Yes it is time, the number one triumph and failure of ten years of Counter Strike. Here’s a quick recap:

Triumphs:
#5 The max round game type and format standardization
#4 The Pre-World Tour CPL
#3 Player / Developer Interaction
#2 Steam

Failures:
#5 Counter Strike Source
#4 The Post World Tour CPL
#3 Prize Money
#2 CGS

You can find the articles talking about these here:

Part Four (#2’s)
Part Three (#3’s)
Part Two (#4’s)
Part One (#5’s)

Now on to the finale:

Triumph #1
Big Corporate Sponsorship

These last ten years of Counter Strike have been an interesting ride. CS went from being a side tournament at Quake events to the main attraction at HUGE international events sponsored by major corporations. This growth is probably CS’ greatest triumph. While our chosen game might not always be the king shit in eSports, any game that comes after it will have a lot to owe our pioneering game.

Yes, Quake had tournaments that gave away a piss ton of money.

Yes, id’s John Carmack gave away a Ferrari .

However, Counter Strike had the numbers that Quake didn’t. Building on the success of CPL Europe and the Babbage and Speakeasy CPL’s, Intel joined up with the CPL for the Winter 2001 event. The numbers from the HLTV relays sealed the deal for Quake’s dominance as the competitive FPS title of choice and CS took center stage. Intel to this day is actively sponsoring major tournaments, like ESL’s Intel Extreme Masters.

Other companies put their brand’s mark on competitive Counter Strike as well. Companies like NVIDIA, Dell, Steelseries, Coolermaster, Razer, AMD, Pizzahut, and so on sponsored events where the primary audience was Counter Strike fans. In addition you had 3D, SK, and mousesports jump out in front and secure big name sponsors. Sponsorship has impacted every aspect of Counter Strike.

For the most part this is a natural progression … people watching and playing leads to sponsorship. Counter Strike, however, was the first game in the western world to really tap into the underlying craze that Starcraft was in Korea. This sponsorship allowed the diehard competitive scene grow and eventually thrive on a year round slate of events. From this melting pot of raw electronic competition we got players like KSharp, Rambo, fRoD, HeatoN, cArn, and cogu become more than just nicknames on a score board but real champions and, dare I say it, athletes.

The raw numbers of people playing Counter Strike brought the sponsors, but the sponsorship elevated the game to a much higher and much more professional level. That is why this is the number one triumph.

Failure #1
Valve’s support for eSports

Valve has shown more support for the competitive community than most other game houses. Companies like Infinity Ward, EA, and Epic all seem to want to move onto the next title than make their games work. However, with a little bit of Valve interest Counter-Strike or any Valve property could have exploded as a competitive title.

Look at Quake and Warcraft.

Id has been behind their games with tournaments since day one. They effectively kept Quake alive competitively during the franchise’s lost years. They also made the Quake spinoffs (RTCW and Enemy Territory) viable competitive games. Not only do they throw the companies money and reputation behind these events, they also use them to keep in touch with their hardcore fans. Regardless if tournaments come and go, everyone knows there will be a Quakecon in Dallas every year. It’s a pretty comforting fact if you’re a Quake fan or player.

Blizzard also knows this and has been hosting Blizzcon events since 2005 and held Worldwide Invitationals in 2004 and 2006-2008. In addition they have held seven ladder tournaments for Warcraft III starting all the way back in 2004. This is part of the reason that Warcraft III has remained a competitive title despite the lack of tournaments the game now has. By using battle.net to promote these competitions Blizzard masterfully used their in game ladder system to lead to an offline tournament.

They have repeated this with World of Warcraft and are on their third tournament for WoW. It’s one of the ways for teams to get noticed by sponsors since Blizzard picks up the tab for you to attend their event if you qualify. It’s a really nice way for teams of limited means to get noticed (TSG at the NA Regional for instance).

If Valve did anything like this it would allow them to really reach out and embrace the competitive CS community. Also, it would give their other titles a chance to shine in a competitive environment. Games like Left for Dead, Day of Defeat, and Team Fortress 2 all have or had communities behind them and could use the support. Even a classic Half Life deathmatch tournament would be amazing.

Not only would it grow competitive gaming but it would give these titles a continuity they currently lack. Players would not have to worry that their game will be consigned to the ash heap of history as it will always have a home at a Valvecon. The calculus to determine which games to host is different for a game developer rather than a tournament organizer. Valve will back Valve games; tournament organizers back what is hot right now.

While the draw of Valvecon would not be what Blizzcon is, I don’t think Valve would have much trouble filling an event. They have plenty of games in their catalogue that lend themselves to competitive play … the hard part is just doing it.

Not doing it and not having Valve tournaments for Valve titles has seriously hampered their games’ competitive growth. Considering the competitive Counter Strike community is one of the most rabid communities out there and that word of mouth hype was how the CS monster was built, I wonder what Counter Strike would have been like with a “Valvecon.”