Did Counter Strike 2 Slow VALORANT’s growth?

Well earlier this year around May I would have said yes for sure. CS:GO announced CS:GO2 in Mar 2023 and things got hot and heavy. CS:GO started to have peak CCU records regularly (using Steam DB). Breaking 1.5M CCU shortly after the announcement. Then things went crazy in May where they spiked to 1.8M CCU! Holy crap that is big. Why did they spike? Well its probably a few reasons – CS:GO2 hype, Paris Major hype, new Stickers and the Pick’Ems were all happening at the same time. It looked like CS:GO2 was gonna crush it!

Hmmm but look at the CCU now… There was a cool off over the summer where their peak CCU came back down to 1.1-ish levels. But for the full release in May it did spike but only up to 1.4 and since it has been trending down and back around the 1.1M CCU level. 

What has happened to VALORANT over the same period? Well it seems that VALORANT weathered the early CS:GO2 announce storm well. In March they actually had their highest peak unique daily player count of 6.6M (using tracker.gg it does not have CCU, just daily Unique’s). Then came the CS:GO2 launch in May. What happened to VALORANT’s player numbers? Not much really.. They shed a few hundred thousand daily unique’s but they have lost that many several times before and always recovered. In fact, in June and July they got them all back and more. 

Actually, both games are a losing players lately. Since Nov CS:GO2 is down around 30% from their peak in May and VALORANT is down 35% from their March peak.

So, what have we learned? Well, I think both games are strong, resilient franchises and one does not significantly affect the other. These player number fluctuations are probably more affected by what is actually happening in the respective seasons with esports, new content drops and events more than what each does to each other. 

What’s your take? Is VALORANT slowly going to take CS:GO’s crown for top competitive tactical FPS? Or is there room for both to live on for years to come?

#CS:GO #VALORANT