The undying, unstoppable, ever evolving force that is Counter-Strike has just resurfaced in its most recent variation, the Counter-Strike: Source Beta. Counter-Strike, being the monolithic superstar that it is, is still utterly dominating the online gaming scene. At any given time, you can check the GameSpy Server Stat page to witness the unprecedented lead that Half-Life has in terms of players. Then you can check this chart, which illustrates how much of a lead Counter-Strike has, ahead of all the other Half-Life mods that are available.

I can’t help but be amazed at these statistics. I stopped playing Counter-Strike around 2 years ago but apparently it didn’t need my approval to keep rocking the gaming world. Needless to say, Counter-Strike is unmatched in popularity, even after so many years of play time. I can only speculate as to what is enabling Counter-Strike to prevail for so long. Perhaps it’s the fundamental design of the game, perhaps it’s the competitive excitement, or perhaps it’s just the fact that virtually shooting people in the face is a good time. Regardless, I can’t help but ask, “do all these gamers know that there are many other great games out there?”

While I can’t help but be intrigued by the apparent invulnerability of Counter-Strike, the distribution software that Valve Software has developed attracts most of my attention. This software, appropriately named Steam, seems to have created a method to break away from the age-old distribution channel of developers to publishers, publishers to retailers and retailers to the public. It does this by offering a high-bandwidth, download based purchasing alternative. Valve is currently distributing Counter-Strike and Half-Life updates through Steam, as well as the standalone game, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. Releasing all the versions of Counter-Strike through Steam seems to be a very realistic test of this new technology and, so far, it seems to be passing with flying colors. Soon, however, Steam will prove whether or not it will be a truly viable method for distributing large, fully featured, high demand games. Valve has plans to begin a “preload” of Half-Life 2 content over Steam, which will allow users to start downloading portions of the game now, prior to its release. The preloading was rumored to start on the 23rd but according to this post on the Half Life 2 Fallout forums, the preload has been delayed due to the recent release of the Counter-Strike: Source beta. It appears to have been rescheduled for August 30th. If that’s truly the case, then this will definitely be an interesting day for the game industry.