In December 2018, the developers added a new mode called Danger Zone into the game. Valve also made the game free-to-play (conditionally free).

The new mode is a battle royal, but with its differences when compared to PUBG and Fortnite.

Danger Zone mode brought a large number of players into the game. Among them were both new members and old ones who stopped playing CS:GO for some reason. If you look at the statistics, then in December the game was visited by 20 million unique players. This is two times more than usual.

On the one hand, this is very cool, but the free-to-play model provoked an increase in the number of cheaters. Now it’s enough for a cheater to register a fresh account in order to further prevent ordinary players from enjoying the game.

Valve was clearly not ready for this. Playing matchmaking without Prime is almost impossible – in every new match you meet the cheater.

Perhaps the best solution would be the impossibility of obtaining prime-status in free accounts. This would separate dogs from fleas – cheaters would be cooked in the free version of the game and would hardly spend $ 15 on prime-status.



What about in the future? The free version and the battle royal mode will attract new players. However, only as long as they do not get tired of cheaters. In addition, if the developers will only spend all their energy on the Danger Zone, ignoring the competitive CS:GO, then the outflow of players will begin again.