Photo: stewie twitter

What a time we live in. When looking back at the long history of Counter-Strike, it is far and in-between that teams not from Europe have been able to claim a spot in the top echelon of the game.

This of course has drastically changed in CS:GO over the last two years as North America has become a more prominent region in the space. What may not be expected, however, is a lone and young North American player having passed Counter-Strike legends in earnings in the game.

According to esportsearnings.com, Jake “stewie2k” Yip has done exactly that. The former Cloud9, then MIBR, and now Team Liquid player has earned a total of $613,490.00 from tournaments during his career and is the 19th highest earner in the game’s history (CS:GO only).

A hefty sum in itself, stewie outpaces the likes of Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg, Nathan “NBK” Schmitt, Filip “NEO” Kubski, Ioann “Edward” Sukharev, Jarosław “pashaBiceps” Jarząbkowski, and more in earnings for CS:GO.

While many in that list have hoisted more trophies or played in more finals, they also had their reign earlier on CS:GO’s lifespan or before. The game’s prize pools began to grow and grow and it seems the North American started to make his rise just in time to cash in a nice check. s1mple, of course, stands out as a player whose reign both has and hasn’t begun.

The put in more in perspective to just how much money he’s managed to earn when compared to others, stewie is only $22,000 behind superstar Nikola “NiKo” Kovač. This is aided quite largely by a Major championship at the ELEAGUE Major in Boston with Cloud9 for stewie.

The next NA player on the list is another member of that Major winning team, Tarik “tarik” Celik who slots in at 31. Directly following tarik is Keith “NAF” Markovic who both also place above s1mple, f0rest, Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund and others.

From that point on there’s a decent number of NA players filling the ranks of 38-45.

This to a point showcases just how much one Major victory can influence a players life and standings in terms of money earned with their whopping $1 million prize pools. Only four CS:GO events have ever offered more money (WESG 2016/2017 and ELEAGUE Season 1/2).

Earning placement or not, nobody can take away from what players like NEO, pasha, f0rest, GeT_RiGhT, and other legends have done for the game.

While earnings aren’t everything, it’s still pretty cool to see North American players making a showing near the top.

Related article: