CS:GO Registers Second-Highest Decline in Average Playerbase Since April 2018

CS:GO has witnessed a new low in the month of June 2021, registering the second-highest decline in average playerbase since April 2018. The tactical first-person shooter had been performing really well from October 2020 to January 2021, mostly due to Operation Broken Fang, which thereafter it started to show a slight decline which was not too significant. However, in the last two months CS:GO average playerbase has plummeted big time, dropping by 8.77% in May followed by a record 16.75% in June. April 2018 was the last time such a massive drop in average playerbase was observed, when a loss of -18.40% or 289,076.7 average CS:GO players was registered.

CS:GO Average Playerbase Drops by 16.75% in June 2021

A combination of things like Valve announcing changes to a few CS:GO features on 3rd June, along with Operation Broken Fang coming to an end on 3rd May might have resulted in the sudden decline of the average playerbase.

As per stats showcased by Steam Charts, in May, CS:GO registered 659,888.9 average players which resulted in an 8.77% loss for the first-person shooter. This further worsened as CS:GO observed only 549,347.1 average players in the month of June, doubling up their loss in a matter of just 30 days to witness a 16.75% loss in the average CS:GO playerbase.

This is the second highest drop in average playerbase for CS:GO since April 2018. This drop came at a time when Valorant has successfully completed one year of its operation which included a proper LAN tournament in Iceland as well, that took place without any major hiccups and garnered an average viewership of 488,276 concurrent viewers.

With Valve announcing some major changes to both Prime and Non-Prime matchmaking, such as the introduction of a one-time payment option for activating Prime features and reducing in-game reward incentives for Non-Prime players, this might have certainly had a negative impact on the existing playerbase.

Hopefully these numbers will pick up once again as we move closer to the PGL Major Stockholm 2021, scheduled to take place from 23rd Oct to 7th Nov while featuring a $2,000,000 USD total prize pool.