The show must go on: How the return to online play is affecting the scene

With a global lockdown put in place to combat the outbreak of the coronavirus, Counter-Strike will make a sudden and unexpected return to its roots — regionalized, online play. While the situation is far from ideal, not everyone will be affected by the lockdown equally, and some might even capitalize on the opportunities presented by the changing landscape.

The push for fewer online games and more LAN play has been a consistent factor in Counter-Strike history, with the increasing viewership and resources allowing tournament organizers to transfer more and more action to an offline setting in the last few years. In 2019, the biggest "online league" — ESL Pro League — made the transition to a LAN setting for its two main regions, Europe and North America, allowing top teams to almost completely eliminate online play.

Natus Vincere in Europe and 100 Thieves in North America were the two most extreme examples of that paradigm shift as they didn't play a single online match in over a year, while the rest of the current top 10 averaged around 30 online maps played over the last 12 months. The trend was bound to continue in 2020, with elite teams perhaps eliminating online play altogether, if not for the coronavirus and the measures to combat its spread — which have not only shut down esports LAN tournaments, but also the biggest sporting events such as the NBA, Formula 1, the Olympics and the European Football Championship.

"It seems like this is the best outcome possible ESL could’ve made", Chet "⁠Chet⁠" Singh tells HLTV.org about the tournament organizer's decision to go back to regionalized online play for the 11th season of Pro League. The move has its own merits and drawbacks: Evil Geniuses' coach points out that "the level of CS might not be the greatest since it’s online, but the upsets are for sure making it very exciting", before praising the last-minute addition of Flashpoint partner MIBR, who "will probably be one of the very few teams driving some kind of viewership in the league". Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo and co. will be the only team to play in both competitions, taking advantage of the fact both EPL and Flashpoint will now take place online.

Talking about unexpected results, a lot of them already happened in the European division, which kicked off ahead of the North American one, seeing a number of favorites fall to teams outside of the top 10. To note some of them: Astralis (#2) lost to Ninjas in Pyjamas (#11), Natus Vincere (#1) to North (#22), and fnatic (#6) to BIG (#17). However, playing underdogs isn't what concerns Evil Geniuses' coach.

"We used to dominate that area back in the day", he notes. "My only worry is that, due to the coronavirus, a lot of people are home so the internet right now is very congested, causing lag for some of my players. If it happens during a match, that would be very unfortunate for us. It’s already affected us in practices and it’s not fun having external factors influence your results."

Based on how things were judged in the past, many fans are downplaying the importance of online tournaments like EPL and the results we are seeing, but with no LAN events to be played soon, how else would we rate teams on? Chet is of the opinion that it is really important for Evil Geniuses to do well in Pro League as they have been on a downward spiral for quite some time.

"We need to start showing results," he says. "We’re in an NA-only league. As cocky as this sounds, we should be making second in the league - but I don’t even think second is good enough. We should be giving ourselves the expectations to win it all and not be runner-ups to Liquid anymore."

While the current situation is something Evil Geniuses can live with, their coach is worried about what happens after Pro League ends on April 12th. Following the news that the ESL One Rio Major, scheduled for May, had been moved to November, Chet posted a concerned Tweet about the fact that some teams may have nothing to play for at least until June, when BLAST Premier resumes.

"The feeling right now is, 'Well, what do we do?" he asks. "Do we just sit back in America and continue to practice or do we take another break and wait for more tournaments and this coronavirus to blow over?

"We’re still contemplating what to do and we hope organizers will step in, like StarLadder and others, to fill in the gap for American CS. However, I feel as if most of these organizers are just going to focus mainly on the European region and, if all the good online tournaments and prize money are just going to be only present in Europe, that’s going to hurt us heavily."

While Chet's concerns are reasonable, as North American squads such as Evil Geniuses and Liquid will most likely have less to play for and worse practice partners than their European counterparts in the coming months, there are teams that are in a much worse situation. One of them is the former INTZ team featuring the likes of Gustavo "⁠yel⁠" Knittel, Ricardo "⁠boltz⁠" Prass, and João "⁠felps⁠" Vasconcellos. The Brazilians earned a spot in ESL Pro League S11, got signed by a new organization, BOOM, and headed to Malta for a bootcamp before the competition was supposed to start in the Mediterranean island. Everything was looking great — until a global pandemic derailed their plans.

