valorant still has CSGO beat by putting up thousands of viewers on multiple channels.
Source: StreamsCharts
CSGO Competitive Stats
If you want to become a CSGO pro, here are some incentives you should keep in mind.
5. CSGO has awarded total prize money worth $168 million
- At $318 million prize money awarded, Dota 2 takes the lead by a huge margin.
- In 3rd place, Fortnite is behind CSGO with $150.5 million in cumulative cash prizes.
$168,000,000 is a lot of money to give (though Valve has surely taken much more than that in annual revenue). We don’t know how much of this enormous amount came from Valve’s own pockets and how much from organizers like ESL and BLAST, among many others.
In any case, this number dwarfs the cumulative prize money given by a whole lot of esports titles. Valorant—our favorite acompetitor—for example, has awarded $21.6 million to its professionals, not even making it to the top ten.
Source: Liquipedia
Image credit: BLAST
6. From 2000 to 2023, a total of 325,000 maps were played in the CSGO competitive scene
- These CSGO statistics are extracted from 9,482 CSGO competitive events.
- Of all these events, only 356 are labeled as S-Tier (those with expensive prize pools and often exclusively played offline).
Why do many fans participate in CSGO betting? Because the game is prolific. From its first release to being one of the most established and popular esports in the world, CSGO has been played on 325,000 maps in the competitive scene. In comparison, Valorant has had 50,000 series. Multiply that by an average of 2 maps per series (the minimum in a traditional best-of-three) and you get 100,000 maps.
This may seem off, but please note that these are just estimates. If we consider CSGO’s total series of 230,000, applying the same projection returns a product of 460,000 maps (although it’s worth mentioning that most CSGO series occur in the minor leagues, which follow a best-of-two format way more often than the major league).
Source: Liquipedia
7. As of March 2023, Astralis has earned ~$9.5 million in cash prizes, the highest of any CSGO team
- NAVI comes in second with approximate total earnings of $9.4 million.
- Fnatic comes in third with $5.87 million while FaZe Clan rounds out the top 4 with $5.81 million. Looking at the current situation, it’s only a matter of time before FAZE goes up to third.
The Astralis dynasty that took off in 2017 and snowballed in 2018 earned the organization a king-sized nest egg. We’re talking 4 Majors (2017 Atlanta, 2018 London, 2019 Katowice, 2019 Berlin), 2 Esports Championship Series (S2 & S5), 2 ESL Pro League (S7 & S8), and last but not the least, 1 Intel Grand Slam—the crown jewel of Counter-Strike tournaments with a prize of $1,000,000 (prize, not prize pool).
With ajust over $9.5 million in winnings, Astralis has claimed 5.65% of CSGO’s total amount of prize money awarded. G2, one of the top CSGO teams at the moment, has claimed only 2.6%.
Source: Liquipedia
