As Counter Strike still having a big following in Europe and other parts of Asia, things are different here in South East Asia. The condition of Counter Strike scene here in Malaysia has turned from bad to worse. A lot of factors might contribute to the downfall of Counter Strike in Malaysia and Singapore. As mentioned by Prasad "StrykerX" Paramajothi from Team Titans, Counter Strike has become a yearly affair instead of a year-long affair where teams would only play during WCG Singapore or if possible, Qualifier for Dreamhack.

Things starting to go down when Counter Strike 1.6 become the biggest casualty of Crossfire Intel Challenge 7: Malaysian Edition when the game failed to hit the 8 team trigger when only 3 teams signed-up before the deadline. Although the signs of hope can be seen through a lot of participation in WCG Malaysia 2010, things to go downhill once again when the game has been cancelled again for MMU Cyberjaya Convofest LAN Tournament when it is said that only 5 teams signed-up for tournament.

Who To Blame?

There would be a lot of parties pointing fingers to each other. In the end, in our point of view, it would be the parties themselves to be blamed for the decline.

Gamers - It is noticeable that only free tournaments would attract the players to join. While WCG Malaysia garnered a lot of participants, different things can be seen on pay-to-play tournaments such as Crossfire Intel Challenge 7 and MMU Cyberjaya Convofest. Furthermore, there might be lack of confidence among these gamers to improve themselves by playing against top teams and if the situation continues, we might witness what happen in DotA scene spread into CS scene where only amateur tournaments will be held. Another mentality of the players are they demand tournaments when there is none, but when there are tournaments, they are not even bothered to join.

Organizers - Lack of promotion? Lost of urge to promote games? It is also noticeable that there are a lot of tournaments but the highlight of the tournament would be DotA with other games would take a backseat. We do understand that organizers would want to make profit as well. However, with the lack of promotion and emphasis on other games, things would not improve at all.

Distributors (E-Club Management) - We do understand that CS community can actually stand by itself after being revolving in the scene for more than 10 years. However, with things are declining, we do hope E-Club could put more support in giving help to organizers and gamers to promote their community and games as well. E-Club has a full selection of games and might have a hard time to please everybody, but a little gesture of support might help in times of turbulent.

Rival Games - The rise of Sudden Attack and Blackshot has taken away the numbers in Counter Strike. Even our friends at FMJ are also jumping ship from CS to play Sudden Attack as well. The online capability where anyone can play anywhere has hit Counter Strike hard to the state it is now. The big difference of crowd turnout between Counter Strike and Sudden Attack can be seen during WCG Malaysia 2010. Even we couldn't find a seat to sit duing Sudden Attack Grand Final on the stage.

Therefore, it is now down to these parties to make a turnaround and revive the scene back to the glory days of Hybrid vs Team LZ rivalry. Maybe the old legends who play during CS Legends during WCG Malaysia could lent a support to the youngsters to bring back the game they love so much. It is down to you guys to decide whether there are lights of revival or it would the end of Counter Strike 1.6 era in South East Asia.