PC gaming has always somewhat been in the shadow of console gaming, mainly due to the popularity of consoles and the unspoken priority that gamers give to console gaming over PC. Over the last few years, PC gaming has risen in popularity due to many factors in graphics, games and the room given to amend the system as you feel fit.

For years, console gamers have waged war on one another in a bid to see their preferred console come out on top and the manufacturers, Sony and Microsoft, have been enabling this war between them by constantly trying to better the other, offering more features, partnerships and tech goodies to appease their fanbase.

CounterStrike 2 was recently publicly announced, and many online streamers flocked to re-activate their accounts, acquire more weapon skins and open cases, which have all seen a massive surge in interest, thus boosting the secondary markets. Gambling on exciting casino games on stream has become extremely popular due to CounterStrike’s popularity, as many streamers nowadays play a variety of table games, jackpot slots, and slot titles with extremely high volatility. Therefore, the CounterStrike 2 fanbase is familiar with the intersection of online gaming and streaming, which boost anticipation for the new release.

Are loot boxes back?

Loot boxes have always been a touchy subject with gamers and with CounterStrike 2 on the horizon, an astronomical rise in interest has come around once again for weapon skins on CounterStrike. Older collections have risen in price, both in box and open formats and the current talk of the town is the float of weapon skins.

The float of a weapon signifies the pattern on the weapon or knife and colours which may completely cover a weapon barrel, or knife blade are now extremely sought after. CounterStrike is without doubt responsible for many of the PC gamers which stuck around and while the game has remained one of the most popular both in terms of player count and viewers for eSports series and tournaments, the numbers were steadily dropping over a number of years.

The announcement of CS2 in the format it was, which was a leaked code from the game itself, lit an enormous fire in CS fans and players’ stomachs and many spoke about this for days on end. Popular streamers and players on the in then received confirmation they could access the game and show it off to their viewers, a genius masterstroke from the development team, as this only increased the interest and excitement for the second instalment of the game.

What’s so different about CS2?

In actual fact, the next version of the game is not a new game, but a complete overhaul of the last one, implementing a host of features that make for a much more realistic experience. This includes mechanics such as smoke grenades and plumes being interactive, giving players an opportunity to fire through the smoke, or affect its lifespan. This is the same for incendiary devices, with smoke grenades able to dispel them quickly.

Maps are being amended also, in order to improve the flow of games and also make the aesthetics slightly more appeasing and what Valve have confirmed thus far does not mark the end of these changes, as they plan to make many more which improve graphics, flow, menu navigation and much much more.

The most important upgrade for current fans and players of CS:GO and the reason for the massive surge in interest and prices on secondary markets is the planned improvement on already made skins on weapons. Valve confirmed they will not only allow players to keep all of their inventory accumulated throughout the CS:GO lifecycle but also improve them cosmetically which could make some low-value skins suddenly valuable to some, but also give the most sought after skins a boost in value too.

The downfall of CoD to be pushed forwards

Call of Duty, since the releases of CoD:4 and World at War, is a series that has been at the top of gaming and thanks to those two games, broke numerous records and set the series on a path to remain on top spot for over a decade. Now, however, the gaming community have been awfully quick to rule out the latest release, Modern Warfare 2, citing a distinct lack of content that came with the full release of the game.

A handful of maps that were originally released with the game have since been removed, due to copyright infringements which only led the Call of Duty gaming community to grow annoyed at this fact, thinking surely that the developers could have acquired the relevant permissions or even simpler, created maps from scratch like they’d done so many times before.

Before the release of season 3 on the game, the player count had decreased significantly and many of those leaving the game were returning to games such as CounterStrike, xDefiant and even heading back to the previous edition of Modern Warfare and namely, Warzone 1.