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The raw numbers: Counterstrike and MMO's
This site has extensive data on the player base of every MMO ever made. (Assuming you agree with NCSoft that Guild Wars isn't an MMO.) Yes, including The Realm, which is still up and has a few thousand players on one server.
Bottom line: World of Warcraft has 6.5 million subscribers, with over a million of them based in the U.S, a million in EU/Aus, and most of the rest in East Asia. Lineage (1) is in second place, and Lineage 2 in third, with around 1.5 million each.
The only numbers I know of for Counterstrike came from the CLQ back in the day. I remember being flabbergasted that my favorite quake 2 mods with their x thousand players were totally steamrolled by over a million Counterstrike players. Of course, the CLQ registers only unique nicks, and there's a few problems with accuracy there, but there's really no alternative for a game that doesn't require purchase to play.
Those statistics may not have been quite the height of Counterstrike, so I'm not sure if it ever passed 6 million active players. It's also hard to compare active players to MMO subscriptions, since a good portion of subscriptions go unused for a time.
But Counterstrike was definately popular, huge popular, and it was the first appearance of the Dust phenomenon: given a grand abundance of servers, dozens of good maps that everyone can play, and a million or more players, 90% of them are playing de_dust.
Battlefield 2 continues this proud tradition with certain city maps. Why bother with map rotation? Obviously, city maps are the ultimate expression of the shooter. Just ask the millions and millions of micropeople who play Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, with nothing but urban maps.
But that's not why I stopped playing Counterstrike. To get me to stop, I had to basically stop playing games altogether, which I did for a brief period. Then Steam came out, and I refused ever to touch it.
But yeah, Counterstrike was cool.
Bottom line: World of Warcraft has 6.5 million subscribers, with over a million of them based in the U.S, a million in EU/Aus, and most of the rest in East Asia. Lineage (1) is in second place, and Lineage 2 in third, with around 1.5 million each.
The only numbers I know of for Counterstrike came from the CLQ back in the day. I remember being flabbergasted that my favorite quake 2 mods with their x thousand players were totally steamrolled by over a million Counterstrike players. Of course, the CLQ registers only unique nicks, and there's a few problems with accuracy there, but there's really no alternative for a game that doesn't require purchase to play.
Those statistics may not have been quite the height of Counterstrike, so I'm not sure if it ever passed 6 million active players. It's also hard to compare active players to MMO subscriptions, since a good portion of subscriptions go unused for a time.
But Counterstrike was definately popular, huge popular, and it was the first appearance of the Dust phenomenon: given a grand abundance of servers, dozens of good maps that everyone can play, and a million or more players, 90% of them are playing de_dust.
Battlefield 2 continues this proud tradition with certain city maps. Why bother with map rotation? Obviously, city maps are the ultimate expression of the shooter. Just ask the millions and millions of micropeople who play Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, with nothing but urban maps.
But that's not why I stopped playing Counterstrike. To get me to stop, I had to basically stop playing games altogether, which I did for a brief period. Then Steam came out, and I refused ever to touch it.
But yeah, Counterstrike was cool.
Comments
Over time, it got better. It eventually became awesome. I'd still be using it today if there were a Linux (or Mac) client. ^_~
I'd say you should give Steam another chance now that it doesn't suck, but that might unleash a torrent of gaming that may well ruin you. (I worry what will happen to my precious little free time once I get BootCamp working) ^_~
Last time I used it to re-play HL1 was about a year ago. I had no issues then, and it was just fine. I havent yet played HL2, since it still costs one-fucking-hundred dollars. Thats, like 75 US Bucks. Thats what a new game costs for the first week its out, then it drops to 90. But no, not HL2. Nearly 2 years later, its still more than I pay for anything, including a full series of anime. I don't know what it costs to buy it online, but I don't give a shit what it costs to buy online. I'm not paying a stack of cash for a non-cd version of a game that I have to download every time I feel like randomly playing a few levels, or accidentally fry windows, or whatever. The reason I buy games is so that I have it right there to play when I want to, and so that I have a nice pretty thing to hold in my hands.
To be honest, I ALWAYS hated Counterstrike. I played it for 5 minutes one day, decided I hated it, and have done since. I've given many of the upgraded, etc. version a shot, but have hated all of them.
EDIT: Wow... that turned out angrier than it was meant to be ^_^
Also, you shouldn't fear buying games online. I bought HL2 and HL2:episode 1 online, and I couldn't be happier. As long as you have broadband, the downloading is hardly an issue. I spent more time waiting for Planetside to load than I did downloading HL2. Also, because of the way Steam works, you really never have to worry about not having your game. If you sign in to your steam account from any computer ever, all the games you have paid for will be available to you.
I also think Steam is really good in that it creates a new distribution path for independent game developers. Games like Darwinia, which might never have made store shelves, can now do well. Steam allows independent developers to lower costs, increase profit margins, reach wider audiences, and avoid the evils brought on by big-name publishers. It also makes games cheaper for the gamers. If Steam were for Linux and more independent games were sold on it, I might be a hardcore PC gamer.
The main issue I have with downloading it is the quota it takes; We have a not-bad internet plan, and we get 40GB per month. As it is, it gets brutalised. I'd rather not add to it.
Thats what makes it annoying. If it was Just 40GB, it would be okay.
1500 internet without a limit is nearly unheard of here. Theres a plan I can see after a quick search - $160 per month. thats US$143.874 per month. Over double what we currently pay, I think.
I just like to have something to hold in my hand; It can be availalable on any PC I sit at, too, and I don't have to download however much when I sit at that computer.
