CS GO popularity is much like HD *Popularity* Alot of players are below age 14 which are childs and won't participate in tournaments, the exact same people that watch on livestream all day long tournament of CSGO. On HD alot of players are SP players or players which just started and will have no chance in tournaments for longgg time. So basically it's exactly the same, though CS:GO these *superb* Graphics and stuff same as BF4 same as CoD is only to bring younger people to community, which can pay for it with their parents money. Atleast that's how i see it, and with the weapons remake to make it easier (CS:GO recoil on ak, deagle.......)Jinxed, you are missing the fact that cs 1.6 has been hacked with database and 98% of the CS players play hacked CS 1.6 version not through steam. So these numbers are actually ridiciliously wrong. Even in here in peak hours there is about 15k playing counter strike 1.6 alone in our country..
I am not missing it. Heck I was even playing on hacked version for sometime before I bought it on steam because I got annoyed by abundance of cheaters. So definitely slightly more number of CS 1.6 players than what steam shows.
The point of showing these was the revival in terms of player numbers, events and sponsors. I was watching a grand final of a major event last year and stream had 370,000 viewers !!!! CS GO has at least increased the player 5 times at the very minimum (if you look at from Valve's POV then 10 times more players.)
To bad he didn't answer.
People ask really boring questions in this AMA
Off late Bill Gates has devoted most of his time to philanthropic causes and he is genuinely doing good work, so most of the questions were on expected lines.