On the left is one of the creators of the original Counter-Strike, Min “Gooseman” Le. Valve Back in 2006 and in the years that followed, his views on the legendary first-person shooter series and its historical staying power in the PC market changed significantly.
The original Half-Life: Counter-Strike has been released All Back in 2000 – that's 26 years ago for my fellow English majors – and yet the current version, Counter-Strike 2, is consistently the most popular game on Steam, and by a fairly large margin, according to Steam Charts. Sister publication GR+ Edge Magazine pointed this fact out to Guzman in an interview with issue No. 418and he didn't get much credit for helping launch such a hugely successful franchise.
“I used to think it was a theme – I still think counter-terrorism is a fascinating theme – but I think people just play it to collect skins and shit,” he said.
“Around beta 5, the competitive league came to us and said, 'It would be great if you could change this and that and make the game more suitable for competitive play,'” he said. “I said, 'Don't bother me – I'm too busy making the game. I don’t have time to turn it into an eSports game.” I was a little annoyed by their requests. I wasn't paying attention to making Counter-Strike an eSports game.”
