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| CS Promod & How It Suits Valve |
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For a long time now Counter-Strike: Source has continued to be one of Valve's best selling games and has continued to have one of the highest amounts of players of any game on the Steam platform:
Steam Player Statistics - Peak Amount of Players at One Time: 02/02/10
(2009) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: 115,175
(2004) Counter-Strike: Source: 92,109
(2000) Counter-Strike: 76,473
(2007) Team Fortress 2: 19,492
(2009) Left 4 Dead 2: 15,340 |
And yet despite the game being such a lucrative cash cow, Valve long ago abandoned the game like the ginger child nobody wanted, the last update of any significance was the introduction of the "sv_pure" cvar which allowed servers to prevent clients from using custom textures, which wasn't even an update specifically for CSS - June 12, 2007, 1:45 pm
Before that was the fantastic update that was welcomed by everyone and wildly agreed to have improved the game dramatically:
December 11, 2006, 2:35 pm: Counter-Strike: Source Update
* Increased ES57, Compact 228 and Dual Elites damage by 25%
* Lowered allowed number of dropped weapons in a level to prevent gun spamming
* Updated foliage quality in cs_militia |
.....................
Thanks for that one Valve.
In the mean time Valve have persued various other projects like the highly successful Orange Box and the Left 4 Dead series, and only fixed the occasional bug that crashed servers in CSS (issues that had already been fixed by the tireless zBlock team). Whenever questioned in interviews about a possible CS2, Gabe Newell has either avoided the question or flat out stated they currently have no plans to make it. If indeed they do have any plans for a CS2, it will doubtlessly have to wait until Portal 2, HL2: Episode 3, Team Fortress 3 and Left 4 Dead 8 are all done.
And so along comes CS Promod and thus an opportunity for Valve to once again make a killing off their tireless workhorse.
The CS Promod team got the go ahead from Valve to make their MOD for one simple reason, in order for people to play it, they must first own CSS (Currently €19.99 on Steam). And so, all the 1.6 players who never bought the new version when it came out and stuck to their game for another six years are forced to purchase a six year old game which hasn't seen any significant updates in over three years. And any new players to the Counter Strike genre will have to purchase it as well if they wish to play this game, and if it does turn out to be successful (as the initial feedback is indicating it will be), Valve stand to do very well indeed.
If say, CSP is successful, and a mass migration of 1.6/CZ players occurs, Valve will be laughing all the way to the bank. Just 10,000 players nets them a profit of €200,000 with no additional expenses. Not bad for doing nothing right?
Sources:
Valve statistics: store.steampowered.com/stats
CSS Update History: store.steampowered.com/news/?filter=updates&appids=240 |
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