8Meg internet mostly costs more than the plan I mentioned before if its going to be worth a damn. I saw a Hilarious package; $250 per month, 8MB per second, 120GB download quota, Every GB after the quota costs $100. Worst thing is, its not a bad deal around here...
I downloaded Steam so I could get some CS going on. The installation was painless enough, as was the account creation.
Rather than finding and installing half-life, applying 9 years of patches, and then downloading the mod version of CS, I figured I'd shell out the 10 bucks and get the standalone game plus CS:Condition Zero.
So I click 'purchase'. Nothing. Again. Nothing.
Apparently the steam: protocol doesn't work. Fine, I modify my registry and start over.
Nothing. I click purchase a dozen times. Nothing. Can't play the game at all.
This is exactly the problem with things like Steam. It seems great, and it benefits everyone. But if it fucks up, everyone is screwed, where they wouldn't be if people were more free to do with the software as they please. Yay.
In Ireland mine is 30GB/m, which is quite good. And over that you pay €1 per mb!
Crazy...yes
At least, that's how Blue Ridge Cable operates.
The downside is that Counterstrike is still more enjoyable, even as late as this past weekend, than many newer games I've tried. Will it (or some iteration of it) ever fall into obscurity? I would almost say that it's had more staying power than any other multiplayer FPS ever, having had only two major updates and mostly incremental improvement.
People used to talk about Doom killers or Quake killers. But nothing ever killed CounterStrike. Why?
In the olden days, Quake, etc. were rocking. The thing was, Internet play was hard and inaccessible. Half-Life was a stupid popular game. Stupid popular beyond all prior games in the genre. According to Wikipedia it had 8 million sales by November 2004. Unlike prior games, Internet play was accessible. WON still sucked compared to what we have now, but it was infinitely more accessible than finding IP addresses or dialing up. Too bad that Half-Life itself had shit multiplayer. Enter Counter-Strike.
On top of that, Counter-Strike the game is just very very good. It introduced no respawn. It introduced quality objectives other than CTF. It has a high skill cap, requiring very precise aim. However, the speed is lower, and there is no crazy jumping or anything, so the skill leans more towards tactics and less towards dexterity, making it even more accessible. Just live Civilization, there's a strong psychological trap of "one more round".
That's why CS became popular, but why has it stayed popular? What Cremlian says is definitely true, but there are two bigger explanations for the staying power of CS.
The biggest reason that CS is still popular is because it has near infinite replayability. Every map can be played from two sides. There are a ton of great maps. There is a huge variety of weapons. There are multiple different ways to go and ways to approach each map from each side. Not even to mention how the game itself is a mod, yet is very moddable. You really can't run out of things to do in CS. Look at now, people are talking about this gungame thing.
Contrast that to a game like L4D. There are only so many modes and so many campaigns. Once you've beaten them all, you stop playing while you wait for the next update. There are some fan-made L4D camapaigns that can provide replayability, but they really don't cut it. It's very hard to make a L4D campaign that doesn't suck. CS maps are relatively simple.
So you've played out L4D, and you're waiting for Valve to release more campaigns. You've got a hankering for some FPS action. What do you play?
Counter-Strike. Everyone has it. You can always whip it out. It's the default fallback. Sure, there's still a large CS community out there, but I think for most players, CS is filler. When you want to play an FPS, and you've played everything out, fall back on CS. There's a lot of people out there with no new games, so at any given moment, thousands of people are falling back on good old CS. The same way that board gamers fall back on Settlers/Puerto Rico.
But idly insulting Scott and how he's softer than a junket sandwich aside, Here's the deal with Australian internet and games.
Games:
We get fucking gouged on prices. People were complaining in the US when the PS3 lauched at 600-700 dollars. In Australia, the PS3 launched at $1000, and that's not even including buying games, which are about 120-130 a pop. You wanna buy Rockband 2 at launch? Kiss 250 bucks goodbye.
On average, the prices go as such.
Consoles, you're looking at about 400 to 500 for just a console, no games - Except for the wii, which is around 300.
360 or PS3 game - just a game, 120 to 140 bucks, depending on where you go. A collector's edition, or a game that comes with peripherals? Anywhere up to 250.
Wii Game, you're looking at 90 to 100 bucks.
PC games off the shelf, you're looking at 90-100.
Most of the time, if it's below that, it's going to be either old, or shovelware.
As for the internet -
Our hardware is slow. We've got terrible internet, and it doesn't look like we're getting better internet until we either bend over and take the Great firewall of Canberra right up the clacker without complaining, or we fuck off Stephen Conroy. Till then, unless you live in Tasmania, the National Broadband network is nothing more than an expensive, ongoing failure that Rudd is pouring your tax dollars into, for no result.
As it is, though, there is a good reason for having metered internet, even if it sucks - Companies purchase bandwidth in bulk, and give it out to their customers. It would be foolish not to pass the cost on to their subscribers.
Also, the laws and regulations in Australia are different to the USA, and also, you should consider that we access far more offshore content. Interestingly, part of the reasons for the download caps IS the USA - because the vast majority of companies are purchasing bandwidth from American companies, who are charging ridiculous prices for it, to the point where it's extraordinarily hard to pass on unmetered internet to their customers. It's simple - Get the American corporations to stop acting like fuckwits, and we've got a much better chance of getting unmetered intenet.
Also, there are services which you can use that don't actually contribute to your download cap, thanks to pairing agreements - but there is no gaming service that has a pairing agreement, and thus, gaming on most consoles or on the PC is going to chew up your cap faster than Chris Farley at a buffet.