Valve is considering giving Counter-Strike its own international tournament

Dota 2’s The International has been immensely popular, with more than $10 million worth of crowdfunded prizes up for grabs. It’s no surprise, given Dota 2’s Steam domination. So it only makes sense that Valve should consider the same treatment for some of its other properties. Obviously, a Counter-Strike international tournament would not go astray. Speaking in a video interview with Prodota.ru, Valve’s Erik Johnson indicated that the company is giving serious thought to the possibility. “I don’t know if it would be called The International, but the guys working on Counter-Strike made a lot of progress on supporting the professional community around that game,” Johnson said. “We all work at the same company and share a lot of ideas, and given how successful this tournament  has become I don’t see any reason why a lot of the same things couldn’t be applied directly to Counter-Strike.”

With fans raising $10.7 million in prizes for Dota 2’s world championship tournament The International and 10,000 tickets to attend it in person selling out in an hour, there is no doubt Valve’s eSports event is immensely popular. But could Valve put on a similar event for another one of its games? A recent interview with Valve’s Erik Johnson suggests that the company might try it with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. “I don’t know if it would be called The International, but the guys working on Counter-Strike made a lot of progress on supporting the professional community around that game,” Johnson told Prodota.ru. “We all work at the same company and share a lot of ideas, and given how successful this tournament [The International] has become I don’t see any reason why a lot of the same things couldn’t be applied directly to Counter-Strike.” Johnson added that Valve doesn’t have anything to announce right now, but that data it has showing how well the community responded to The International is “something that’s going to be pretty difficult to ignore for any game team.” Last month, Valve’s digital gaming platform Steam reached a milestone of 8,020,700 concurrent users. Dota 2 was by far the most popular game, followed by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and then Team Fortress 2. Johnson said that he worked on Counter-Strike for 14 years and that it’s now bigger than ever.