February 2023 in the World of CSGO

Introduction

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is among the most dynamic esports games available on the modern gaming market. This is why we have decided to provide you with a monthly round-up of news. Our main objective is to keep you informed about the most significant events in the CS:GO scene during the target month. In this series, you will find information about updates to the game, the most important tournaments and their outcomes, notable CS:GO teams, events related to the game, and much more. Our first article will cover the events of February. Despite its brevity, a lot happened during this time, and we hope you will enjoy our series. We welcome any feedback from you.

9th of February update – Revolution Case and Espionage Sticker Capsule

The update on February 9th, 2023, brought two exciting additions to CS:GO players: the Revolution Case and the Espionage Sticker Capsule. The case offers players the opportunity to earn 17 new skins for a variety of weapons, including:

• M4A4 Temukau

• Ak-47 Head Shot

• P2000 Wicked Sick

• UMP-45 Wild Child

• AWP Doodle Lore

• P90 Neoqueen

• R8 Banana Cannon

• MAC-10 Sakkaku

• Glock-18 Umbral Hare

• M4A1-S - Feeding Frenzy

• Tec-9 Rebel

• SG 553 Cyberforce

• MP5-SD Liquidation

• MAG-7 Insomniac

• SCAR-20 Fragments

• P250 Re.built

• MP9 Featherweight

Skins added to the Revolution Case

In general, players love this case because many of the CS:GO skins included are related to a popular anime fandom. Additionally, the banana cannon skin has become the new favorite of the Skinape mascot (monkeys love bananas, don't they?). Players also love the blue skins, such as the MP9 featherweight and SCAR-20 fragments, for their great appearance despite their relatively low cost. Overall, the Revolution Case is considered one of the best cases ever released by Valve, with the high quality of all its skins further proving this point.

Espionage Sticker Capsule provides players with 21 stickers: 12 paper quality, 4 holo quality, 2 glitter quality and 3 foil quality:

• Hidden Hero (Foil)

• Etheral Gaze (Foil)

• Peek Me (Foil)

• Infinite Triangle (Holo)

• Snowfall (Glitter)

• Salty (Holo)

• Cyber Chicken (Holo)

• Mind Games (Holo)

• Street Artist (Glitter)

• Not a Bot

• Run T, Run

• Zap Cat

• Spectators

• Fireball

• Explosive Strength

• Sting Like a Butterfly

• Knife’s Edge

• 360 No Scope

• Aim and Fire

• Well Played

• Batter Up

All of these stickers are going to add a nice, individual look to your favorite skins.

Espionage Sticker Capsule

15th of February update

On the 15th of February another update to CS:GO was released. Patch notes consists of only a few minor things which are as following:

[Maps]

• Ember

Seasonal celebrations have ended in Ember land.

• Map lighting, theme, textures, and models have returned to their pre-seasonal state.

• Cave rock textures are now using $seamless_scale for improved texture quality and look.

• Various texture improvements.

• Fixed an areaportal issue.

[Revolution Case changes]

• The AWP | Doodle Lore has been replaced by the AWP | Duality in the Revolution Case

• Existing AWP | Doodle Lore inventory items have been converted to the AWP | Duality

This is where this patch becomes one of the most interesting in the history of Counter-Strike:Global Offensive. The AWP Doodle Lore was changed into AWP Duality due to a case of copyright infringement. It is the first time such a situation has happened in the history of CS:GO. It was discovered that the artwork, which was used on the AWP skin was stolen from the original creator. Due to the DMCA complaint, Valve decided to take action and removed the skin from the game. Furthermore, people who already had AWP Doodle Lore, had it replaced with a new AWP Duality Skin.

IAWP Doodle Lore and the original art comparison

It should be noted that Valve already has a history of removing certain skins from the game. After all, it is not uncommon. Thanks to this, skins become more rare and their price on the market skyrockets. A primary example might be M4A4 Howl which became very expensive after its removal from the game. However, such a situation as described above happened for the very first time.

