Skins/cosmetics Talk: Average Concurrent Players Fall Below 900,000; Can Restarting an “Operation” Bring Players Back?

According to SteamCharts data, CS2's average player count over the past 30 days has already fallen below 900,000. Since hitting a recent peak at the start of this year, CS2's average concurrency has declined for several straight months, and the game's momentum has cooled noticeably.

Changes in CS2's average concurrent player count over the past six months

Still, falling below 900,000 does not mean CS2 has entered a so-called “player-loss crisis.” As one of the most-played games on Steam by current player count, CS2 still has a massive player base, and it has seen similar cyclical pullbacks in the past during tournament off-seasons and content droughts between updates.

The real question worth discussing is this: with Valve's recent update cadence not exactly being slow, why haven't those updates translated into any meaningful player growth?

There have been plenty of updates, but not many reasons for players to come back

After the Cologne Major ended, Valve launched a new Premier season and made changes to the Active Duty map pool. Cache returned to the Active Duty map pool, while Overpass rotated out for now. Changes to the C4 explosion mechanics, community maps, and several modes also received updates.

Cache Returns to the Active Duty map pool

On the skins/cosmetics side, Valve has not slowed down either. Recently, the game has been adding new weapon collections, Sticker, Glitter souvenir charms, and the Major Shop, while some older collections have also been removed from The Armory.

The Arabesque collection recently added to The Armory

In terms of update volume, Valve has not exactly been “phoning it in” lately. But most of that content falls into map maintenance, competitive adjustments, and rotations of skins/cosmetics. For core players who log in every day, those changes are naturally worth watching; but for more casual players who have already stepped away for now, they may not be compelling enough.

A returning map and a few new collections might be enough to get players to log in and take a look, but they are unlikely to keep them playing for weeks on end.

Most of CS2's current content has already been split into separate standalone systems. Premier handles competitive ranking, The Armory handles skins/cosmetics and collections, Major Hub handles the Pick'Em Challenge and related items, while community maps rotate through Steam Workshop updates.

These systems are all still being updated, but they feel relatively fragmented from one another. It is hard for players to get that sense of, "a major CS2 update has officially arrived, I need to come back and check it out."

CS2’s main content is currently split across different systems

The reason past Operation events could drive player activity was not just that they introduced new skins, but that they bundled missions, maps, rewards, game modes, and a Pass together under one theme.

By contrast, CS2 right now feels more like it is stuck rolling out one small update after another, without delivering a full content update that actually feels substantial.

Beyond keeping players active, Valve is also facing lawsuits over case opening

Beyond the drop in the game’s concurrent player count, Valve has also recently faced regulatory pressure over its skins/cosmetics system. In February 2026, the New York State Attorney General’s Office formally sued Valve, alleging that the case opening systems in CS2, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2 may violate New York state law.

New York State Attorney General's Office sues Valve

New York State argues that players must pay for a case opening opportunity, while the final reward is determined by random odds, and there are huge gaps in market value between different skins/cosmetics. Some skins/cosmetics can also be traded on the Steam Community Market or third-party platforms, so the whole process bears some resemblance to gambling.

Valve denies that case opening constitutes gambling.Valve says players receive one skins/cosmetics item with every case opening, and skins/cosmetics cannot be redeemed directly with Valve for cash, so it does not meet the relevant definition of gambling.

Valve also compared cases to products such as sports trading card packs, Pokémon card packs, and physical blind boxes. The case is still ongoing, and the court has yet to issue a final ruling.

This lawsuit may not directly change CS2's case opening system worldwide, but it once again puts the game's randomized paid mechanics in front of regulators.

And the new Sticker shop launched during the Cologne Major was also seen by many players as Valve testing a non-random skins/cosmetics sales model.

New Major Shop: No case openings, and no capsules either

Under the traditional Major system, players buy Sticker Capsules at a fixed price. After opening a capsule, players might get regular team stickers, or they might pull a popular player’s Holo, Glitter, or Gold Autograph Sticker.

Traditional Major Sticker Capsules use a random draw system

For many players, the appeal of traditional capsules is not just about getting a specific Sticker. It also includes the random draw and the anticipation that comes with it, as well as the unopened capsules and the speculative upside that they could rise in value in the future.

The Cologne Major's new shop completely rewrote that logic. Players first need to buy Souvenir Tokens, then use those Souvenir Tokens to directly redeem the team Stickers or player autograph stickers they want.

The Cologne Major switched to a direct-purchase model for specific Stickers

Sticker prices change dynamically based on purchase demand from players around the world. The more popular a given Sticker is, the more Souvenir Tokens it will cost; for Stickers with purchase demand that is lower, the price will drop accordingly.

