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

[-smash-]

Valve announced today that the Counter-Strike community has built up a whopping $250,000 prize pool for the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive winners at ESL One Cologne 2014.

​

The tournament, which will take place August 14th - 17th at Gamescom 2014 in Cologne, Germany, will feature 16 teams - eight of which are quarter-finalists from EMS One Katowice, and the other eight teams will be from online regional qualifiers (six from Europe, one from North America and one from Oceania/Australia). The event's matches will be streamed live courtesy of ESL.


The Invited Teams

compLexity Gaming​

Fnatic​

HellRaisers​

Ninjas in Pyjamas​

Team Dignitas​

Team LDLC.com​

TEAMGLOBAL (former LGB eSports)​

Virtus.pro​

The crowd-funding initiative began last August with CS:GO's Arms Deal Update. A portion of the sales revenue from those items was put together to form this $250,000 tournament prize pool.

"Through this initiative the Counter-Strike community has funded three events, each among the largest cash awards in Counter-Strike's history," said Valve in today's press release. "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."

If you're looking for more information about ESL One Cologne 2014, you can find some at www.esl-one.com/csgo.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

I follow the Dota 2 competitive scene but I've yet to really invest in the CS:GO one. It's kind of embarrassing since I started my love affair with Valve through CS but I drifted away from it over the years. It makes me so happy to see it's still doing this today, and doing it so well (even if it's a fraction of the $10m!).

Anyway, I'd be interested to know if the comp scene is worth getting into if anyone follows it...

 

[-smash-]

Yeah don't look at me. I'm right there with you - I used to play CS all day every day. I was in clans and in leagues like CPL and OGL, and I even made my own frag movies from pro matches I demo'd through HLTV. But I haven't kept up with the competitive scene in ages.