Valorant has been a pretty big success in esports since it launched. The game takes some aspects of hero shooters, but its core gameplay is very recognizably tied to CS:GO. The title shares a lot of qualities with CS:GO and the gunplay, in particular, can feel particularly similar. Both games make for a pretty good comparison, but which is more popular?

The CS:GO vs Valorant player count can go some way to show which of the two games is bigger. Riot has already achieved an impressive player count, but how exactly do they measure up in a direct comparison?

Figuring out the exact player base for a game is always difficult. There are loads of metrics including sales, total player counts, and peak players online. None are perfect, but between these metrics, we can get a pretty good idea of popularity. Especially if you also consider competitive play and things like esports betting for those who watch but don’t play. Looking at the player counts, we can look at if Valorant is close to CS:GO in terms of its popularity.

CSGO vs Valorant Player Count – Which Has More Players?

Looking at the CS:GO vs Valorant player count reveals some very interesting data. Valorant used to be the new kid on the block, but it’s now a bit more established in the tactical-shooter space. Despite this, CS:GO is the old faithful. With its timeless gameplay and familiar maps, it seems that gamers just can’t let go of CS:GO.
There are plenty of gamers who play both. Being able to convert CS:GO to Valortant sens makes it much easier to jump between the two games, allowing gamers much more choice in which one they play at any given time.
First, let’s take a look at Valorant’s player count.

Credit: Steamcharts

According to ActivePlayer.io, Valorant boasts around 1.5 million players per month at the moment. It’s a solid player count, indicative of a very healthy game. It certainly isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. However, ActivePlayer.io also claims that in May 2022, the game has just under 2 million players per month, meaning Valorant has lost a quarter of its daily players in just a single year. It’s a massive drop-off, and the cause of it comes in direct correlation with the CS:GO player count.

Credit: Steamcharts

As you can see by the above chart, CS:GO’s player count has been steadily rising over the past twelve months. The all-time peak stood at 1.3 million a year ago, and now that is the average for any given time. In fact, CS:GO has almost as many players at any moment as Valorant gets in an entire 24 hours.
It’s no coincidence that CS:GO has grown as Valorant has fallen. When it was first released, Valorant was the shiny new toy. Everyone wanted to play with it, and we even saw CS:GO pros make the jump at the time.

But with CS2 on the horizon, many gamers have turned their back on Valorant and all of its offerings. The competitive scene for CS:GO has never been better, and it seems as though the game has an extremely bright future ahead of it, despite already being over a decade old.
That’s not to say Valorant can’t win players over. It can, but Riot Games will need to be in it for the long haul if it is to compete with the juggernaut of Counter-Strike. When CS2 finally releases, we expect it to be a tough few months for Valorant.

Valorant vs CS:GO Esports

Valorant and CS:GO are both games with huge followings competitively. So, looking at the CS:GO vs Valorant player count is just one way to compare the two. We can also look at esports viewership to see how popular these games are to watch as well as play.

CS:GO is still the default esport for FPS fans, with the most active scene and follower count. Recent Valorant VCT events saw a peak of 269,000 viewers, but putting this up against a CS:GO event, the most popular event in the last year reached a peak of nearly 10 times that much.

This means that while Valorant is a match for CS:GO in players, viewers have been much harder to come by. As with that other metric though, Valorant is still very much growing in this department. Their viewership is trending upwards, and there’s a lot more interest in things like Valorant betting going on. You do have to keep note, CSGO has a consistent esports scene with plenty more action going on daily when compared to Valorant, so the viewer count is spread more evenly.

In the end, Valorant and CS:GO are popular games, and it’ll be interesting to see where they go from here. It’s a battle between new and old, and only time will tell if Valorant surpasses CS:GO in sentiment.