Counter Strike: Global Offensive

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Hidden Path Entertainment and Valve Corporation. It is the fourth game in the main Counter-Strike franchise. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 in August 2012,with the Linux version being released in September 2014. It features classic content, such as revamped versions of classic maps, as well as brand new maps, characters and game modes. Cross-platform multiplayer was planned between Windows, OS X, Linux, and PlayStation 3 players,but was ultimately limited to Windows, OS X, and Linux because of the differences in update-frequency between systems.

Gameplay

Similar to previous Counter-Strike games, Global Offensive is an objective-based multiplayer first-person shooter. Players play as Terrorists or Counter Terrorists, and must complete objectives while attempting to eliminate the enemy team.

Players purchase weapons and equipment at the beginning of every round with money awarded based on their performance. Completing objectives such as planting the bomb or killing an enemy earns players money, but negative actions, such as friendly fire towards a teammate or hostage will result in monetary penalty. In addition, when a round ends all players receive some amount of money, with players on the winning team receiving substantially more.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive added new weapons and equipment not seen in previous installments, most notably the firebomb for each side (referred to as a Molotov on the terrorist side and as an Incendiary Grenade on the Counter-Terrorist side). These temporarily cover a small area in fire, dealing damage to anyone passing through.Cosmetic items, such as weapon finishes, were added post-release.

Professional Comepetition

In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, in addition to normal tournament circuits hosted by third-party organizations, Valve organizes or co-sponsors a series of events itself, referred to as 'majors'. These events are special in that they have large prize pools, which are crowdfunded by the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community via in-game keys bought to open in-game cases,and special in-game cosmetics - usually in the form of stickers of the qualified teams logo, and signatures of qualified players that can be applied to guns or used to predict the results of the tournament - are introduced into the game, and are purchasable from Valve during the duration of the tournament.

On September 23, 2015 it was announced that WME/IMG and Turner Broadcasting were creating a televised Counter-Strike: Global Offensive esports league called ELeague to be broadcast on US cable television network TBS in 2016.

On October 2, 2015, a number of professional esports organization with Counter-Strike teams announced the formation of a trade union that set several demands for future tournament attendance. The announcement was a publicly posted email written by Natus Vincere CEO Alexander Kokhanovskyy that was sent to organizers of major esports events. Among these demands was notice that teams part of the union would not attend a tournament with a prize pool of less than $75,000 for CS:GO and $100,000 for Dota 2.Among the teams that were announced were Natus Vincere, Team Liquid, Counter Logic Gaming, Cloud9, Virtus.pro, Team SoloMid,Fnatic, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Titan, and EnVyUs.