Professional CSGO player Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev has called out the developers of the game at Valve, commenting about the game's current status and how he says he'll "do a better job" at fixing the game.
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S1mple tweeted out a series of messages calling out the CSGO development team, specifically in terms of the game's apparent dwindling player count. This is, according to DotESports, due to how the developers have been barely updating the game and how even the simplest bugs are still left unfixed until now. Here is s1mple's latest tweet about the entire thing:
Hey @CSGO just give me few millions, so I will make your game better, not only professionally, but also for players who rarely log in and want to enjoy the game
Not kidding, at least your numbers will grow— Sasha (@s1mpleO) August 9, 2022
Kostyliev is the latest out of a crop of pro CSGO players that have been criticizing Valve's lacking desire to update the game's map pool, alongside its other pieces of content. For instance, Cloud9 player Abai "HObbit" Hasenov called for the removal of Mirage recently, which he says is a "boring" map. He says that the devs should replace Mirage with Cobblestone, around four years after the map itself was removed from the competitive pool and replaced by a brand-new Dust II (via a separate DotESports report).
Either way, it's no secret that CSGO is a massively popular game that rarely gets content updates. Compared to another competitive shooter like Fortnite or Call Of Duty, CSGO can be considered "dead" by live service standards. The only major updates it gets rarely go far beyond balance patches. But while this is true, it doesn't mean that Valve is willingly ignoring updates for their multiplayer shooter. According to The Loadout, the developers still need to push updates - however small - every couple of weeks to ensure that things stay balanced. If not, then players might find a few exploits that could endanger the meta and make things unfair, especially for newcomers to the game.
The last major update for the game, which dealt with matchmaking, brought big changes but also confused a few players (via GamesRadar). Released last August 1st, the matchmaking update saw some players' ranks differ from what they used to be.
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Is CSGO's Player Base Really Declining As S1mple Said?
Since it doesnt get updated as much as other competitive shooters, CSGO is being considered "dead" by several players. This is also probably why pros like s1mple are calling for more frequent updates to the game, since they believe the player base is dwindling. But is it, really?
Detail of a Lazarus player typing during their CS:GO game between Besiktas during day 1 of the Girl Gamer Madrid Festival at Movistar eSports Center on September 28, 2019 in Madrid, Spain.
As reported by Win.gg, the numbers aren't exactly dwindling. As of this year, the average concurrent player count still sits at over 500,000 players. This is actually down from 2021, when Valve's shooter tallied one of its best years ever. During January last year, the game had an average of over 740,000 concurrent players. But things fell a bit off the cliff because of the game's new matchmaking algorithm, which reportedly pushed a good chunk of the free-to-play gamers.
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