Can New York become like Cologne for CSGO tournaments?
IEM Cologne (Intel Extreme Masters Season) is one of the most prestigious championships held in Counter-Strike by ESL. IEM Cologne featured 24 teams. There are several ways for teams to qualify for the CSGO tournaments.
The top 6 teams from Europe and the top 2 teams from the US each win a slot. Play-Ins are awarded to three more teams from Europe, two from the United States, and three from South America.The remaining 8 spots went to the winners of the 6 wild card stages, as well as the NC Global Playoff and ESL Meisterschaft champions.
CS:GO is very popular in Europe. What cannot be said about North America and the United States in particular.
CS:GO in the U.S.: Could New York City become the New Cologne?
The North American professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive scene is having a hard time experiencing border closures, isolation, and a lack of LAN tournaments. Only three teams from late 2017, that is, from the time Cloud9 won the ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018, have survived to this day.
Almost all of the players from those squads are no longer playing on the professional stage. Some have finished their careers, some have changed to eSports. Today, among the top thirty teams in the world, only two are from the United States. There are no such clubs in the top ten. In three years, Counter-Strike has gone from a championship at the Majorsto the stage of extinction. It’s time to find out the reasons for this sad situation.
CS:GO’s popularity in the United States
The first and main reason is the relatively low popularity of the game in North America, and specifically in the United States. The country’s very popular for consoles. Console shooters gather more players in the matches and more viewers on the broadcast. The next reason for this is that CS: GO is only available on PC.the problems with American CS was that it did not have the highest popularity of the game.
Problems with the organization of tournaments
If you look at the IEM tournaments in New York, you can see a pattern. At all the tournaments, most European teams performed. And not just played – more than half of the titles were won by European clubs. It was the norm to see two European teams in the finals. This internationality contributed to the popularity of the tournaments. But when the borders closed, things didn’t go according to plan.
It could be said that North American tournaments were not very profitable. The organizers would be better off holding the competition in another region. CS:GO in North America could have survived this phase without much trouble. But due to the emergence of Valorant on the professional scene, there was a monstrous exodus of CS:GO players. Once a week, another American eSports athlete announces a change in eSports.
Riot Games, the developer and publisher of Valorant, is trying to support and grow the professional scene in North America. The company has already pulled off that stunt with League of Legends, and it looks like it will succeed with Valorant.
Can Valve save the situation?
Not at all.The company has shown many times before that it only intervenes in eSports when absolutely necessary. For the rest of the time, the ecosystem tries to cope on its own. It’s an understandable stance, but in the situation of the U.S. pro scene, it means that CSGO tournament operators and teams shouldn’t expect help.
We can already talk about a rollback to the level of five or seven years ago. CS in the United States is not dead yet. But we need to start acting now. There is a chance that CSGO tournaments in New York, which attract a huge number of fans thanks to famous eSports players, will help save the situation.
Conclusions
Today we can see how organizers are making efforts to organize tournaments and popularize Counter Strike. New York has all the necessary infrastructure to create conditions for guests from all over the world.
But the pandemic, the resulting isolation, the tournament hunger, and the lack of support from Valve — these are the challenges CSGO events face in New York. How many years will it take for New York City to become the new Cologne of the CS:GO world? The question remains open.