On March 22, Valve officially announced Counter-Strike 2, a new installment of its iconic team-based shooter on the Source 2 engine. The developers also announced the launch of the closed beta test — a number of popular players and streamers got access to the updated map Dust 2, where they were able to try all the innovations in a real-match format. Closed test participants launched a lot of streams on Twitch, thanks to which the category showed significant growth in some metrics. Read more in our Streams Charts review.
On the day of the Counter-Strike beta test launch, the game's Peak Viewers number on Twitch reached 852.1K people. This is the 20th best result in the history of the CS:GO on Twitch and the best result in 2023.
We should remind you that usually Valve's shooter gathers a large audience just because of the major tournaments. Since 2022, the Peak Viewers number of the category rose above the mark of closed test only a few times. These occurred during the Majors or the top tournaments from IEM. The biggest Peak Viewers number was on November 7, 2021, during the PGL Major Stockholm Grand Final, when the match between Natus Vincere and G2 Esports was watched by more than 1.9 million PV.
Dynamics of the game on Twitch before the launch and on the day of CS2 testing
In addition to the number of Peak Viewers in the game category on Twitch, the number of channels also increased — even those streamers, who rarely play CS:GO themselves, paid attention to the game. For example, Rubius from Spain, loud_coringa from Brazil, and eliasn97 from Germany. On the testing start day they got access to the updated game, and in just a few hours of broadcasting they were among the most popular streamers of the discipline in their languages.
On March 22, CS:GO on Twitch had 2,890 Peak Channels, the best result since January 2022 (2,891 Peak Channels).
As for English-speaking content creators, British e-athlete Smooya unexpectedly became the leader. He launched a broadcast with CS2 gameplay and almost immediately reached almost 192K PV, thus setting a record for his personal channel. In comparison, his previous most popular stream attracted only 17.7K PV. Second after Smooya is shroud — thanks to the announcement and testing of CS2, the Canadian streamer attracted 158.5K PV. He also became the leader by total Hours Watched (more than 1.1 million).
Most popular Counter-Strike 2 streamers on Twitch by Peak Viewers
The announcement and the beginning of the CS2 testing placed the shooter in first place among the games in the category ranking on Twitch (second place in the overall ranking after Just Chatting). The game by Valve surpassed such titles as GTA V, League of Legends, and Valorant. However, we must make a caveat, on March 22, there were ESL Pro League Season 17 matches, which also made a significant contribution to the total Hours Watched number of the category.
Most popular categories on Twitch during March 22-23
It is important to note that the growth in the number of channels in the CS:GO category on Twitch is not related only to broadcasts of the testing. Immediately after the announcement of CS2, a lot of fraudulent streamers appeared, who included the updated game in the title of the broadcast, but during the broadcasts, they advertised betting companies, skin marketplaces, etc. Some even promised to "sell" access to CS2 to the viewers or provide it for subscriptions, but of course, they did not have such capabilities. The number of viewers on such channels reached several hundred and sometimes exceeded a thousand people.
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Release of the updated installment of Counter-Strike on the Source 2 engine is scheduled for summer 2023. The developers promised to improve the tick rate, change grenade mechanics, improve the appearance of maps and add other innovations.
