With Dota 2’s The International in full swing, Valve have to be looking at their other games and thinking they could, too, have a massive tournament. According to Erik Johnson, one of Valve’s business development authorities, “a lot of the same things [that work for The International] could be applied directly to Counter-Strike.”
He didn’t “have anything to announce right now” but “the guys working on Counter Strike have made a lot of progress on supporting the professional community.” It sounds like they might be gearing up to it.
I mean, Valve have already made more than $30 million from Compendium sales, the digital item
Johnson gave his answer in an interview with Russian news site Prodota.ru. The questions kicks off at 2.20:
“I don’t know if it would be called The International but the guys working on Counter Strike have made a lot of progress on supporting the professional community. We all work at the same company, we share a lot of ideas, and seeing how successful this tournament has become I don’t see any reason that a lot of the same things could be applied directly to Counter-Strike.”
On that point of success, sales of The International’s compendium have raised this year’s prize pool to over $10 million. They’ve also earned Valve an estimated $30 million. Quite the profitable competition.
“We don’t have anything to announce right now,” Johnson continued, “but as a company there’s a lot of data as to how well the community has responded to The International and how it’s grown. It would be pretty difficult to ignore for any game team.”
It’s no secret that Counter-Strike’s not in the same league of popularity as Dota 2 but, still, that’s not to say a global competition wouldn’t be a success relative to its own popularity.