Counterstrike: Global Offensive holds one of the most passionate and dedicated fan bases in all of eSports. With popularity however we will always find polarity and due to this factor CS:GO’s community has managed to rise to notoriety with newcomers and age old players by having one of the most difficult communities to feel welcome in.

Often finding ourselves amidst the constant bickering provided from the highly intense shooter that manifests both in-game and on social media, it gets difficult to break the trend and become a positive force in a community that spends most of its time in a negative atmosphere.

Most of us are guilty of it, and if you aren’t then you’re a saint because everyone I know and myself included gets annoyed at their team mates more often then not and there are only so many times you can have death wished upon your family by others on a daily basis before you start reacting negatively too.

The thing is I get it, and so do most others, everyone wants to win and there’s nothing worse than spending an hour in a highly intense game only to lose because of a stranger’s mistakes.

We all seem to forget the reason we play games in the first place when it comes to Counterstrike, it’s supposed to be fun. This is what CS_Summit seems to be doing best, a small tournament of top level teams from around the world competing in a relaxed friendly environment where nothing is taken too seriously and everyone gets to have some fun.

Yes, Counterstrike should be taken seriously to some degree. It’s a game that requires intense focus and one that is often pushing to establish itself as a legitimate sport and business after all. But this event serves as a reminder to the community that, at the end of the day, we’re all here because we all have one thing in common: our love of CS:GO.

The first day has been a blast to watch and provided extremely interesting insights from the players themselves when they would get to sit in and speak on the broadcast themselves as well as some high level CS to top it off. It’s great to see the players just walking by the camera all laughing and joking together even if the other team did just humiliate them in the previous game. This seems like a bit of a derogatory article towards the community but in truth its more of a ceasefire and love letter, one that holds a mantra of “guys its not always going to be easy, but remember we’re all friends here.”

The action starts up again tomorrow at 5:30 PM GMT with Envyus taking on Optic to stave off elimination.

Match to Watch: SK VS C9