Valve pumps even more money into Counter-Strike eSports
"The professional CS:GO community has been growing at an incredible rate."
Counter-Strike eSports continues its impressive growth in popularity - and Valve is pumping more money into prize pools as a result.
It's just announced that beginning with MLG Columbus 2016, each CS:GO Major Championship prize pool will be a cool $1m. That's up from $250,000.
"When we announced the first CS:GO Major Championship in 2013, we hoped the Majors would be rallying points for the community, tent-pole events that could draw new audiences and amplify the value of all events," Valve said on the Counter-Strike blog.
"Since then, the professional CS:GO community has been growing at an incredible rate. CS:GO tournaments are now among the largest esports events in the world, drawing global audiences of millions of viewers, filling massive venues, and garnering higher prize pools. Professional CS:GO has grown, and the CS:GO Major Championships are about to grow with it."
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is usually the second most-played game on Steam, behind only Dota 2. 10.3 million people played the competitive first-person shooter last month. At the time of publication an impressive 286,357 people were playing. Not bad for a Wednesday morning.
CS:GO was the second most-watched game on Twitch, behind MOBA behemoth League of Legends. At the time of publication 30,000 people were watching it being played.