“Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” has become one of the most popular video games, with tournament prize pools reaching more than a million dollars.

The Counter-Strike franchise has been around since 1999. It first started as a modification for a game known as “Half-Life”. The mod became a huge hit with the community and creators Minh “Gooseman” Le and Jess “Cliffe” Cliffe had no idea what they had started.

The franchise includes three installments of the game including “Counter-Strike 1.6”, “Counter-Strike: Source”, and “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” being the most recent, released in August of 2012.

“Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” has become one of the most popular games in past five years. With just under ten and a half million downloads, the game surpassed the most downloaded games on Steam, “Dota 2,” in late 2015.

The game includes multiple game modes such as Matchmaking, a competitive, five versus five battle until one team wins sixteen out of thirty rounds.

Depending on which side the team is on, Terrorist or Counter Terrorist, they can win a round by eliminating the enemy team, planting the bomb and protecting it until it explodes, defusing the bomb before it explodes or stalling until the two minute timer runs out.

Matchmaking is the most popular game mode of all as players look for a difficult and competitive match. Using a ranking system starting from Silver I to Global Elite, the game puts you in a match with players of similar skill to give you a challenging and immersive match.

Purchasing weapons within the game runs on a rather complex economy system to learn but anyone can understand the basics of it.

The amount of money received is dependent on if you win or lose the round. The victor receives almost double the amount of the losing team. As a result, the game is definitely about getting on a streak.

This economic system allows for strategic team play and intelligent decisions. When your team doesn’t have enough money, teams go on “Eco Rounds”.

Eco Rounds are rounds where teams usually make fast plays and spend as little money as possible, usually only purchasing a pistol.

“Counter-Strike” has multiple tournaments a year, but only three per year sponsored by the game’s developer, Valve. Before April 1, “Majors” as they are known, had a prize pool of $250,000. Post April 1st, all majors have been increased to one million dollar prize pools.

Smaller tournaments run by third-party companies such as “FACEIT” or “ESEA,” still have prize pools, but often times less than Majors.

A recent partnership with the television network TBS is allowing a program called ELeague, to be nationally televised for two 10-week seasons of “Counter-Strike” in which 18 teams will compete for $1.2M per season.

Since the game’s Arms Race update, releasing “skins” into the game, player’s wallets have been bone dry. Cases were released into the game which are essentially slot machines where you buy a key to open your case for $2.49 in real life, only to get disappointed when you get a $0.04 skin.

A skin is a camouflage that can be applied to your weapons in game. Cases start at common dropped items up to rare items which are more than often times expensive. Players take the less than one percent chance at getting a knife skin worth $300 in the real world, all just to have pixels.

Multiple third-party sites also allow for betting of these skins whether it be a betting game or gambling on a professional match. Problems have recently arisen due to the large portion of under-age players gambling only to lose all their money and throw a fit.

“Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” is my favorite game because of the competitive gameplay. I love the feel of playing with a good, strategic team and having the adrenaline rush through my veins when I need to pull out “the clutch.” Clutches are my favorite because you are the only member left alive on your team and you need to try and win the round regardless if it’s a one versus one or one versus five. Even though often times I yell at my screen for making me mad, I would recommend this game to anyone.