F2P. Originally limited to some unknown Korean MMORPGs, Free to Play got famous with League of Legends, which undoubtedly brought eSport to a new level. What if Free To Play was the solution for Counter-Strike to create a place for itself within the major titles of eSport ?

Even though recent audience figures are really promising, more especially during StarLadder (55 000 spectators for NiP vs Virtus Pro), CS:GO is far from the eSport giants like SC2 or LoL. CS:GO is 100 000 spectators away (without counting Xbox Live viewers) from a Call of Duty match.

It’s hard to be overstepped by "this", isn’t it ?

It is often said that one of CS:GO problems is not the number of players, but the small proportion of casual players interested in the competitive aspect of the game. Even though this factor plays a role in this, I think its influence on the number of spectators is overestimated.

Indeed, contrary to preconceived ideas, the proportion of CS:GO players interested in the competitive scene seems to be pretty high. To estimate the players’ interest in the competitive scene, we can compare the total number of players to the total number of spectators on the streams during an event. The best would be to look at the total amount of players, but as this information is not available for CS:GO, we will rather use the maximum number of simultaneous players; even though, as explained on an interview, this statistic lacks in precision.

For CS:GO, it’s quite easy: there are at maximum 52 600 players. According to RioT statistics, LoL is way ahead from this, with 3 million players.

Concerning the spectators peak, CS:GO reached 55 000 spectators during StarLadder, which is approximately a ratio of 1.

LoL spectators peak is of 1 100 000 according to RioT, which is a 0.3 ratio.

In proportion, in terms of connected players, CS players are three times more numerous to follow the competitive scene compared to LoL players. It makes sense, as LoL is mainly a casual game, which people play to for fun more than for competition. But it also means that if this ratio is higher for CS:GO than for other games, it will be difficult to make it grow. Let’s imagine that with a consequent effort of communication and advertisement we manage to double this proportion, CS:GO would only have 100 000 spectators, which is still far from the big titles.

The issue seems to be in the size of the community. Thus, the growth of the scene relies on a growth of the number of players, casual included; and not in trying to "convert" 32 slots FFA players or Zombie mod players to competitive play (I am not saying this is useless, but it is not the best source of growth).

And what a better way to achieve this than Free to Play ? Admittedly, it is possible that Counter-Strike is a 20th century game which is now outmoded and will never retrieve its former times glory. But when we see that Steam two most played games are DotA2 and TF2, both Free to Play, and that the most played game in the world, League of Legends, is also Free To Play… Why don’t we give CS:GO a chance ?

After all, this game suffers from a major handicap, the absence of a boxed version in most of the countries. Even though online sales are skyrocketing, back in 2010 it only represented 17% of the overall sales ($19.3 billion, against $58 billion for physical sales). A lot of young buyers who probably don’t have an Internet method of payment therefore can’t buy the game. Likewise, it is easier at Christmas or for a birthday to put a "Call of Duty" box under the Christmas tree than a "Steam Gift" coupon for CS:GO.

If you manage to find this near your place, congrats !

Besides, Free To Play helps the game to get viral. The first players tell their friends about the game and offer them to try it. How many of you tried out ShootMania, LoL or Dota because one of your acquaintance had it and asked you to try it between two CS:GO maps ? "This game is free, if you don’t like it just uninstall it". This viral spread is not possible when you have to pay, even though CS:GO is inexpensive, there is a "psychological barrier" when you have to take out your credit card, no matter the sum.

Of course, CS:GO going Free To Play is not trivial and there are various issues to solve. One of the main objections about this subject is the cheat issue. When a game is free, nothing can, in principle, prevent a banned cheater from recreating accounts. In reality, the cheat problem for Free To Play is secondary.

Indeed, you have to pay for CS:GO, but does it prevents cheaters to be here ? Unfortunately not, everybody who played matchmaking suffered from it. Free or not, this cheating phenomenon is real; the only consequence of a free game being to worsen it (but this is pure speculation, as most of the players don’t cheat).

Cheaters in matchmaking ? Impossible ! (Thank you Sephi for the screen)

Furthermore, there is not necessarily a direct link between the fact that something is free and the ability to endlessly create new accounts. Valve is able to limit this phenomenon, by only allowing a limited number of accounts per person. Regarding the information Steam has access to, such as IP address or hardware configuration of the computer, it is easy to detect if a person has various accounts. This is the case for League of Legends : in some rare cases, Riot sometimes definitely banned a player and not only his account, which proves they are able to retrieve the various accounts of a player.

Finally, it is possible to limit the nuisance of these new accounts via a "quarantine" system : a new player has to reach level 30 before being able to play ranked in League of Legends, which takes a dozen of games. It should be noted that a similar system could be used to teach the beginners Counter-Strike subtleties and avoiding them to be completely lost in matchmaking or FFA and to flash half of their team mates each time they use a flashbang. It could be a kind of advanced tutorial staggered on a certain amount of games. Besides, this is almost what League of Legends levelling system looks like.

To state the obvious, the main issue with Free to Play is for the game developer to make his game profitable without altering its nature. It is especially true for CS:GO which should not become a Pay to Win, like some Asian MMORPGs where ultra-powerful items can only be obtained with a credit card. Adapted to CS, it would be like having to pay for being able to use a M4 or an AWP. The key word is micro transaction : instead of paying one high amount, lead the player to regularly pay little amounts.

Contrary to a MOBA or a MMORPG, Counter-Strike does not allow paying regularly for new heroes or new weapons (why not a FFA mod with a rocket launcher…), we can imagine new graphic elements, such as skins or weapons, or even maps to become charged. Even if this new content is submitted by the community and a part of the earnings goes to the developer, like with TF2.

Of course, it is a regression as on 1.6 and Source you were able to download and install skins for free; but 1.6 and Source are paying, and CS:GO would be free. Besides, managing the skins via the Workshop would allow to check whether these skins are allowed in official games, and don’t give any advantage to the player.

No, we really don’t need to take that route…

Valve could also take commission on voice servers renting, or renting it by themselves (which is what Mojang, Minecraft creator, considers doing). We also see that competitive players are willing to pay ESL or ESEA to benefit from a more reliable anti-cheat. Valve could then consider offering a more efficient version of its anti-cheat for competitive matches, which would be paying. In general, there are a lot of solutions, which may be complementary, in order to monetize a Free to Play game without infecting its gameplay.

It is obvious that CS:GO going Free to Play would be a major evolution for the Counter-Strike franchise, even though the consequences are unknown. Despite various rumours about this these last months, Valve still hasn’t talked about this subject. But it is probably our best hope to anew see our favourite game skyrocket, with more new teams, big tournaments, and amazing matches such as VG-Na`Vi or NiP-Virtus.Pro.

Thanks to SicknesS for the translation
English comments are welcomed :)