"It was very tough. We really wanted to stay and play," the team's coach, Alessandro "⁠Apoka⁠" Marcucci, tells HLTV.org. "We know how important it is for teams who are in a similar position in the ranking as ours to play tier-one tournaments". BOOM were No.41 on March 9 and have since slipped to No.45, with the downward trajectory likely to continue. Unlike their countrymen MIBR and FURIA, who are based in the United States and have stayed there during the outbreak, BOOM's home base is in Canada, and due to coronavirus-related regulations, they were unable to return to the country and participate in the North American division of Pro League. "Some players and families were worried, so we decided to [leave Malta] and return to Brazil", Apoka added. "I would like to publicly thank ESL and BOOM for their help during those moments".

The difficult period is now behind them, BOOM are back home, safe, and in self-isolation, but without a clear view ahead. There is not much to play in terms of tournaments— the two biggest leagues in the country, CLUTCH and CBCS, had turned to LAN play and are now on hold —, and the practice opponents are going to be sub-par as the best regional talent is still in North America.

"Unfortunately, there is no way to know how long we’ll be staying in Brazil," Apoka explains. "Once things go back to normal, we want to bootcamp again, but we have no idea when that will be, we’re evaluating the situation every week. We will try to play as many tournaments and leagues as we can in Brazil, and I would like to say something to companies that host online tournaments: we have great teams in Brazil and a very good audience."

The coach is realistic about how the situation will affect his team's form: "I think stagnating is the least that can happen to us. We were supposed to be in Europe practicing for 25 days but we got back to Brazil, and this will have an impact on our evolution, but I think we can practice against the best South American teams and do our part." He says the players are implementing some individual and group tasks to try and make the most of the period in their home country.

BOOM are not the only team in this situation. Sharks and Renegades have similarly forfeited their Pro League spots after choosing to return to Brazil and Australia, respectively, where they have little to play. Chances to develop and break through have been taken away from them, with no fault of their own.

The call for more online action is where the opportunity lies at this moment, and some tournament organisers have already started to capitalize on it. GRID, a company that specializes in esports data solutions, had already ventured into tournament organization with the United Masters League, but none of the truly elite teams took part in the two seasons of the event. After adapting to the pandemic by directing employees from its four offices worldwide to work from home, GRID is putting together a $320,000 online series for European teams called #HomeSweetHome .

"We recognized an opportunity to fill a void in the competitive scene and help our partners and professional teams alike by creating #HomeSweetHome," Harry Wiggett from GRID tells HLTV.org. His colleague Radko Dimitrov adds that "the timing is opportune to promote esports and its viability as a spectator sport to a broader audience, addressing engaged fans and casual viewers alike". This is something MOUZ coach Allan "⁠Rejin⁠" Petersen agreed with on HLTV Confirmed, stating that the community has a "unique possibility to show what Counter-Strike can do when all the traditional sports are shut down."

The goal of #HomeSweetHome is to not only create work for GRID in a dry period but also for talent that has to stay at home and teams that have nothing to play. Meanwhile, StarLadder has partnered with Parimatch to host a $100,000 league, while UCC will be running three $50,000 LOOT.BET cups in 2020) as more companies try to reap the rewards of the additional eyeballs and the increased importance of online Counter-Strike.

The European-centric approach from these companies confirms Chet's concerns, but it is not too late for them to expand into other regions. However, the main issues remain how long we will be limited to online action and how this will affect the ecosystem in the long term. For now, GRID remains optimistic. "The increased public spotlight on esports in light of the global sports crisis might actually help esports as a whole," Mr. Wiggett says. He believes that CS:GO in particular is in a "better spot" than other esports titles such as League of Legends, Call of Duty and Overwatch, whose competitive scenes "hinge on hundreds of millions of investment in franchise leagues, which are suffering a lot more from the fallout of the virus than CS:GO."

It is impossible to predict the full impact that the outbreak of the novel coronavirus will have on esports. In the short-term, not much will change for the lower-ranked teams who still have online tournaments to compete: they are already used to playing mainly online games, with just a couple of LAN outings per year. But when looking long term, Chet believes that the pandemic will hinder growth and development in the scene.

"I think this is going to affect a lot of organizations that don’t have tier-one teams," the Evil Geniuses coach explained. "If it lasts so long and there are zero things to play in, I can see a world where a lot of tier two and mainly tier three teams will start to lose their organizations because there's not even a chance for exposure or Return on Investment for them. It will take a decent amount of time for things to go back to normal once this pandemic blows over and for those organizations to come back in to support CS:GO.

"A lot of up-and-comers will also have way fewer opportunities to show their skills and work their way up the ladder."

One thing is certain: the CS:GO ecosystem will irreversibly change as a consequence of this pandemic. The global economic implications are huge, and we have seen no signs of the lockdowns ending soon. There are many reasons for concern, but at least for now, we can embrace online competition, flawed as it is, and enjoy the unique possibilities it provides to Counter-Strike.