Valve Changes the Game: New Requirements for Organizing Counter-Strike Tournaments from 2025

Valve has published an article directly related to the Louvre Agreement of ESL and the partnership of BLAST. In the world of Counter-Strike, all teams compete on an equal footing, and their success is limited only by their skills. However, in recent years, we have observed that the professional Counter-Strike scene is deviating from this ideal. The ecosystem is becoming less open, and access to the highest levels of competition is increasingly limited by commercial ties.

We believe that CS should remain an open sport. Therefore, we plan to introduce new requirements for the organization of major tournaments. The finer details are still being worked out, but in general terms they are as follows:

• — Tournament organizers will no longer have unique business relationships or other forms of contact with the teams participating in their competitions.
• — Invitations to all tournaments will be made according to our ranking system (click), or will be determined by the results of open qualifying rounds.
• — Any rewards for participating teams/prize fund or other – will be public and will be determined by objective criteria that can be verified by the community.

Given that tournament organizers have long-term commitments, these requirements will take effect from 2025. The transition to new rules may cause some bumps, but we care about the long-term health of Counter-Strike as a sport and look forward to its bright and open future.