For years now, Valve has kept a rather hands-off approach to the professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive scene. That's all about to come to an end as the studio announced major sweeping changes to the rules that apply to CS:GO tournament organizers.
Despite these statements being made today, August 3, 2023, the changes will not go into effect until 2025.
In short, these changes will ensure that skill, and not money, determine which teams are included in these esports tournaments. Too common these days is the fact that several teams are just guaranteed a spot in the final tournament rounds because the tournament organizers own the team or cut a deal with a team. Some organizations have even given permanent slots to several teams in the league every season. The only way these teams could lose their spot would be by finishing last in their group in three out of four seasons.
Counter-Strike is at its best when teams compete on a level playing field and when ability is the only limit to their success.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen professional Counter-Strike drift away from that ideal. The ecosystem has become gradually less open, with access to the highest levels of competition increasingly gated by business relationships.​
We think that Counter-Strike should be an open sport. So we’re going to add new requirements to running large-scale competitive events. The finer details are still in progress, but here are the broad strokes:
Over the past few years, we’ve seen professional Counter-Strike drift away from that ideal. The ecosystem has become gradually less open, with access to the highest levels of competition increasingly gated by business relationships.​
We think that Counter-Strike should be an open sport. So we’re going to add new requirements to running large-scale competitive events. The finer details are still in progress, but here are the broad strokes:
• Tournament organizers will no longer have unique business relationships or other conflicts of interest with teams that participate in their events.
• Invitations to all tournaments will use our ranking system (detailed here), or otherwise be determined by open qualifiers.
• Any compensation for participating teams—prize pool or otherwise—will be made public and will be driven by objective criteria that can be inspected by the community.​
• Invitations to all tournaments will use our ranking system (detailed here), or otherwise be determined by open qualifiers.
• Any compensation for participating teams—prize pool or otherwise—will be made public and will be driven by objective criteria that can be inspected by the community.​