Still it is important to realize that Valve’s actions in removing the AWP Doodle Lore from the game show how important it is to respect both copyright, as well as, intellectual property rights. Someone might argue that skins are a relatively small, cosmetic aspect of the gameplay but it is far away from the truth. They might have a very significant impact on the community and the Steam market. Thus, players should be aware of potential legal implications behind using copyrighted material in their designs. Furthermore, morality is also important in this case. After all, how would you feel if someone would steal your artwork and make money from it? Such a situation happened for the first time and we sincerely hope that it will be the last. Still, there might be an issue. Some people might complain that AWP Doodle Lore is better looking than AWP Duality. Is it true though? Well it is up to you to decide, which one looks better. Unfortunately, it was impossible to find a solution which would make everyone happy. Still, in our humble opinion, Valve picked the best course of action in this situation.

AWP Duality skin

IEM Katowice 2023 with a significant peak viewership drop

IEM Katowice 2022 had set a CS:GO viewership record. The grand finale of IEM Katowice 2022 between FaZe clan and G2 Esports was so popular that it resulted in an astonishing peak of 1.12 million concurrent viewers. Only the IEM Katowice CS:GO Tournament was better within the context of numbers. Thus, many people believe that IEM Katowice 2023 is going to be as big if not bigger than its predecessors. However, not this time. The tournament which was won by the European team G2 Esports had a peak viewership of 712,534, as stated by esports data platform Esports Charts. It is a really low number in comparison to, for example, IEM 2022.
Still, despite the significant drop in  viewership, there is no denial that IEM Katowice 2023 is still  the 7th most popular IEM event  and the fourth highest IEM which took place in the Polish city.

Furthermore, it is important to also notice that in the 2023 tournament the G2 Esports was once again, the most popular esports organization which appeared on the event, with the highest number of the average viewers (355,200) and total hours watched (6m). NAVI  placed second with average viewership at 304,500.

IEM Katowice 2023

CS:GO beats it’s all time concurrent online players record

Judging by the previous news you might assume that the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive started to lose its popularity. However, such an assumption would be wrong. 11th February of 2023 CS:GO surpassed 1.3 million concurrent players for the second time, breaking its own record.

The CS:GO has broken its record online concurrent players count and hit the peak of 1,320,219 players at 5:50 a.m. on February 11th 2023. The peak was a result of the climax of the IEM Katowice 2023, with its semi-finals taking place at 6:30 a.m. the same day.

The CS:GO online concurrent players record (11th February 2023)

It is interesting to notice the fact that the peak came just after the release of the new Revolution Case, Espionage Sticker Capsule, as well as the ULTIMATE music kit. The Katowice tournament combined with cases, new content, sticker packs etc. resulted in a combination which sparked an amazing level of interest in the game. Hence, the record number of players. Furthermore, CS:GO is at this moment, the most-played game on the Steam platform, and it also holds the number two in top sellers (estimated 326.09 million downloads). These numbers are impressive.

According to the data provided by SteamDB, the previous peak player number was set 3 years ago, in April 2020. Back then the game reached 1,308,983 players. The result might be surprising though. Since April 2020 the game has fallen below average of one million players, for most of 2021. However, its popularity increased once again in 2022 and the new peak was reached in 2023.

It is amazing that despite being an almost 11-year-old game, which was released originally on August 21st 2012, CS:GO is still on the top spot as Steam’s most played and most downloaded game. It shows clearly that this game is a timeless classic. A long decade had passed and many imitators and pretenders appeared during those years. However, CSGO (Counter Strike Global Offensive) still remains at the position of a king of esports. Judging by the state of things, one of the most crucial questions is: how the rest of the year 2023 is going to be for CS:GO? We are going to find out soon.

This news concludes all we have to say about February in CS:GO. It seems that it was a very interesting month. Many things happened and most of them were good for the game itself. The only bad thing that happened was the infamous copyright infringement of the AWP Doodle Lore.