Valve’s decision to switch back to MR12 in Counter-Strike 2 has left fans wondering if it’s the right move. However, recent data may shed light on why the developers made this choice.
On September 15, HLTV published an article explaining Valve’s reasoning behind the switch to MR12. They presented a graph illustrating the average duration of a full CS:GO Best-of-Three (BO3) match, including commercials. Surprisingly, these matches are longer than football, soccer, and baseball games, and even exceed the duration of VALORANT’s BO3 matches.
According to the data, a full CS:GO BO3 match lasts approximately three hours and 29 minutes on average, while a 2-0 series takes two hours and 15 minutes. In comparison, VALORANT’s BO3 matches, which already use MR12, last two hours and 51 minutes on average, with 2-0 series lasting only one hour and 44 minutes.
The runtime of CS:GO matches, at three hours and 29 minutes, significantly surpasses the duration of matches in some of the world’s most popular sports. A football game typically lasts around three hours and 12 minutes, while soccer matches take two hours. Basketball games usually take two hours and 30 minutes, and Formula 1 races are approximately an hour and a half long.
HLTV based their data on 38 playoff maps from the 2023 IEM Cologne, BLAST Spring Final, and BLAST.tv Paris Major tournaments, while the match runtime for VALORANT was gathered from the VALORANT Champions 2023 event.
In conclusion, it is evident that CS:GO BO3 matches are excessively long. While not every BO3 match goes to the full 30 rounds in three maps, an average duration of three and a half hours is too lengthy. This extended duration may lead to viewer boredom and negatively impact viewership.
Many players and experts agree that switching to MR12 is the way forward. However, some professionals, such as ropz from FaZe Clan and cadiaN from Heroic, believe that additional adjustments to the economy are necessary for this change to be successful. Based on our experience with the beta version, we cannot disagree with them.
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Source: DOTESPORTS
