{"id":15046,"date":"2026-05-07T10:03:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/?p=15046"},"modified":"2026-05-07T10:03:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:03:46","slug":"gooseman-believes-ea-or-activision-would-kill-cs2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/gooseman-believes-ea-or-activision-would-kill-cs2","title":{"rendered":"Counter-Strike Co-Creator “Gooseman” Believes EA or Activision Would Have Killed The Franchise"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Counter-Strike\u2019s co-creator Minh \u201cGooseman\u201d Le<\/em> feels proud of his role in the creation of the game, though he\u2019s surprised by how long the franchise has been around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cValve’s contributions and just the way that they handled it are the reason why it’s been able to maintain its popularity,\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Gooseman told Thunderpick.io in an exclusive interview. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIf Counter-Strike was run by a AAA company like EA or Activision, there’s no way it would have lasted this long.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The long-term view Valve has of its products is another element to Counter-Strike\u2019s success, according to the designer. \u201cThey don’t want to extract the most amount of money in the least amount of time.\u201d But such steady and careful approach to developing CS <\/em>didn\u2019t match Gooseman\u2019s will to push the boundaries and try new ideas, which made him decide to leave the development team in 2006. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cWhen I look back at it, like 25 years ago, I think it was a good decision for me personally because Counter-Strike\u2026 I think it’s good that it hasn’t changed, because that’s the reason why it’s still popular today,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Still, Gooseman reiterates that\u2019s what makes CS \u2014 <\/em>and Counter-Strike 2<\/em>, specifically \u2014 so popular across generations. \u201cYou have people that played the game 25 years ago, and they can still kind of play the game today and not be lost,\u201d he explained. \u201cI think that’s really important. And I think that’s a really critical thing to the success of Counter-Strike.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one change Gooseman would make to Counter-Strike<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As a game designer, Gooseman can\u2019t ignore positive changes that could improve Counter-Strike<\/em>. He\u2019d like to see more gun diversity, one that made picks other than the AK-47, M4A1, and AWP<\/a> viable \u2014 or mandatory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt might be interesting to have a system where if you buy too many guns, it goes out of stock,\u201d Gooseman says. \u201cIf a team buys AK-47s in the entire match, his team is only allowed to buy maybe 20 AK-47s. If they buy too many of them, then they have to buy like the Galil, and that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gun scarcity is interesting from a game design perspective, he notes, but could be very disruptive for the esports scene that is a key part of CS2 <\/em>today. But in a scenario where Gooseman <\/em>is invited to be part of a hypothetical Counter-Strike 3<\/em> development team, he\u2019d actually apologize to Valve. \u201cI don’t really have much to add,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CS2 <\/em>isn\u2019t as appealing to its co-creator as competitors today<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gooseman believes Valve\u2019s conservative approach to Counter-Strike<\/em> let other shooter games excel where CS2<\/em> lacks, such as in how much better the gun feel is in the latest Call of Duty<\/em> entries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe way that they animate, the way that they sound, the way that they feel. Personally, I enjoy their feel more so than Counter-Strike<\/em>,\u201d he says. \u201cFrom someone who likes the feel of shooting guns, I would say Call of Duty<\/em> does feel more satisfying.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The designer thinks Valve wants to avoid making the recoil too aggressive in CS2<\/em>. \u201cThey’re kind of stuck in 2000 where they don’t really want to change the way that they animate,\u201d Gooseman says. \u201cWhen you play Call of Duty<\/em>, you’ll notice when you shoot the guns, the screen shakes quite a lot, but they don’t want to do that with Counter-Strike<\/em>, because it would be bad for the esports scene. So they want to keep the game much more clean and much more accessible to newer players.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gooseman admits enjoying Battlefield<\/em> and Call of Duty: Warzone\u2019s<\/em> Rebirth Island mode. \u201cIt was very fun. I thought that was a good game mode.\u201d As for Battlefield<\/em>, it fills his need for play experiences that value his time. \u201cI like the Battlefield series. I’d like to work on that,\u201d he admitted. \u201cThere’s a few ideas that I personally feel would improve Battlefield. So I feel like that’s a project that I could really contribute to if the opportunity arose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not even the CS co-creator believes he can break into the PvP gaming ecosystem independently<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gooseman\u2019s Alpha Response<\/em>, a shooter game focused around special police force missions, doesn\u2019t feature a PvP mode because the developer believes the competitive games market is too hard to crack today. \u201cIt’s really just dominated by the heavyweights like Counter-Strike, Call of Duty,\u201d Gooseman said. It’s such an established market that making a PvP game really just has a low chance of success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He claims that just throwing a lot of money at developers isn\u2019t the key to succeed in the current PvP market, as proven by expensive games failing despite their big budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ve seen the writing on the wall, and it’s been like this for the past, I would say past 10 years,\u201d he added. \u201cThe only people that can really succeed in the PvP space are people with huge pockets like Chinese developers when they made Delta Force. For indies and smaller studios, there’s just a low chance of success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Counter-Strike\u2019s co-creator Minh \u201cGooseman\u201d Le feels proud of his role in the creation of the game, though he\u2019s surprised by how long the franchise has been around.  \u201cValve’s contributions and just the way that they handled it are the reason why it’s been able to maintain its popularity,\u201d Gooseman told Thunderpick.io in an exclusive interview. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,56,112,53,54,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cs2","category-csgo","category-interviews","category-news","category-platform","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15046"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15128,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15046\/revisions\/15128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderpick.gl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}