Chinese firm Perfect World were reported last year as having plans to release Counter-Strike to their native audience as a free to play game, and it looks as though that day may be drawing nearer. The official Valve website for CS in China has begun counting down to a press conference tomorrow, and sources in the industry suggest the game will follow the free to play Dota 2 model, as initially reported in July of 2016.
There is some doubt as to whether we will also see a Chinese Major announced, as it’s fair to say that Shanghai didn’t exactly go to plan, but the success of the record breaking WESG finals may have encouraged organisers to think that way once more. The big news is more likely the fact the game, which is currently around $15 on steam, will be free for Chinese players to play at least, with revenue expected to come from sales of skins and so on.
Valve will find itself in direct competition with Crossfire, a game that is colloquially thought of as a copy of CS but has managed to amass a userbase in excess of 400m players despite that, and grossed over $1.3bn US last year. While in the west the game is not particularly popular, it will be fascinating to see if it can survive the assault from what many consider its ‘parent’ game, or whether CS will have to share the FPS space.
This is undoubtedly a massive move for Valve, with the potential to bring hundreds of millions of new players into the CS ecosystem, and tomorrow may turn out to just be the start of a very big change in the scene overall. However, the challenges of working in China are already well known and Valve will need to tread carefully as they look to further expand their revenue streams in new nations.
Image courtesy of Valve
