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ESL One Cologne 2014 Starts

News & Rumors Counter-Strike

The CS:GO competition ESL One Cologne started just a few hours ago.

Like many of Valve’s games, they can be very competitive at times. So much in fact, they are used for ‘real world’ competitions around the globe. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one such game, and it’s being played right now at ESL One, in Cologne, Germany.

ESL One Cologne 2014 Starts

Counter-Strike has always been a popular series. In fact, a decent number of people still play the original 1.6 version to this day. Even being so old, yesterday’s numbers peaked at 27,555 concurrent players.

While the Counter-Strike series has seen adjustments and tweaks over its years, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was an attempt to merge the old 1.6 crowd with the newer Source crowd. Smaller hit boxes like those in 1.6 were brought back, while updated graphics from the Source engine continued. What’s different this time around is the fact Valve is changing how easy competitive games are being setup.

Originally Counter-Strike was on a server to server basis. You attempted to be the best of that server, as that’s where people would meet up again, and again after work or school. There was no real way to prove your skills over a period of time besides screenshots of scoreboards.

Now however, CS:GO includes its own ranking system and severs, to ensure it’s easy to prove your level of play to others. The only issue that remains is the latency between players and the server. Until we see the days of fibre optics everywhere, players on an international scale must come together to battle it out to show who’s the real champion. That’s what ESL One Cologne 2014 CS:GO championship is doing right now.

Watch Live: ESL One Cologne 2014 CS:GO

You can watch the competition through the in game viewer (called GOTV) or live on Twitch. If you do happen to plan on watching the competition, make sure you watch with GOTV or a Twitch account linked to your Steam account so you are eligible for souvenir packages. Also, don’t forget about the Pick’Em challenge! You can see the details for that here.

E-sports are becoming a bigger thing as the days and years go on. Its popularity is increasing. If the international DOTA 2 competition (The International) has anything to say about it, the numbers are there. The International saw a prize pool close to $11 million US this year. The pool was up from the year before being about $3 million US. A quick reminder for this year’s pool, Valve chipped in only $1.6 million US – the rest came from players who were eager to see the victor. The bulk of player funds came from compendium sales, an in game item that allowed players to keep a record of the tournament progress.

Do you think that having Valve run competition for CS:GO just like DOTA 2 would be a good thing?
Let’s hear your thoughts below.

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