Counter-Strike creator says skins, not gameplay, are fueling CS2’s Steam dominance

Creator of the widely acclaimed Counter-Strike mod Minh “Gooseman” Le says that the reason behind Counter-Strike 2’s ironclad hold on Steam isn’t gameplay or the themes surrounding the game. He boiled it down to just one thing: the community’s obsession with in-game cosmetic skins with varying float numbers and rarities.

For context, Minh Le developed Counter-Strike alongside Jess Cliffe as a Half-Life mod. Due to its enduring popularity, Valve officially acquired Counter-Strike in 2000. Today, Counter-Strike 2 averages one million daily concurrent players. 

The game’s skin economy has skyrocketed over the past few years, reaching billions in dollar terms. However, the recent ‘Trade Up’ update did cause widespread backlash in the CS community for crashing the skin economy.

Minh Le sat down with Edge Magazine #418 via GamesRadar for a candid interview. He told them, “I used to think it was the theme – I still think counter-terrorism is a fascinating theme. But I think people play it just to collect skins and sh*t.”

Le detailed how he never intended Counter-Strike to become an esports phenom. He said:

Around beta 5, we were contracted by a competitive league, and they were like, ‘It would be great if you could change this and change that, and make the game more amenable for competitive play.

However, Le was pretty dismissive of the interaction and rejected their advances, stating:

I was like, ‘Don’t bother me. I’m too busy trying to make the game. I don’t have time to make it into an esports game. I was kind of annoyed with their requests. I didn’t pay attention to making Counter-Strike an esports game.

Amid growing creative differences and a growing shift toward the esports landscape, Le left Valve to launch MostWanted Entertainment in 2006. However, he still regrets this decision.

Le went on to create Tactical Intervention in 2012, which took a hyper-realistic multiplayer FPS approach, featuring 10 modes, destructible environments, and gadgets tailored to player roles. He wanted to create something bigger than Counter-Strike.

Unfortunately, the game was a commercial flop due to a shadow drop, minimal marketing, and brutal competition from juggernauts of the time, such as Titanfall and Battlefield 3. The game endured, but ultimately, servers were shut down in October of 2017.

It’s pretty incredible to see how a dorm-room Half-Life mod became one of the biggest multiplayer FPS games of all time with its own economy.