From the perspective of an ordinary consumer, this system is more straightforward. Before paying, players already know exactly what they’re getting. They no longer have to keep opening capsules just to chase a specific player’s Sticker, and players in regions where random capsules cannot be purchased can still take part in Major skins/cosmetics spending.

But by removing the random draw, Valve also removed the main reason players bought traditional capsules in the first place.

Traditional capsules are selling “chance.”

In the past, players only had to spend a relatively small amount to get one chance at pulling a Gold Sticker. Even if they did not open them, unopened Major Sticker Capsules could still be traded on the market.

The “price” of gold stickers at the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 is decided by players

As a result, some players buy Major Sticker Capsules not to apply the Sticker to their weapons, but to buy a shot at a draw, along with the capsules’ potential future upside.

The new Major Shop, by contrast, puts the real price of Stickers directly in front of players. After Sticker prices for popular teams and star players keep rising, players may only buy the one or two Stickers they actually need, or even after seeing the price simply choose to give up on the purchase.

Put simply, traditional capsules sell you the chance that you might hit something good, while the new Major Shop is selling the Stickers themselves.

A comparison between the traditional capsule model and the new Major Sticker Shop system

A more transparent revenue split, yet lower earnings

The new Major Shop also laid out a clearer revenue-sharing model. 50% of revenue from the Major Shop and Viewer Pass will go toward the tournament ecosystem, with part of it allocated to the event organizers and the rest distributed among the 32 participating teams based on the Valve Regional Standings (VRS) and final Major results.

For each team’s corresponding revenue, half goes to the club, while the other half is split evenly among the five participating players. Compared with the old system, where clubs and players negotiated their own Sticker revenue split, the new mechanism is more transparent in its rules and also ensures that players receive a direct share of the proceeds.

How revenue from the new Major Shop is distributed

The problem is that even if the revenue split is more transparent, the total sales of Major items may still be far lower than traditional capsules.

According to HLTV's interviews with some participating clubs, one team eliminated in Stage 1 of the Cologne Major said its organization received about $60,000 through the new system; with the other half going to the players, the team's total revenue came to about $120,000. By comparison, the club said it had previously earned about $600,000 in revenue from the Challengers Sticker Capsule at a past Major, and that figure was before revenue-sharing with the players.

The teams hit hardest may not be the top-tier giants, but the second- and third-tier clubs that have long relied on Major revenue to stay afloat.

For top clubs with major sponsorship backing and teams across multiple esports titles, a drop in revenue from one Major may not shake their foundations. But for small and mid-sized clubs, Major Sticker revenue has long been an important way to recoup expenses such as salaries, transfers, travel, and tournament investment.

Comparison of Sticker Revenue from Previous Majors

If qualifying for a Major no longer means a meaningful payday, clubs may be more cautious about investing in tier-two rosters, young players, and LAN events going forward. In the long run, the new shop may affect not just the revenue of a few teams, but also the willingness to invest across the entire CS esports ecosystem.

Does Valve need a new Operation?

Player activity keeps declining, traditional randomized capsules are facing regulatory pressure, and the new Major Shop's sales performance seems underwhelming again. In that context, Operation has once again become an option worth discussing.

Fan-made Operation trailer by players

Past Operations would offer weekly missions, new maps, new modes, an Operation Coin, and a large batch of skins/cosmetics rewards. After buying the Pass, players had to gradually complete missions through actual play, earn Stars, and redeem them for rewards.

Compared with going straight into the store to buy skins/cosmetics, an Operation can give players gameplay goals that last several weeks or even several months, while also packaging new maps, new modes, and skins/cosmetics rewards into one complete major update.

An Operation keeps players engaged through missions and rewards

For Valve, this is also a business model closer to “paid content” than traditional case opening. What players are buying is not just a chance to obtain random high-value skins/cosmetics, but also missions, gameplay, reward progression, and the full version experience.

Of course, there is currently no solid evidence that Valve is preparing a new Operation. Judging from Premier Season 5, the new The Armory, and the new Major Shop, Valve may be trying to use several standalone systems to gradually replace the role once filled by the traditional Operation.

But judging by current player activity, these piecemeal updates still haven’t truly sparked a mass return to the game.

Player count has fallen by 4.84% (44,338 players) over the past 30 days

The months-long decline in online player numbers also shows that map rotations, the C4 update, and new skins/cosmetics can sustain the game’s baseline momentum, but may not keep drawing ordinary players who have already left back.

At the same time, traditional case opening and Major Sticker Capsules can generate huge revenue, but they face increasingly clear regulatory risks; the new Major Shop is more transparent, but it has reduced the incentive for players to make repeat purchases, and has also affected some participating teams' revenue expectations.

The next issue Valve needs to solve may not just be what skins to add next or which map to rotate in, but how to deliver another major content drop that gets players to come back on their own and keeps them playing for weeks.

It may not necessarily be called an "Operation," but the next collection alone probably won’t be enough anymore.