CS:GO’s next major community-supported event will be the ESL One Cologne 2014 Championship! Check out the original press release below:

Counter-Strike Community Builds $250,000 Prize Pool for ESL One Cologne 2014

Proceeds From In-Game Item Sales Support CS:GO’s Top Players

June 19, 2014 — Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Dota 2, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced a $250,000 community-funded prize pool for the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) winners at ESL One Cologne 2014.

Taking place at Gamescom 2014 in Cologne, Germany, the upcoming CS:GO tournament will feature 16 teams — the eight quarter-finalists from EMS One Katowice (held earlier this year) and eight teams from online regional qualifiers. The event’s matches will be streamed live by ESL.

The CS:GO crowd-funding initiative began in August, 2013 with the release of The Arms Deal Update, which offers players in the community special in-game items. A portion of the sales revenue from those items is then placed into a tournament prize fund.

Through this initiative the Counter-Strike community has funded three events, each among the largest cash awards in Counter-Strike’s history. The previous two community-sponsored events, the 2013 DreamHack SteelSeries CS:GO Championship and the 2014 EMS One Katowice CS:GO Championship, have also generated record-breaking viewing audiences with the latter event reaching over 240,000 concurrent viewers for the grand final.

One of the largest gaming events, Gamescom is a destination for gaming fans around the world with last year’s event hosting more than 340,000 visitors over the multi-day exhibition.

For more information about CS:GO and the Arms Deal Update please visit the Update Page at https://new.blog.counter-strike.net/armsdeal/

For more information about ESL One Cologne 2014, please visit www.esl-one.com/csgo