Valve's online shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has seen a 17 per cent decline in average players during June.
That's according to data from SteamCharts – as reported by DotEsports – which show that during that month, the title saw an average of 549,347 players – a 16.75 per cent dip decline. It's speculated that this is due to the introduction of the new Prime tier to the free-to-play title. This sees players paying $15 for Prime status, which allows them to access all of the game's features, including ranked matchmaking and being able to receive experience points.
CS:GO hit a record 1,305,714 concurrent players on Steam in April 2020, right at the start of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The game went free-to-play in December 2018 following its 2012 launch.
The game was accidentally removed from Steam briefly in March of this year. Valve announced earlier this year that it was halting development on the rework of its free-to-play Dota card title Artifact.
